Question

What is the difference between apperception and an automatic learned response?

Did you ever hear of the old saying he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? Well what about the people who do walk and chew gum at the same time are they multi-tasking or is it sequential stimuli? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Apperception is the process wherein inputs and stimulation from the memory and the sense organs enter into the awareness. Apperception is covert and is a continuous and ongoing process. On the other hand, automatic learned responses are behaviours that are elicited in response to an external stimuli. They are overt processes and occur only when the organism a particular stimuli is presented to the organism.

I feel that walking and chewing gum at the same time can be classified as multi-tasking with parallel information processing. This is because both these tasks are not very cognitively demanding that they require through attention to be diverted for their execution. Humans are able to grasp the process of walking to the extent that it comes a task that can be carried out with giving it much thought. In the case of chewing gum, it is a repititive task that again requires no executive functioning. Thus I would say in this case, it is multitasking.