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Cognition in Skilled Action: Meshed Control and the Varieties of Skill Experience
Author(s) -
Christensen Wayne,
Sutton John,
McIlwain Doris J.F.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12094
Subject(s) - automaticity , action (physics) , cognition , set (abstract data type) , cognitive psychology , control (management) , psychology , embodied cognition , cognitive science , computer science , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , physics , quantum mechanics , programming language
We present a synthetic theory of skilled action which proposes that cognitive processes make an important contribution to almost all skilled action, contrary to influential views that many skills are performed largely automatically. Cognitive control is focused on strategic aspects of performance, and plays a greater role as difficulty increases. We offer an analysis of various forms of skill experience and show that the theory provides a better explanation for the full set of these experiences than automatic theories. We further show that the theory can explain experimental evidence for skill automaticity, including evidence that secondary tasks do not interfere with expert performance, and evidence that experts have reduced memory for performance of sensorimotor skills.