The restricting effects of awareness: A paradox and explanation.

Abstract

Ss were shown tachistoscopically-presented word stimuli to test the distinction between the perceptual processes of registration (what could be called physiological or sensory threshold) and awareness (or the cognitive threshold). The presentation consisted of a stimulus word followed by series of words associated to the stimulus word either in terms of meaning or structural resemblance. Recall of words presented subliminally or supraliminally was facilitated with degree of awareness of actual stimulus word; with greater awareness of the word, associational recall was for words that structurally resembled S word; without awareness, recall was determined by associative meaning.

Effects of oral deprivation on responses to subliminal and supraliminal verbal food stimuli.

“…analysis of variance (Table 2) shows that the difference between conditions is not significant, which indicates that our findings fail to replicate those of Spence and Holland (1962) on two counts. The subliminal stimulus did not enhance recall of CHEESE associates relative to a control condition, and supraliminal exposure of the stimulus did not restrict recall of associates relative to the subliminal condition.…”

“…The differences between subliminal and supraliminal groups were not significant (see last pair of t tests, Table 3), which indicates that heightened awareness of the stimulus did not restrict the degree of effect (as contrasted to Spence, 1964;Spence & Holland, 1962), nor enhance it, as is frequently assumed. The present data suggest that if the subject is sufficiently deprived, a very brief exposure of the stimulus is as likely to activate its associates as a prolonged exposure.…”

Hypnotizability, Creativity and the Role of Effortless Experiencing

“…The inference is based on an understanding of the creative and hypnotic experience as described in the present paper's introduction as well as some of the literature on subliminal perception (Shevrin, 1973;Spence & Holland, 1962) and alpha EEG (Martindale & Hines, 1975;Kamiya, 1969). The inference is bolstered by the positive results of the current investigation, but the crudeness of the inference must be acknowledged.…”

“…Spence and Holland (1962) reported that conscious awareness of the stimulus has restricting effects on associations to the stimulus compared to associations to the same stimulus presented below the awareness threshold. In a study by Shevrin and Fritzler (1968), the incidence of alpha waves in EEG records was monitored during subliminal stimulation and during a subsequent "free association" period.…”

Introspección e informes verbales en procesamiento humano de información

“…Quizá los efectos distorsionantes de la expectativa y reestructuración que caracterizan a la percepción consciente no operan inconscientemente. Existen abundantes supuestos teóricos y algunos datos empíricos (Zuckerman, 1960;Spence y Holland, 1962;Posner, 1973;Shevrin y Dickman, 1980) que sugieren que los procesos cognitivos inconscientes pueden seguir principios de organización diferentes a los que rigen el procesamiento normal consciente.…”