Critical importance of stimulus unawareness for the production of subliminal psychodynamic activation effects: A meta-analytic review

Abstract

Meta‐analysis that assessed the magnitude of behavior change produced by subliminal vs. supraliminal drive‐related stimuli was performed on all subliminal psychodynamic activation (SPA) studies that employed both types of stimuli (N of studies = 11, N of subliminal‐supraliminal comparisons = 43). The analysis revealed that subliminal presentation of drive‐related stimuli produced significantly stronger effects on behavior than supraliminal presentation of the same stimuli. Stimulus content, type of outcome measure, and subject characteristics all influenced the magnitude of subliminal‐supraliminal response differences. These results support Silverman's (1983) hypothesis that drive‐related stimuli must be presented subliminally in order to produce SPA effects. Furthermore, given the pattern of subliminal‐supraliminal effect sizes obtained, a partial cue hypothesis of SPA effects is not tenable. Implications of these findings for research that examines the restricting effects of awareness on responding to drive‐ and affect‐related stimuli are discussed.

Attachment working models as unconscious structures: An experimental test

“…Silverman and colleagues propose that the subliminal presentation of sentences allows for activation of unconscious processes and for observation of the behavioural consequences of such an activation (Geisler, 1986;Greenberg, 1992;Patton, 1992;Silverman, Bornstein, & Mendelsohn, 1976;Silverman, Ross, Adler, & Lustig, 1978). Several meta-analyses (Bornstein, 1990;Hardaway, 1990;Weinberger, 1992) have supported the validity of SPA, suggesting that it is an adequate tool for the investigation of unconscious processes in attachment research.…”

Why the Brain Knows More than We Do: Non-Conscious Representations and Their Role in the Construction of Conscious Experience

“…Follow-up examinations furthermore revealed that the experimental patient groups who received treatment with the subliminal stimuli reported more dreams containing positive symbiotic events than the controls. It is emphasized that the non-conscious character of the stimuli in subliminal psychodynamic activation (SPA) is critical: effects produced under conditions where observers are unaware of the nature and content of the stimuli were found to be significantly stronger than those produced by the same stimuli presented at supraliminal levels [20]. Explanatory models of SPA effects suggest that supraliminal stimuli lose some of their power to produce the desired effects on internal representations because subjects perceive them as part of an externally administered procedure [21].…”

“…However, quantitative and qualitative reviews and meta-analyses of research conducted over the years lead to the conclusion that the major findings remain statistically significant [27]. Partial-cue hypotheses, which suggest that some structural cues in subliminal stimuli might be directly available to consciousness and therefore explain SPA effects, have been put into question [20].The implications of the initial observations for cognitive science remain the same: conscious processing interferes with responding optimally to drive-and affect-related stimuli.Hypnosis and hypnotic suggestibility are phenomena that are not yet fully understood scientifically, but merit nonetheless attention. Hypnotic induction is not as such a subliminal process since the…”

Alpha synchronization as a brain model for unconscious defense: An overview of the work of Howard Shevrin and his team

“…The SPA research, on the other hand, only leads to results when the primes are presented subliminally (at 4 ms) and nothing comparable is found with supraliminal primes (see e.g. Bornstein, ).…”