Subliminal understanding of negation: Unconscious control by subliminal processing of word pairs

A series of five experiments investigated the extent of subliminal processing of negation. Participants were presented with a subliminal instruction to either pick or not pick an accompanying noun, followed by a choice of two nouns. By employing subjective measures to determine individual thresholds of subliminal priming, the results of these studies indicated that participants were able to identify the correct noun of the pair--even when the correct noun was specified by negation. Furthermore, using a grey-scale contrast method of masking, Experiment 5 confirmed that these priming effects were evidenced in the absence of partial awareness, and without the effect being attributed to the retrieval of stimulus-response links established during conscious rehearsal.

[1]  P. Merikle,et al.  Distinguishing conscious from unconscious perceptual processes. , 1986, Canadian journal of psychology.

[2]  Axel Cleeremans,et al.  The perception of visual emotion: Comparing different measures of awareness , 2013, Consciousness and Cognition.

[3]  Anil K. Seth,et al.  Conscious and the Unconscious , 2010 .

[4]  Allison M. McKendrick,et al.  Aging alters surround modulation of perceived contrast. , 2009, Journal of vision.

[5]  Jonathan Grainger,et al.  Unconscious semantic priming from pictures , 1999, Cognition.

[6]  S. Dehaene,et al.  A direct intracranial record of emotions evoked by subliminal words. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[7]  Elisabeth Norman,et al.  “The Unconscious” in Current Psychology , 2010 .

[8]  Zoltan Dienes,et al.  Measures of metacognition on signal-detection theoretic models. , 2013, Psychological methods.

[9]  Dominique Lamy,et al.  Unconscious auditory information can prime visual word processing: A process-dissociation procedure study , 2008, Consciousness and Cognition.

[10]  Richard L. Abrams,et al.  Subliminal words activate semantic categories (not automated motor responses) , 2002, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[11]  Bernie Caessens,et al.  Unconscious primes activate motor codes through semantics. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[12]  Richard L. Abrams,et al.  Parts Outweigh the Whole (Word) in Unconscious Analysis of Meaning , 2000, Psychological science.

[13]  Emmanuel Dupoux,et al.  Partial Awareness Creates the “Illusion” of Subliminal Semantic Priming , 2004, Psychology Science.

[14]  Andrew P. Yonelinas,et al.  Separating conscious and unconscious influences of memory: measuring recollection , 1993 .

[15]  Z. Dienes.  Bayesian Versus Orthodox Statistics: Which Side Are You On? , 2011, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[16]  J. R. Doyle.  Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening , parafoveal vision , and visual masking : A survey and appraisal , 2008 .

[17]  K. Forster,et al.  REPETITION PRIMING AND FREQUENCY ATTENUATION IN LEXICAL ACCESS , 1984 .

[18]  V. Walsh,et al.  Subjective discriminability of invisibility: A framework for distinguishing perceptual and attentional failures of awareness , 2010, Consciousness and Cognition.

[19]  Z. Dienes,et al.  Executive control without conscious awareness: the cold control theory of hypnosis , 2007 .

[20]  A. Greenwald.  New look 3. Unconscious cognition reclaimed. , 1992, The American psychologist.

[21]  H. Lau,et al.  Empirical support for higher-order theories of conscious awareness , 2011, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[22]  Lei Zhu,et al.  Unconsciously learning task-irrelevant perceptual sequences , 2013, Consciousness and Cognition.

[23]  Peter B. Walker,et al.  Is unconscious identity priming lexical or sublexical? , 2004, Consciousness and Cognition.

[24]  J. Adler,et al.  Simple research paradigm for demonstrating subliminal psychodynamic activation: effects of oedipal stimuli on dart-throwing accuracy in college males. , 1978, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[25]  J. L. Mcclelland,et al.  Perception and masking of wholes and parts. , 1978, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[26]  Thomas H. Carr,et al.  Semantic priming and repetition priming from masked words: evidence for a center-surround attentional mechanism in perceptual recognition. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[27]  Christian Frings,et al.  Repeated masked category primes interfere with related exemplars: new evidence for negative semantic priming. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[28]  K. Heilbrun.  Silverman's subliminal psychodynamic activation: a failure to replicate. , 1980, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[29]  Z. Dienes,et al.  Intentional control based on familiarity in artificial grammar learning , 2008, Consciousness and Cognition.

[30]  T. Verguts,et al.  Unconscious task application , 2010, Consciousness and Cognition.

[31]  Martin Eimer,et al.  Masked prime stimuli can bias “free” choices between response alternatives , 2004, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[32]  Z. Dienes,et al.  Subjective measures of unconscious knowledge of concepts , 2006 .

[33]  Bert Reynvoet,et al.  Conscious and unconscious proportion effects in masked priming , 2008, Consciousness and Cognition.

[34]  Z. Dienes.  Subjective measures of unconscious knowledge. , 2008, Progress in brain research.

[35]  Carol A. Fowler,et al.  Lexical access with and without awareness , 1981 .

[36]  Rich S. W. Masters,et al.  Marginally perceptible outcome feedback, motor learning and implicit processes , 2009, Consciousness and Cognition.

[37]  M. Damian,et al.  Congruity effects evoked by subliminally presented primes: automaticity rather than semantic processing. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[38]  Z. Dienes,et al.  No-loss gambling shows the speed of the unconscious , 2012, Consciousness and Cognition.

[39]  G. Allen,et al.  Whither subliminal psychodynamic activation? A reply to Silverman. , 1982, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[40]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Nonconscious semantic processing of emotional words modulates conscious access. , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[41]  Glenn Waller,et al.  The impact of subliminal abandonment and unification cues on eating behavior. , 2005, The International journal of eating disorders.

[42]  Axel Cleeremans,et al.  Measuring consciousness: relating behavioural and neurophysiological approaches , 2008, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[43]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  Competition for consciousness among visual events: the psychophysics of reentrant visual processes. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[44]  P. Merikle,et al.  Priming with and without awareness , 1984, Perception & psychophysics.

[45]  J. Hoffmann,et al.  Conscious control over the content of unconscious cognition , 2003, Cognition.

[46]  L. Jacoby.  A process dissociation framework: Separating automatic from intentional uses of memory , 1991 .

[47]  L L Jacoby,et al.  Unconscious perception: attention, awareness, and control. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[48]  R. Passingham,et al.  Unconscious Activation of the Cognitive Control System in the Human Prefrontal Cortex , 2007, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[49]  G. C. Rodin,et al.  An experimental study of internalization fantasies in schizophrenic men. , 1983 .

[50]  H. Decker.  The unconscious. , 1977, Psychological issues.

[51]  Caspar M. Schwiedrzik,et al.  Subjective and objective learning effects dissociate in space and in time , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[52]  Martin Eimer,et al.  The Roles of Feature-Specific Task Set and Bottom-Up Salience in Attentional Capture : An ERP Study , 2009 .

[53]  Lei Zhu,et al.  Implicit learning of mappings between forms and metaphorical meanings , 2013, Consciousness and Cognition.

[54]  R. E. Walley,et al.  Lateral inhibition and cognitive masking: a neuropsychological theory of attention. , 1973, Psychological review.

[55]  Z. Dienes,et al.  Measuring any conscious content versus measuring the relevant conscious content: Comment on Sandberg et al. , 2010, Consciousness and Cognition.

[56]  Jeffrey P. Toth,et al.  Unconscious influences revealed. Attention, awareness, and control. , 1992, The American psychologist.

[57]  E. Loftus,et al.  Is the unconscious smart or dumb? , 1992, The American psychologist.

[58]  Simon van Gaal,et al.  The role of consciousness in cognitive control and decision making , 2012 .

[59]  Z. Dienes,et al.  Gambling on the unconscious: A comparison of wagering and confidence ratings as measures of awareness in an artificial grammar task , 2010, Consciousness and Cognition.

[60]  Xiaolan Fu,et al.  Can unconscious knowledge allow control in sequence learning? , 2010, Consciousness and Cognition.

[61]  E. Fox,et al.  Semantic activation in the absence of perceptual awareness , 2003, Perception & psychophysics.

[62]  M. Overgaard,et al.  Introspection and subliminal perception , 2004 .

[63]  R. Passingham,et al.  Relative blindsight in normal observers and the neural correlate of visual consciousness , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[64]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Levels of processing during non-conscious perception: a critical review of visual masking , 2007, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[65]  Elisabeth Norman,et al.  Measuring strategic control in artificial grammar learning , 2011, Consciousness and Cognition.

[66]  C. Perfetti,et al.  Phonemic activation during the first 40 ms of word identification: Evidence from backward masking and priming , 1991 .

[67]  Bert Reynvoet,et al.  Mechanisms of masked priming: a meta-analysis. , 2009, Psychological bulletin.

[68]  Mommy and I are one. Implications for psychotherapy. , 1985 .

[69]  Nir Levy,et al.  Reading and doing arithmetic nonconsciously , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[70]  J B Poline,et al.  Cerebral mechanisms of word masking and unconscious repetition priming , 2001, Nature Neuroscience.

[71]  Josef Perner,et al.  Assumptions of a subjective measure of consciousness: Three mappings , 2004 .

[72]  Axel Cleeremans,et al.  Higher order thoughts in action: consciousness as an unconscious re-description process , 2012, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[73]  J. J. Ortells,et al.  Influence of prime-target relationship on semantic priming effects from words in a lexical-decision task. , 2003, Acta psychologica.

[74]  Richard L. Abrams,et al.  Unconscious semantic priming in the absence of partial awareness , 2007, Consciousness and Cognition.

[75]  S C Draine,et al.  Replicable unconscious semantic priming. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[76]  J. Hoffmann,et al.  Mechanisms of subliminal response priming , 2008, Advances in cognitive psychology.

[77]  L. Silverman.  A comment on two subliminal psychodynamic activation studies. , 1982, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[78]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Unconscious semantic priming extends to novel unseen stimuli , 2001, Cognition.

[79]  J. Oliver,et al.  Subliminal psychodynamic activation in depression: a failure to replicate. , 1982, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[80]  E. Bernat,et al.  Unconscious perception: A model-based approach to method and evidence , 2004, Perception & psychophysics.

[81]  M. Damian.  Congruity effects evoked by subliminally presented primes: automaticity rather than semantic processing. , 2001 .

[82]  Michael Jacobs,et al.  Conscious and Unconscious , 2003 .

[83]  A. Marcel.  Conscious and unconscious perception: Experiments on visual masking and word recognition , 1983, Cognitive Psychology.

[84]  L. Silverman.  Rejoinder to Allen and Condon's and Heilbrun's Replies. , 1982, Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

[85]  Zoltan Dienes,et al.  Assumptions of subjective measures of unconscious mental states: higher order thoughts and bias , 2004 .

[86]  Kevin Diependaele,et al.  Masked repetition and phonological priming within and across modalities. , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[87]  Axel Cleeremans,et al.  Measuring consciousness: Is one measure better than the other? , 2010, Consciousness and Cognition.

[88]  Simon van Gaal,et al.  Unconscious Activation of the Prefrontal No-Go Network , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[89]  Z. Dienes,et al.  UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF ARTIFICIAL GRAMMARS IS APPLIED STRATEGICALLY , 1995 .

[90]  H. Lau,et al.  A signal detection theoretic approach for estimating metacognitive sensitivity from confidence ratings , 2012, Consciousness and Cognition.

[91]  H. Jeffreys.  The Theory of Probability , 1922 .

[92]  Michele T. Diaz,et al.  Unconscious Word Processing Engages a Distributed Network of Brain Regions , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[93]  I Rosén,et al.  Semantic processing without conscious identification: evidence from event-related potentials. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.