TY - JOUR
T1 - Unconscious auditory information can prime visual word processing
T2 - A process-dissociation procedure study
AU - Lamy, Dominique
AU - Mudrik, Liad
AU - Deouell, Leon Y.
N1 - Funding Information:
Support was provided by the Israel Science Foundation Grant No. 1382-04 to Dominique Lamy.
PY - 2008/9
Y1 - 2008/9
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Cross-modal priming
KW - Process-dissociation procedure
KW - Unconscious priming
KW - Visual-to-auditory priming
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=47149086195&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.concog.2007.11.001
DO - 10.1016/j.concog.2007.11.001
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AN - SCOPUS:47149086195
SN - 1053-8100
VL - 17
SP - 688
EP - 698
JO - Consciousness and Cognition
JF - Consciousness and Cognition
IS - 3
ER -