Automatization

Although the learning of a particular activity may require full attention, once the activity has been learned it is carried out automatically, having dropped below the level of conscious attention. Motor behaviour, perception and thinking become automatic so that, in the case of well established behaviour sequences, intermediate steps disappear from consciousness. This is true of walking, driving a car, even of experiencing pleasure. Attention is shifted from action or perception to abstract thought. The result of 'automatized goal orientation' may be that the person moves towards that goal (such as making money, experiencing pleasure) with a total disregard for future consequences which may be pathological. The process of deautomatization is the undoing of the automatic structure and resumption of conscious carrying out of an activity, whether progressively in order to learn more or regressively in order to compensate for loss of ability (due perhaps to disease or intoxication by a drug).