Stimulus/Response Learning in Masked Congruency Priming of Faces: Evidence for Covert Mental Classifications?

Abstract

Reaction times for categorization of a probe face according to its sex or fame were contrasted as a function of whether the category of a preceding, sandwich-masked prime face was congruent or incongruent. Prime awareness was measured by the ability to later categorize the primes, and this was close to chance and typically uncorrelated with priming. When prime faces were never presented as visible probes within a test, priming was not reliable; when prime faces were also seen as probes, priming was only reliable if visible and masked presentation of faces were interleaved (not simply if primes had been visible in a previous session). In the latter case, priming was independent of experimentally induced face-response or face-category contingencies, ruling out any simple form of stimulus-response learning. We conclude that the reliable masked congruency priming reflects bindings between stimuli and multiple, abstract classifications that can be generated both overtly and covertly.

Stimulus–response bindings in priming

“…Although attention appears to be necessary for masked priming [56,57] , response congruency effects in masked priming suggest that awareness is not necessary for retrieving S–R bindings [58] . Eckstein and Henson [58] , however, found no evidence of response congruency effects for masked primes that were never seen unmasked, suggesting that awareness is necessary for encoding such bindings. Although other studies have found main effects of priming from primes never seen unmasked [32,59–61] , this residual priming could reflect unconscious facilitation of component processes [59,60] rather than subliminal encoding of S–R (or F–R) bindings.…”

“…Although attention appears to be necessary for masked priming [56,57], response congruency effects in masked priming suggest that awareness is not necessary for retrieving S–R bindings [58]. Eckstein and Henson [58], however, found no evidence of response congruency effects for masked primes that were never seen unmasked, suggesting that awareness is necessary for encoding such bindings.…”

A simple rule to describe interactions between visual categories

“…As such, it can be argued that this priming effect is not the consequence of the interaction between different object categories but reflects stimulus‐response binding between the bird category and a “yes” motor response (e.g., Denkinger & Koutstaal, 2009; Eckstein & Henson, 2012; Horner & Henson, 2009). This is probably the case to some extent and the results of the drift diffusion model support this idea showing slower non‐decisional processes in the two incongruent conditions compared to the congruent condition.…”

Accurately measuring nonconscious processing using a generative Bayesian framework.

“…The disagreement regarding Klauer’s correction led to the only partial adaptation of their method. While some researchers used this method (Bermeitinger et al, 2012; Eckstein & Henson, 2012; Spruyt et al, 2012), often acknowledging the debate regarding this correction, others use the original Greenwald regression (Lin & Murray, 2013; Naccache & Dehaene, 2001; Reber et al, 2012; Van Opstal et al, 2005) or, most often, rely on an awareness threshold despite the issues it incurs (Shanks, 2017). Here, we propose a new method inspired by Greenwald regression.…”