A Fresh Look at the Unconscious Thought Effect: Using Mind-Wandering Measures to Investigate Thought Processes in Decision Problems With High Information Load.

ABSTRACT: Unconscious Thought Theory (Dijksterhuis, 2004) states that thinking about a complex problem unconsciously can result in better solutions than conscious deliberation. We take a fresh look at the cognitive processes underlying "unconscious" thought by analyzing data of 822 participants who worked on a complex apartment-evaluation task in three experiments. This task's information-presentation and evaluation parts were separated by different kinds of filler-interval activities, which corresponded to standard conscious-thought and unconscious-thought manipulations. Employing experience-sampling methods, we obtained thought reports during and after filler-interval engagement. Evidence concerning the existence of the Unconscious Thought Effect was mixed, with such an effect being present in the

SUBMITTER: Steindorf L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8264051 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature