Unconscious task application.
The nature of unconscious information processing is a heavily debated issue in cognitive science (e.g., Kouider & Dehaene, 2007), and neuroscience (e.g., Crick & Koch, 1998). Traditionally, it has been thought that unconscious cognitive processing is restricted to knowledge that is strongly prepared by conscious processes (e.g., Dehaene et al., 1998). In three experiments, we show that the task that is performed consciously can also be applied unconsciously to items outside the current task set. We found that a same-different judgment of two target stimuli was also performed on two subliminally presented prime stimuli. This was true for target and prime stimuli from entirely different categories, as well as for prime and target stimuli at different levels of abstraction. These results reveal that unconscious processing can generalize more widely than previously accepted.
Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Gent, Belgium. filip.vanopstal@ugent.be
Filip
F
Van Opstal
Wim
W
Gevers
Magda
M
Osman
Tom
T
Verguts
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D003118:Color Perception; D003463:Cues; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D013561:Symbolism; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult