Imaging unconscious semantic priming
Abstract
Visual words that are masked and presented so briefly that they cannot be seen may nevertheless facilitate the subsequent processing of related words, a phenomenon called masked priming. It has been debated whether masked primes can activate cognitive processes without gaining access to consciousness. Here we use a combination of behavioural and brain-imaging techniques to estimate the depth of processing of masked numerical primes. Our results indicate that masked stimuli have a measurable influence on electrical and haemodynamic measures of brain activity. When subjects engage in an overt semantic comparison task with a clearly visible target numeral, measures of covert motor activity indicate that they also unconsciously apply the task instructions to an unseen masked numeral. A stream of perceptual, semantic and motor processes can therefore occur without awareness.
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Neural mechanisms of decision-making involve accumulating sensory evidence that affects the probability of choices until a threshold is attained, and this accumulation continues even with subliminal stimuli.
“Neural mechanisms of decision-making involve accumulating sensory evidence that affects the probability of the various choices until a threshold is attained. This accumulation of probabilistic knowledge continues to happen even with subliminal stimuli ( 13 -16 ).”
From What is consciousness, and could machines have it? (2017) · cites this paper as [15]
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- Authors
- Dehaene, S., Naccache, L., Le Clec'H, G., Koechlin, E., Mueller, M., Dehaene-Lambertz, G., van de Moortele, P.-F., & Le Bihan, D.
- Affiliations
- Inserm (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Dehaene, Stanislas
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 1998-10
- Volume
- 395
- Issue
- 6702
- Pages
- 597-600
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W1574965836
- Cited by
- 1,081
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 37 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 49 · 2014: 67 · 2013: 54 · 2012: 54
- FWCI
- 11.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Keywords
- masked priming, semantic processing, brain activity, hemodynamic response, electrical brain activity
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Cognition, Evoked Potentials, Female, Humans, Functional Laterality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Reading, Subliminal Stimulation, Unconscious, Psychology, Visual Perception
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