title: Anticipatory control through associative learning of subliminal relations: invisible may be better than visible.
abstract: We showed that anticipatory cognitive control could be unconsciously instantiated through subliminal cues that predicted enhanced future control needs. In task-switching experiments, one of three subliminal cues preceded each trial. Participants had no conscious experience or knowledge of these cues, but their performance was significantly improved on switch trials after cues that predicted task switches (but not particular tasks). This utilization of subliminal information was flexible and adapted to a change in cues predicting task switches and occurred only when switch trials were difficult and effortful. When cues were consciously visible, participants were unable to discern their relevance and could not use them to enhance switch performance. Our results show that unconscious cognition can implicitly use subliminal information in a goal-directed manner for anticipatory control, and they also suggest that subliminal representations may be more conducive to certain forms of associative learning.
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United Kingdom ausaf.farooqui@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Ausaf A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Farooqui
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Manly
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D059031:Anticipation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: associative processes; attention; cognitive processes; consciousness; open data; open materials; subliminal perception