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Degree and Complexity of Non-conscious Emotional Information Processing – A Review of Masked Priming Studies

Whether and to what degree information can be processed non-consciously has been a matter of debate since the emergence of psychology as a science. Emotional information, in particular, has often been assumed to have a privileged status because of its relevance for well-being and survival (e.g., to...

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Autores principales: Rohr, Michaela, Wentura, Dirk
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8258119/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34239432
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.689369
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author Rohr, Michaela
Wentura, Dirk
author_facet Rohr, Michaela
Wentura, Dirk
author_sort Rohr, Michaela
collection PubMed
description Whether and to what degree information can be processed non-consciously has been a matter of debate since the emergence of psychology as a science. Emotional information, in particular, has often been assumed to have a privileged status because of its relevance for well-being and survival (e.g., to detect a threat). Indeed, many studies have explored non-conscious processing of evaluative (i.e., “emotional” in a broad sense) or emotional (e.g., facial expressions) features using the “silver bullet” of non-consciousness research – the masked sequential priming paradigm. In its prototypical form, this paradigm involves the categorization of target stimuli according to valence (e.g., is the target positive or negative?). Each target is preceded by a briefly presented prime that is followed by a mask to constrain awareness. Non-conscious processing is inferred from subtle influences of the prime on target processing, that is, whether responses are faster if prime and target are valence-congruent or not. We will review this research with a focus on three questions: first, which methods are used in this area to establish non-conscious processing? Second, is there evidence for non-conscious extraction of evaluative information? Third, is there evidence for non-conscious processing beyond a simple valence (positive/negative) discrimination, for example, processing of emotion-specific information? We will highlight important current debates and potential directions in which the field will move in the future.
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spelling pubmed-82581192021-07-07 Degree and Complexity of Non-conscious Emotional Information Processing – A Review of Masked Priming Studies Rohr, Michaela Wentura, Dirk Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Whether and to what degree information can be processed non-consciously has been a matter of debate since the emergence of psychology as a science. Emotional information, in particular, has often been assumed to have a privileged status because of its relevance for well-being and survival (e.g., to detect a threat). Indeed, many studies have explored non-conscious processing of evaluative (i.e., “emotional” in a broad sense) or emotional (e.g., facial expressions) features using the “silver bullet” of non-consciousness research – the masked sequential priming paradigm. In its prototypical form, this paradigm involves the categorization of target stimuli according to valence (e.g., is the target positive or negative?). Each target is preceded by a briefly presented prime that is followed by a mask to constrain awareness. Non-conscious processing is inferred from subtle influences of the prime on target processing, that is, whether responses are faster if prime and target are valence-congruent or not. We will review this research with a focus on three questions: first, which methods are used in this area to establish non-conscious processing? Second, is there evidence for non-conscious extraction of evaluative information? Third, is there evidence for non-conscious processing beyond a simple valence (positive/negative) discrimination, for example, processing of emotion-specific information? We will highlight important current debates and potential directions in which the field will move in the future. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8258119/ /pubmed/34239432 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.689369 Text en Copyright © 2021 Rohr and Wentura. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Rohr, Michaela
Wentura, Dirk
Degree and Complexity of Non-conscious Emotional Information Processing – A Review of Masked Priming Studies
title Degree and Complexity of Non-conscious Emotional Information Processing – A Review of Masked Priming Studies
title_full Degree and Complexity of Non-conscious Emotional Information Processing – A Review of Masked Priming Studies
title_fullStr Degree and Complexity of Non-conscious Emotional Information Processing – A Review of Masked Priming Studies
title_full_unstemmed Degree and Complexity of Non-conscious Emotional Information Processing – A Review of Masked Priming Studies
title_short Degree and Complexity of Non-conscious Emotional Information Processing – A Review of Masked Priming Studies
title_sort degree and complexity of non-conscious emotional information processing – a review of masked priming studies
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8258119/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34239432
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.689369
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