title: Unconscious processing of facial attractiveness: invisible attractive faces orient visual attention.
abstract: Past research has proven human's extraordinary ability to extract information from a face in the blink of an eye, including its emotion, gaze direction, and attractiveness. However, it remains elusive whether facial attractiveness can be processed and influences our behaviors in the complete absence of conscious awareness. Here we demonstrate unconscious processing of facial attractiveness with three distinct approaches. In Experiment 1, the time taken for faces to break interocular suppression was measured. The results showed that attractive faces enjoyed the privilege of breaking suppression and reaching consciousness earlier. In Experiment 2, we further showed that attractive faces had lower visibility thresholds, again suggesting that facial attractiveness could be processed more easily to reach consciousness. Crucially, in Experiment 3, a significant decrease of accuracy on an orientation discrimination task subsequent to an invisible attractive face showed that attractive faces, albeit suppressed and invisible, still exerted an effect by orienting attention. Taken together, for the first time, we show that facial attractiveness can be processed in the complete absence of consciousness, and an unconscious attractive face is still capable of directing our attention.
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.
authors.forename: Shao-Min
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Hung
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Chih-Hsuan
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Nieh
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.
authors.forename: Po-Jang
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Hsieh
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*