Subliminal Spatial Cues in Lack of Cognitive Control

Psychology Research Rahnev, D. A., Huang, E., Lau, H. (2012). Subliminal stimuli in the near absence of attention influence top-down cognitive control. Atten Percept Psychophys (2012) 74:521-532 This particular research article is purposed to show that there is the possibility of preparing cognitive control devoid of laying emphasis on top-down attention. This particular study undertook four different experiments, but the main hypothesis of the study is that subliminal stimuli outside of the focus of attention can influence higher-order cognitive functions. The method of the research study included four different experiments.

The participants of the first experiment included twenty one undergraduate students, all from the University of Columbia, aged between 18-30 years. Ten of them were men and the rest were women. The second experiment included 4 men and 6 women between 18 -27 years. For the third experiment, there were nine students; five of them women and the rest men aged between 18-30 years. The last experiment included 9 students; three of them women and six of them men between the ages 20 and 39 years. For every hour of involvement, they were reimbursed 10 dollars.

All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision, and had signed up an informed consent declaration. Some of the materials used in the study include: circles, a computer monitor, Psychophysics Toolbox and MATLAB software. In each of the experiments, the participants were requested to focus on the movement of the general motion of the dots in the cued disregard, and to neglect and ignore the motion in the uncued diagonal.

The methods of the study encompassed investigating the impact of subliminal stimuli on greater cognitive processes in the proximate nonexistence of spatial attention. The results of the study showed that moving of the dates, which translates to external stimuli originating from the attentive focus, could impact task groundwork and implementation, one of the utmost sorts of cognitive control acknowledged to rely on the prefrontal cortex. One of the limitations I have observed and that could possibly impact the results of the study is the change of the different participants.

This lack of consistency can have an effect in the results obtained. In accordance to the authors, the limitation perceived lack of spatial attention for the uncued stimuli in our experiment. They considered the uncued stimuli to be weak and unrelated to the study and therefore neglected them. In conclusion, the take home message from this experiment is that immaterial motion patches existing in the uncued spatial locations also impacted task performance. Article 2: Mulckhuyse, M., Talsma, D., Theeuwes, J. (2007).

Grabbing attention without knowing: Automatic capture of attention by subliminal spatial cues. Visual Cognition, 15 (7), 779-788 This particular study is purposed to ascertain whether it is conceivable to attain signaling effects in an undertaking, in which, the unconsciously supposed cue seizes attention in a bottom-up fashion. The hypothesis of this particular study was that the cue would not be perceived consciously The research study included 16 paid volunteers whose ages ranged from 18 years to 24 years.

One of the generalizations is that all of these participants had normal vision or corrected to normal vision. Some of the materials used in the study included an E-Prime software, which was employed for the recording of data and the presentation of stimuli. This presentation was done on a 19" monitor with a personal computer that had a 1024 x 768 resolution, and set on a grey background.

In the method, the participants were placed 0.17 meters away from the screen of the PC, with chinrest head position, and were required to continue being fixated at the center of the screen. Once the target was detected, the participants had to press the space bar. Every trial came to a conclusion once a reaction was given. With regard to the cue report task, the results of the study indicated that all participants presented a subjective report, subsequently, regarding not having the ability to perceive the cue.

Owing to the binomial tests undertaken, results showed that there was no participant who had a significant score that was above the chance level. On the other hand, for the subliminal cueing task, comparisons of ANOVA for SOA and cue validity measures indicated a facilitation effect at the short SOA, and also that detection tomes were faster on the cued location in.