Unconscious cognition: The mechanism of subliminal priming



Andrea Kiesel, Wilfried Kunde, Carsten Pohl, Heiko Reuß & Joachim Hoffmann

DFG HO 1301 / 10-1, 10-2,
DFG KI 1388 / 1-2

 

Visual stimuli (primes) presented too briefly to be consciously identified can nevertheless affect responses to subsequent stimuli - an instance of unconscious cognition. There is a lively debate concerning the underlying mechanism for such priming effects to occur. The discussed accounts range from the assumption of unconscious semantic processing of the primes to simple reactivation of learned motor responses that conscious stimuli afford during preceding practice.

In several experiments we demonstrated that unconscious stimuli owe their impact neither to automatic semantic categorization nor to memory traces of preceding stimulus-response episodes, but to their match with pre-specified cognitive action-trigger conditions. The intentional formation of such triggers allows actors to control the way unconscious stimuli bias their behaviour.



Updated: 13.05.2009