Nonconscious semantic processing of emotional words modulates conscious access

Gaillard, R.; Cul, Antoine Del; Naccache, Lionel; Vinckier, Fabien; Cohen, Laurent; Dehaene, Stanislas

doi:10.1073/pnas.0600584103

Cited by 124 publications

(99 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…When target-mask SOA is varied, perception of the target typically follows a nonlinear sigmoid curve, with a critical SOA of about 50 msec (Del Cul et al, 2007), slightly shorter than the present critical time of about 80 msec. The masking threshold can also be shifted by higher-level factors such as whether the masked stimulus is an emotional word (Gaillard et al, 2006). These parallels suggest that masking and temporal integration phenomena may be related.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Temporal Integration in Visual Word Recognition

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Buiatti

Dehaene

2010

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Abstract■ When two displays are presented in close temporal succession at the same location, how does the brain assign them to one versus two conscious percepts? We investigate this issue using a novel reading paradigm in which the odd and even letters of a string are presented alternatively at a variable rate. The results reveal a window of temporal integration during reading, with a nonlinear boundary around ∼80 msec of presentation duration. Below this limit, the oscillating stimulus is easily fused into a single percept, with all characteristics of normal reading. Above this limit, reading times are severely slowed and suffer from a wordlength effect. ERPs indicate that, even at the fastest frequency, the oscillating stimulus elicits synchronous oscillations in posterior visual cortices, while late ERP components sensitive to lexical status vanish beyond the fusion threshold. Thus, the fusion/segregation dilemma is not resolved by retinal or subcortical filtering, but at cortical level by at most 300 msec. The results argue against theories of visual word recognition and letter binding that rely on temporal synchrony or other fine temporal codes. ■

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Temporal Integration in Visual Word Recognition

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Buiatti

Dehaene

2010

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…Finally, and most importantly, we have used imaging to show that activity in the mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is associated with the priming effect. These findings, together with previous research on the depth of subliminal priming (Dehaene et al, 1998;Hannula et al, 2005;Naccache et al, 2005;Gaillard et al, 2006), challenge critics to reconsider the limits of unconscious processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Inspired by recent advances in neuroimaging research that also draw attention to the strength and depth of subliminal priming (Dehaene et al, 1998;Hannula et al, 2005;Naccache et al, 2005;Gaillard et al, 2006), we attempted to create a situation in which subliminally presented stimuli influence the establishment of tasksets. This constitutes a strong test for the traditional assumption that higher cognitive functions require consciousness (Jack and Shallice, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unconscious Activation of the Cognitive Control System in the Human Prefrontal Cortex

Lau¹,

Passingham²

2007

J. Neurosci.

295

259

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Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested whether unconscious information can influence the cognitive control system in the human prefrontal cortex. Volunteers had to prepare to perform either a phonological judgment or a semantic judgment on an upcoming word, based on the instruction given at the beginning of each trial. However, in some trials they were visually primed to prepare for the alternative (i.e., "wrong") task, and this impaired their performance. This priming effect is taken to depend on unconscious processes because the effect was present even when the volunteers could only discriminate the identity of the primes at chance level. Furthermore, the effect was stronger when the visibility of the prime was near zero than when the visibility of the prime was significantly higher. When volunteers were unconsciously primed to perform the alternative task, there was also decreased neural activity in the brain areas relevant to the instructed task and increased neural activity in the brain areas relevant to the alternative task, which shows that the volunteers were actually engaged in the wrong task, instead of simply being distracted. Activity in the mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was also found to be associated with this unconscious priming effect. These results suggest that the cognitive control system in the prefrontal cortex is not exclusively driven by conscious information, as has been believed previously.

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“…Non-conscious information can modulate performance in many cognitive tasks, eg. object recognition (Stoerig & Cowey, 1997), extraction of the meaning of words (Gaillard et al, 2006;; Van den Bussche, Notebaert, & Reynvoet, 2009), categorization (Van den Bussche & Reynvoet, 2007), emotional processing (Whalen et al, 1998), action planning and execution (Binsted, Brownell, Vorontsova, Heath, & Saucier, 2007). Recently, it has been reported that monetary rewards affected subjects' motivation in a force task (Pessiglione et al, 2007), a finger-tapping task (Bijleveld, Custers, & Aarts, 2010 and a switch task (Capa, Bouquet, Dreher, & Dufour, 2012) even though participants were unaware of the reward.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unconscious task set priming with phonological and semantic tasks

Weibel

Giersch

Dehaene

et al. 2013

Consciousness and Cognition

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To cite this version:Sébastien Weibel, Anne Giersch, Stanislas Dehaene, Caroline Huron. Unconscious task set priming with phonological and semantic tasks.. Consciousness and Cognition, Elsevier, 2013, 22 (2) AbstractWhether unconscious stimuli can modulate the preparation of a cognitive task is still controversial. Using a backward masking paradigm, we investigated whether the modulation could be observed even if the prime was made unconscious in 100% of the trials. In two behavioral experiments, subjects were instructed to initiate a phonological or semantic task on an upcoming word, following an explicit instruction and an unconscious prime. When the SOA between prime and instruction was sufficiently long (84 ms), primes congruent with the task set instruction led to speedier responses than incongruent primes. In the other condition (36 ms), no task set priming was observed. Repetition priming had the opposite tendency, suggesting the observed task set facilitation cannot be ascribed solely to perceptual repetition priming. Our results therefore confirm that unconscious information can modulate cognitive control for currently active task sets, providing sufficient time is available before the conscious decision.

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Nonconscious semantic processing of emotional words modulates conscious access

Cited by 124 publications

References 52 publications

Temporal Integration in Visual Word Recognition

Temporal Integration in Visual Word Recognition

Unconscious Activation of the Cognitive Control System in the Human Prefrontal Cortex

Unconscious task set priming with phonological and semantic tasks

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