Unconscious auditory information can prime visual word processing: a process-dissociation procedure study.

Full Abstract

Whether information perceived without awareness can affect overt performance, and whether such effects can cross sensory modalities, remains a matter of debate. Whereas influence of unconscious visual information on auditory perception has been documented, the reverse influence has not been reported. In addition, previous reports of unconscious cross-modal priming relied on procedures in which contamination of conscious processes could not be ruled out. We present the first report of unconscious cross-modal priming when the unaware prime is auditory and the test stimulus is visual. We used the process-dissociation procedure [Debner, J. A., & Jacoby, L. L. (1994). Unconscious perception:
Attention, awareness and control. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 304-317] which allowed us to assess the separate contributions of conscious and unconscious perception of a degraded prime (either seen or heard) to performance on a visual fragment-completion task. Unconscious cross-modal priming (auditory prime, visual fragment) was significant and of a magnitude similar to that of unconscious within-modality priming (visual prime, visual fragment). We conclude that cross-modal integration, at least between visual and auditory information, is more symmetrical than previously shown, and does not require conscious mediation.

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Author information

Author/s: Lamy, Dominique (D); Mudrik, Liad (L); Deouell, Leon Y (LY);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, PO Box 39040, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. domi@post.tau.ac.il

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Consciousness and cognition (Conscious Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Sep; vol 17 (issue 3) : pp 688-98

Dates: Created 2008/07/21; Completed 2008/10/02;

PMID: 18086535, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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