14 research outputs found

    The unconscious mind: From classical theoretical controversy to controversial contemporary research and a practical illustration of the “error of our ways”

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    In this manuscript, the authors present an overview of the history, an account of the theoretical and methodological controversy, and an illustration of contemporary and revised methods for the exploration of unconscious processing. Initially we discuss historical approaches relating to unconsciousness that are, arguably, defamed and considered extraneous to contemporary psychological research. We support that awareness of the history of the current subject is pedagogically essential to understand the transition to empirical research and the reasons for which the current area is still so contentious among contemporary psychologists. We proceed to explore the current experimental canon. Contemporary theoretical and methodological issues relating to unconscious processing are discussed in detail and key issues and key advancements in contemporary research are presented. Developments that have, in recent years, being suggested to contribute to a possibly reliable method for the assessment of unconscious processing are practically - methodologically and statistically – illustrated using easy-to-follow steps applied in real experimental data. Mindful of our own place in the long history of this topic, we conclude the manuscript with suggestions concerning the future of the current area

    ‘Look not at what is contrary to propriety’: A meta-analytic exploration of the association between religiosity and sensitivity to disgust

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    Previous research has suggested that disgust sensitivity contributes to moral self-regulation. The relationship between religiosity and disgust sensitivity is frequently explored as a moderator of moral-regulating ideologies, such as conservative and traditional ideologies. However, religiosity is suggested to differ from these in moral attitudes against social dominance and racial prejudice. Psychological theories, such as the societal moral intuition and the evolved hazard-perception models, have proposed that there could be reasons to support a distinct relationship between religiosity and disgust sensitivity. These reasons relate to the intuitive pursuit of spiritual purity and the non-secular transcendental emotional-reward value of moral behaviour for religious individuals. In the present manuscript, we conducted the first dedicated meta-analytic review between religiosity and disgust sensitivity. We analysed a summary of forty-seven experimental outcomes, including 48,971 participants. Our analysis revealed a significant positive association (r = .25) between religiosity and disgust sensitivity. This outcome suggests that sensitivity to disgust could have distinct spiritual purity and moral self-regulatory response value for religious individuals

    “The many faces of sorrow”: An empirical exploration of the psychological plurality of sadness

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    Sadness has typically been associated with failure, defeat and loss, but it has also been suggested that sadness facilitates positive and restructuring emotional changes. This suggests that sadness is a multi-faceted emotion. This supports the idea that there might in fact be different facets of sadness that can be distinguished psychologically and physiologically. In the current set of studies, we explored this hypothesis. In a first stage, participants were asked to select sad emotional faces and scene stimuli either characterized or not by a key suggested sadness-related characteristic: loneliness or melancholy or misery or bereavement or despair. In a second stage, another set of participants was presented with the selected emotional faces and scene stimuli. They were assessed for differences in emotional, physiological and facial-expressive responses. The results showed that sad faces involving melancholy, misery, bereavement and despair were experienced as conferring dissociable physiological characteristics. Critical findings, in a final exploratory design, in a third stage, showed that a new set of participants could match emotional scenes to emotional faces with the same sadness-related characteristic with close to perfect precision performance. These findings suggest that melancholy, misery, bereavement and despair can be distinguishable emotional states associated with sadness

    “Speak of the Devil
 and he Shall Appear”: Religiosity, Unconsciousness and the Effects of Explicit Priming in the Misperception of Immorality

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    Psychological theory and research suggest that religious individuals could have differences in sensitivity to immoral behaviors and cognition compared to non-religious individual. This effect could occur due to perceptual and physiological differences that religious and non-religious individuals experience when processing and responding to immoral stimuli. In this manuscript we employ masking to test this hypothesis. We run a series of experiments to explore whether religiosity could involve higher perceptual and physiological sensitivity to masked images relating to moral impropriety. We rate and pre-select IAPS images for moral impropriety. We present these images masked with and without negatively manipulating a pre-image moral label. We measure detection, moral discrimination, emotional and physiological responses. We found that religious participants experienced higher physiological and unbiased ROC perceptual sensitivity to masked images relating to moral impropriety when a negative moral label did not precede a masked image. When a negative moral label was presented, religious individuals experienced the interval following the label as more physiologically arousing and responded with lower specificity for discrimination. We suggest that religiosity could involve higher conscious perceptual and physiological sensitivity to morally improper stimuli but also higher susceptibility to moral classification

    “There Is No (Where a) Face Like Home”: Recognition and Appraisal Responses to Masked Facial Dialects of Emotion in Four Different National Cultures

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    The theory of universal emotions suggests that certain emotions such as fear, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise and happiness can be encountered cross-culturally. These emotions are expressed using specific facial movements that enable human communication. More recently, theoretical and empirical models have been used to propose that universal emotions could be expressed via discretely different facial movements in different cultures due to the non-convergent social evolution that takes place in different geographical areas. This has prompted the consideration that own-culture emotional faces have distinct evolutionary important sociobiological value and can be processed automatically, and without conscious awareness. In this paper, we tested this hypothesis using backward masking. We showed, in two different experiments per country of origin, to participants in Britain, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, backward masked own and other-culture emotional faces. We assessed detection and recognition performance, and self-reports for emotionality and familiarity. We presented thorough cross-cultural experimental evidence that when using Bayesian assessment of non-parametric receiver operating characteristics and hit-versus-miss detection and recognition response analyses, masked faces showing own cultural dialects of emotion were rated higher for emotionality and familiarity compared to other-culture emotional faces and that this effect involved conscious awareness

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: the appraisal of facial attractiveness and its relation to conscious awareness

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    Previous research suggests that facial attractiveness relies on features such as symmetry, averageness and above-average sexual dimorphic characteristics. Due to the evolutionary and sociobiological value of these characteristics, it has been suggested that attractiveness can be processed in the absence of conscious awareness. This raises the possibility that attractiveness can also be appraised without conscious awareness. In the present study, we addressed this hypothesis. We presented neutral and emotional faces that were rated high, medium and low for attractiveness during a pilot experimental stage. We presented these faces for 33.33 ms with backwards masking to a black and white pattern for 116.67 ms and measured face-detection and emotion-discrimination performance, and attractiveness ratings. We found that high-attractiveness faces were detected and discriminated more accurately and rated higher for attractiveness compared to other appearance types. A Bayesian analysis of signal detection performance indicated that faces were not processed significantly at-chance. Further assessment revealed that correct detection (hits) of a presented face was a necessary condition for reporting higher ratings for high-attractiveness faces. These findings suggest that the appraisal of attractiveness requires conscious awareness

    Unbiased Individual Unconsciousness: Rationale, Replication and Developing Applications

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    Unbiased individual unconsciousness is a methodology that employs non-parametric receiver operating characteristics and Bayesian analyses to provide estimations for thresholds for subjective visual suppression. It can enable a researcher to define among brief durations (e.g., 8.33 or 16.67 or 25 ms), per participant and elicitor type, the threshold of presentation for which each participant is individually unconscious during masking. The outcomes of this method are then used in a subsequent experimental session that involves psychophysiological assessments and participant ratings to explore evidence for unconscious processing and emotional responsivity. Following collegial requests for a dedicated manuscript on the rationale and replication of this method, in this manuscript, we provide a thorough, comprehensive and reader-friendly tutorial-guide. We include empirical illustrations, open-source and ready-to-use methodological, mathematical and statistical coding scripts and step-by-step instructions for replicating this methodology. We discuss the potential contributions and the developing applications of individual unconsciousness in topical research

    Unbiased individual unconsciousness: Rationale, replication and developing applications

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    Unbiased individual unconsciousness is a methodology that involves non-parametric receiver operating characteristics and Bayesian analyses and can enable a researcher to define subjective thresholds for visual suppression. It can enable a researcher to define among brief durations (e.g., 8.33 or 16.67 or 25 ms), per participant and elicitor type, the threshold of presentation for which each participant is individually unconscious during masking. The outcomes of this method are then used in a subsequent experimental session that involves psychophysiological assessments and participant ratings to explore evidence for unconscious processing and emotional responsivity. Following collegial requests for a dedicated manuscript on the rationale and replication of this method, in this manuscript, we provide a thorough, comprehensive and reader-friendly manual for this methodology. We include empirical illustrations, open-source and ready-to-use methodological, mathematical and statistical coding scripts and step-by-step instructions for replicating key parts or the entire method. We discuss the potential contributions and the developing applications of individual metrics for unconsciousness

    “Conscious Researchers in Unconscious Research”: A Motivational Revisit of Issues, Resolutions, and Applied Awareness in Backward Masking using Faces

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    In this manuscript, we provide a discourse of issues and resolutions that we should be conscious of when doing research in the unconscious using backward masking of faces. First, we revisit subjects that are contributing for understanding the unconscious as a concept. These involve historical episodes and early episodes of controversial experimentation. Subsequently, we revisit and discuss topical concepts, such as the metrics and the statistical analyses applied for assessing perception during backward masking. We proceed to discussing novel and developing issues relating to masked visual processing and contemporary psychophysics. We empirically illustrate how these issues bias experimental research. We present and empirically illustrate resolutions for these issues, such as the application of signal detection theory metrics, Bayesian analysis and advances in the psychophysics of masked presentations using faces. We assess whether and the extent to which we are truly conscious of established and known, and novel and developing issues and resolutions. We make use of backward masking as a rally point to emphasize the importance of conscious scholarly and methodological awareness for undertaking and advancing research in the unconscious
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