Unconscious knowledge: A survey

Adv Cogn Psychol. 2010:6:116-41. doi: 10.2478/v10053-008-0081-5. Epub 2011 Mar 4.

Abstract

The concept of unconscious knowledge is fundamental for an understanding of human thought processes and mentation in general; however, the psychological community at large is not familiar with it. This paper offers a survey of the main psychological research currently being carried out into cognitive processes, and examines pathways that can be integrated into a discipline of unconscious knowledge. It shows that the field has already a defined history and discusses some of the features that all kinds of unconscious knowledge seem to share at a deeper level. With the aim of promoting further research, we discuss the main challenges which the postulation of unconscious cognition faces within the psychological community.

Keywords: measures of unconscious knowledge; unconscious mental processes (perception, learning, memory, thinking, decision making); unconscious/implicit knowledge.