Unconscious priming by illusory figures
Tommaso Poscoliero, Carlo Alberto Marzi, Massimo Girelli
Section Physiology, Dept. Neuroscience, University of Verona
Illusory figures, such as Kanizsa squares, might prime real figures also when unconsciously perceived. To test this hypothesis we used a metacontrast masking paradigm where illusory figures were followed by real figures as masks. In Experiment 1 we tested 10 participants in a 2AFC task with illusory squares and diamonds masked by either square or diamond masks leading to congruent and incongruent illusory figure-mask pairings. The task was to discriminate between the two masks and if the unconscious illusory figure primed the mask a congruency effect was expected. This is what we found indicating that the unconscious illusory figure was able to prime the mask form. In Experiment 2 we tested 20 participants in a 2AFC task where we used the same condition as in Experiment 1 plus a no-gestalt control condition in which the prime’s inducers were rotated not to form an illusory figure. A third condition was used to test the strength of the surface vs the perimeter of the illusory figure in priming a form, with a fourth condition as a no-gestalt control (inducers rotated). The results of Experiment 1 were replicated with the congruency effect significantly larger in the gestalt vs no-gestalt conditions and in the illusory surface vs illusory perimeter. Taken together the results indicate that illusory figures can be fully processed also unconsciously and that illusory surfaces are more form-like than illusory perimeters alone.
CARL JUNG ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS CARL JUNG
COURSE TITLE ADDRESSING UNCONSCIOUS BIAS IN THE EEOHRTRAINING PROCESS
DANCE MOVEMENT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS (1954) BY MARY STARKS
Tags: alberto marzi,, illusory, carlo, unconscious, tommaso, figures, priming, alberto, poscoliero