Unconscious Thought Theory

Unconscious thought theory posits that the unconscious mind can perform tasks outside of a person's awareness, and that unconscious thought is better at solving complex tasks with many variables than conscious thought, while being outperformed by conscious thought on tasks with fewer variables. It was proposed by Ap Dijksterhuis and Loran Nordgren in 2006, based on findings that subjects distracted from consciously deliberating a complex decision outperformed both those who deliberated and those who had to respond immediately; the theory has come under criticism from researchers unable to replicate the original effects, and runs counter to most research on unconscious processing over the preceding decades, which found unconscious processes limited to simple responses.