so excited about this one, out now in American Psychologist,
"The Detection of Automatic Behavior in Other People"
(with Ilona Bass & me)
link: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-58442-016
pre-print: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8r4yf
"The Detection of Automatic Behavior in Other People"
(with Ilona Bass & me)
link: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-58442-016
pre-print: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8r4yf
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Comments
I wonder if this type of automated script inference applies to people who are masters in their domain.
For instance, say that someone is really good at speed-running Tetris
Do you think that person who practices playing Tetris all the time are also engaging in automatic scripts?
When you're asked “what's 5×7?”
the response is immediate, like a lookup table in your head.
but if you're asked "what's 51×71?”, the answer takes more time, and you're going through a different algorithm.
there's decades of work on this cognitive split.
If you overhear a person snapping at someone for being late, you may wonder what's going on in their head. Perhaps they feel disrespected. Maybe they're upset about something else and lashing out.
there's decades of work on attributing mental states to others.
you don't reflect on their inner life; the goals and beliefs that led them to ask you if you wanted milk. There are no such mental states driving action; there is a script.
The results were bimodal.
People also gave many (optional) examples from daily life, which spanned the mundane to the intimate
Study 2 examined robustness & reliability of perceptions of automaticity.
we had 1,566 people watch brief clips from a large set of videos and rate them by automaticity (and other things)
e.g. if you have a teacher that is giving you correct information but "isn't there", would you learn from them? seems people evaluate such teachers more negatively.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cogs.13470