Abstract
Unconscious processing can significantly affect conscious processing. For instance, unconscious processing of a masked prime can facilitate processing of an afterward presented stimulusIt is usually thought that the unconscious prime activates motor-processing. For this reason, reaction times are speeded in congruent and slowed down in incongruent conditions. Here, we show that unconscious processing can also strongly influence conscious processing in the Ternus-Pikler display, in which three black disks move horizontally in concert. In addition, each disk contains a white dot, which move either vertically or horizontally. Still, in the center disk a non-retinotopic rotation is perceived, which is a combination of the retinotopic left-right and up-down motions. These retinotopic motions are unconscious. When we, in a second experiment, present retinotopic rotations in the disks, still non-retinotopic rotation is perceived. When the retinotopic rotations are congruent with the non-retinotopic one, there is only a slight improvement in performance with the non-retinotopic rotation. However, when the motions are incongruent, performance strongly deteriorates. The more incongruent retinotopic rotations there are, the stronger the deterioration is. Thus, contrary to mask priming, unconscious information influences conscious perception only in incongruent conditions. In addition, motor response activation cannot explain the results since responses were not speeded. Hence, it seems unconscious processing can influence conscious perception in different ways. A simple mismatch veto model explains these results.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018