Abstract
The unconscious-thought theory has been proposed to be a way of thinking which works differently from conscious attention but with higher capacity that caters better to a complex decision-making process. A study on deliberation-without- attention effect hypothesis was carried out which lends support to the formulation of the above theory. This commentary addresses the limitations of the study procedures and the unconscious-thought theory in terms of poorly defined concepts and distinctions from conscious thought, underexplored neural representation of unconscious thought and confounders which could have influenced participants’ judgment of their decision-making outcome. Further exploration of theory should consider possible association between unconscious thought processing and priority access to long-term memory content based on the theory’s principle of high capacity working power compared to conscious thinking.
Highlights
The study by Dijkterhuis et al which examined a deliberationwithout-attention-effect hypothesis led the authors to the conclusion that participants who did not engage in conscious thought on decision-making were better able to make satisfying product choices that involved many as opposed to a few number of product aspects [1]
Both the study and theory of unconscious thought challenge the assumption that attention and conscious thinking contribute a major part to our decision-making process and that such is needed to produce positive outcomes. They are not less subjected to challenges and limitations based on the principles which the authors introduced to emphasize their validity. The authors of these studies and subsequent follow-ups argue for the basic tenets of the unconscious thought theory (UTT) in that unconscious thinking without deliberated attention following a presentation of complex group of choices would lead to greater satisfaction of decision outcome compared with simpler choice-making tasks [3]
In order to create the condition of unconscious thinking, which is a fundamentally ambiguous and near unattainable operational variable based on the proposed concept, the authors came up with a measure of a certain time interval of distraction during which the study participants were assigned to engagement in an unrelated task following the presentation of simple and complex choices
Summary
The study by Dijkterhuis et al which examined a deliberationwithout-attention-effect hypothesis led the authors to the conclusion that participants who did not engage in conscious thought on decision-making were better able to make satisfying product choices that involved many as opposed to a few number of product aspects [1]. In a follow-up paper, the authors went on to propose the theory of unconscious thought which expounded the hypothesis further to include the principles of capacity and bottom-up-versus-top-down that highlighted the opposite strategies of conscious and unconscious thought processes [2] Both the study and theory of unconscious thought challenge the assumption that attention and conscious thinking contribute a major part to our decision-making process and that such is needed to produce positive outcomes. They are not less subjected to challenges and limitations based on the principles which the authors introduced to emphasize their validity.
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