The DOI matches its Crossref record; 236 of the 237 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Are visual threats prioritized without awareness? A critical review and meta-analysis involving 3 behavioral paradigms and 2696 observers
Abstract
Given capacity limits, only a subset of stimuli give rise to a conscious percept. Neurocognitive models suggest that humans have evolved mechanisms that operate without awareness and prioritize threatening stimuli over neutral stimuli in subsequent perception. In this meta-analysis, we review evidence for this 'standard hypothesis' emanating from 3 widely used, but rather different experimental paradigms that have been used to manipulate awareness. We found a small pooled threat-bias effect in the masked visual probe paradigm, a medium effect in the binocular rivalry paradigm and highly inconsistent effects in the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm. Substantial heterogeneity was explained by the stimulus type: the only threat stimuli that were robustly prioritized across all 3 paradigms were fearful faces. Meta regression revealed that anxiety may modulate threat-biases, but only under specific presentation conditions. We also found that insufficiently rigorous awareness measures, inadequate control of response biases and low level confounds may undermine claims of genuine unconscious threat processing. Considering the data together, we suggest that uncritical acceptance of the standard hypothesis is premature: current behavioral evidence for threat-sensitive visual processing that operates without awareness is weak. (PsycINFO Database Record
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“ABs in attention-orienting (e.g., on a visual probe task) may also reflect both salience-driven and goal-directed processes.”
From Anxiety and Threat-Related Attention: Cognitive-Motivational Framework and Treatment (2018) · cites this paper as [34]
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“If this was unsuccessful, we adopted two conservative approaches to estimate the effect, as summary effects calculated from meta-analyses are often modestly inflated (Button et al., 2013): i) Where an effect was reported to be non-significant, but no”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Hedger, N., Gray, K. L. H., Garner, M., & Adams, W. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Southampton (GB)
- University of Reading (GB)
- Venue
- Psychological Bulletin
- Published
- 2016
- Volume
- 142
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 934-968
- ISSN
- 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1455
- OpenAlex
- W2279597820
- Cited by
- 115
- References
- 237
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 6.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CentAUR (University of Reading) (acceptedVersion)
- ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
- Keywords
- threat bias, unconscious processes, visual awareness, binocular rivalry, continuous flash suppression, fearful faces, anxiety, response bias, meta-regression
- MeSH terms
- Facial Recognition, Anxiety, Awareness, Facial Expression, Fear, Humans, Unconscious, Psychology, Visual Perception, Bias
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