Affective processing requires awareness.

Abstract

Studies using backward masked emotional stimuli suggest that affective processing may occur outside visual awareness and imply primacy of affective over semantic processing, yet these experiments have not strictly controlled for the participants' awareness of the stimuli. Here we directly compared the primacy of affective versus semantic categorization of biologically relevant stimuli in 5 experiments (n = 178) using explicit (semantic and affective discrimination; Experiments 1-3) and implicit (semantic and affective priming; Experiments 4-5) measures. The same stimuli were used in semantic and affective tasks. Visual awareness was manipulated by varying exposure duration of the masked stimuli, and subjective level of stimulus awareness was measured after each trial using a 4-point perceptual awareness scale. When participants reported no awareness of the stimuli, semantic and affective categorization were at chance level and priming scores did not differ from zero. When participants were even partially aware of the stimuli, (a) both semantic and affective categorization could be performed above chance level with equal accuracy, (b) semantic categorization was faster than affective categorization, and (c) both semantic and affective priming were observed. Affective categorization speed was linearly dependent on semantic categorization speed, suggesting dependence of affective processing on semantic recognition. Manipulations of affective and semantic categorization tasks revealed a hierarchy of categorization operations beginning with basic-level semantic categorization and ending with superordinate level affective categorization. We conclude that both implicit and explicit affective and semantic categorization is dependent on visual awareness, and that affective recognition follows semantic categorization.

Perceptual and affective mechanisms in facial expression recognition: An integrative review

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In the face of pain: The choice of visual cues in pain conditioning matters

“…This chosen latency also resulted in an adequate at-chance stimuli recognition level, as tested at the end of the study. Yet, a recent study (Lähteenmäki et al, 2015) suggested that partial awareness could be present after display durations of 40 ms. Whether completely non-conscious activation was achieved or some awareness was present, only face stimuli induced a significant subliminal effect, suggesting that the chosen 33 ms presentation was effective in differentiating between Stimulus types.…”

How associative is evaluative conditioning? An empirical investigation at the attitude acquisition and attitude change stages

“…When tightly controlled CS exposure conditions and sensitive awareness checks are used, meeting methodological requirements currently advised in cognitive psychological research (Atas, Vermeiren, & Cleeremans, 2013;Pratte & Rouder, 2009;Shanks & St. John, 1994), objective identification appears to be a necessary yet insufficient condition for an EC effect to emerge . As to subliminally presented affective stimuli (i.e., USs), they have recently been shown to elicit no affective response (Lähteenmäki, Hyönä, Koivisto, & Nummenmaa, 2015).…”