Stream of consciousness knitting
‘skill-acquisition research involving the gain in efficiency of processes with practice over time until they become subconscious’ (see the review in Bargh & Chartrand, 2000).
‘Note how the qualities of the two not-conscious processes differ: in the New Look research, the person did not intend to engage in the process and was unaware of it; in the skill-acquisition research, the person did intend to engage in the process, which, once started, was capable of running off without need of conscious guidance. Typing and driving a car (for the experienced typist and driver, respectively) are classic examples of the latter—both are efficient procedures that can run off outside of consciousness, but nonetheless both are intentional processes. (One doesn’t sit down to type without meaning to in the first place, and the same applies to driving a car.) These and other difficulties with the monolithic, all-or-nothing division of mental processes into either conscious or unconscious have resulted today in different “flavors” of the unconscious—different operational definitions that lead to dramatically different conclusions about the power and scope of the unconscious.’ (Bargh and Morsella, 2008, p74)
Knitting and consciousness: ‘outside of consciousness’, yet ‘intentional, considering ‘the power and scope of the unconscious’.
Conscious Automaticity
‘Skill acquisition starts off as labored, conscious learning and after consistent, frequent practice becomes more automatic and unconscious. Once the action is well learned, the behavior becomes automatic in the sense that it does not require constant conscious monitoring’ (Wheatley and Wegner, 2001, p991)
‘Automatic processes do not need constant conscious guidance or monitoring, and therefore use minimal attention capacity’. (Wheatley and Wegner, 2001, p 992)
Definitely describes how I knit.
Bargh, J. and Morsella, E. (2008) ‘The Unconscious Mind’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(1), pp. 73–79. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00064.x.
Wheatley, T. and Wegner, D. (2001) Automaticity of Action, Psychology of Available at: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dwegner/files/wheatleywegner.pdf (Accessed: 17 December 2019)