1 Psychology and human development1.2 Awareness, sleep and consciousness
1.2.5 Conscious and unconscious processing
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Written by Resident Doctor Committee · Published
New in the 2027 syllabus
The College added this topic for exams from January 2027.
Processing without awareness
The cognitive unconscious is information processing we have no conscious access to. Examples are priming, automatic skills and some perceptual discrimination.
The dynamic unconscious is a psychoanalytic idea: defensive processes keep certain mental content out of awareness. It does not mean all processing outside awareness.
Attention and awareness can come apart. Giving processing resources to a stimulus does not always make it consciously reportable.
From thought to speech
Speech production has several steps. The speaker forms a message, selects words, arranges grammatical structure, encodes sounds and plans articulation.
These steps run largely automatically, which keeps speech fluent. Speakers usually know what they intend to say without access to each selection step underneath.
Limits of the divide
Reportability depends on memory, language and task demands. Being unable to describe an experience does not, on its own, show there was no experience.
Partial awareness means awareness is not all or none. A person may detect one feature of a stimulus but be unable to identify the whole stimulus.