Pawel Lewicki

Pawel Lewicki is a cognitive psychologist, and professor of psychology at the University of Tulsa. He is best known for his research on nonconscious information processing (and self-perpetuation), where he demonstrated that procedural knowledge is created via nonconscious acquisition of information about covariations between events or features, and that nonconsciously, individuals can acquire even very complex knowledge structures.

His research on self-perpetuating development of encoding dispositions has demonstrated that accidentally acquired (and even very slight) cognitive preferences or other encoding/interpretive dispositions can gradually develop and strengthen in a self-perpetuating manner. Specifically, common encoding biases may convert ambiguous information into subjective experience of encountering - in fact nonexistent - evidence that supports pre-existing interpretive schemata of the individual, thus strengthening those schemata in a self-perpetuating manner. This mechanism may contribute to the development of personality dispositions and individual preferences, it may facilitate learning, but it can also lead to self-perpetuating development of dysfunctional biases, phobias, aversions and other symptoms of disorders.