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Subliminal persuasion experiment12/28/2023 This indicates that top-down, intentional processes that required awareness of the predictive stimuli were executed 23. In contrast, subliminal gaze primes only affected response times when presented in the context of predictive, supraliminal primes. Supraliminal gaze primes affected response times even when detrimental to the task. These studies also used a categorization task with centrally presented gaze primes and peripheral targets, but mixed supraliminal and subliminal primes. Only a limited number of studies so far addressed gaze processing without conscious awareness 33, 34, 35. However, the findings cannot be generalized to subliminal processing. These features correspond well with the defining characteristics of an automatic process. Gaze direction was processed even if the gaze was uninformative 30, 32 or detrimental 31 to the task, which indicates that the processing of supraliminal gaze cues is initiated without intention and is not controllable (i.e., cannot be suppressed). Supraliminal, centrally presented gaze primes 30, 31, 32 were used to direct attention towards peripheral targets. Several studies investigated intentionality and controllability of gaze processing with conscious awareness in a categorization or detection task. In such situations, a purely automatic processing of gaze direction by the defender would come with disadvantages in response time and accuracy (cf. However, an opponent can also orient gaze direction away from the pass direction to deceive a defending player (so-called head fake). Here, gaze direction can signal the upcoming pass direction of an opponent. Gaze direction is also an important cue in sports scenarios 27, 28, 29, for example, in basketball. Gaze direction is considered an important source of social information for interactions among partners 24, for example, to signal turn taking in conversations 25 or to establish joint attention 26. In a series of three experiments, we investigated the following features of automaticity: need for conscious awareness, intentionality, and controllability. Here, we ask whether a task-irrelevant but socially relevant cue, human gaze direction, can affect a complex, whole-body response automatically. A considerable number of studies found misalignments between features (for an overview, see 22), for example, processes which were unconscious but controllable 23, suggesting that a gradual perspective on automaticity might be more appropriate. A consistent alignment of all four processing features, that is, the assumption that all four features are either true or false (while 14 other feature combinations are rare or nonexistent), seems questionable 22. In recent years, reasonable doubt has been raised against these dichotomous frameworks as being too simplistic 20, 21. In contrast, intentionality, awareness, controllability, and consumption of working memory resources were considered features of controlled processes. Automatic processes were assumed to not require (1) intention or (2) conscious awareness and to be (3) not controllable but (4) efficient, that is, to require little working memory capacity 19. These theories distinguished between two types of mental processes, automatic and controlled. In the last two decades, discussions of unconscious processing and automaticity were guided by theoretical frameworks under the general label of ‘two-systems theories’ 17, 18. Signal detection measures 16 are commonly computed to assess if a prime was processed unconsciously. This backward masking 15 (i.e., the mask following the prime) can prevent all conscious awareness of the prime, which often is assured in an additional task in which participants are asked to categorize the prime stimulus. The masking pattern is either presented at the same position as the prime or surrounding it. In this paradigm, a masking stimulus follows a prime stimulus after a short delay of a few tens of milliseconds. The most common method in experimental psychology to investigate a subliminal influence of stimuli on behavior is masked priming 14. In contrast, a subliminal influence of social stimuli on complex behavior is still controversial 4, 10, 11, 12, 13. Effects of subliminally presented stimuli (i.e., outside of subjects’ awareness) have been reported for trait and affective judgments in social psychology 6, 7 and for simple categorization tasks in experimental psychology 8, 9 (button-press responses in a choice reaction time task). Studied behaviors range from simple responses (single muscle contractions) to complex, whole-body responses (control of numerous muscles and joints). The unconscious influence of external stimuli on human thought and behavior has long been of interest 1, 2, 3 and is still being debated 4, 5.
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