TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2012//
TI  - Unconscious priming of task sets: The role of spatial attention
JO  - Attention, perception and psychophysics
A1  - Zhou, Fanzhi Anita
A1  - Davis, Greg
SP  - 105
EP  - 114
VL  - 74
IS  - 1
N2  - Unconscious stimuli activate task sets, mental programs that orchestrate performance of complex tasks, but the role of attention in such effects has not been addressed. In previous studies, unconscious prime stimuli appeared at attended locations and were explicitly specified in the task instructions; spatial attention to the prime and/or a specific conscious attentional set may thus be required for such unconscious activation to arise. In the present experiments, a learning phase established associations between unconscious prime stimuli and performance of two tasks. These associations influenced task performance in a subsequent test phase, even though the primes were not specified in current task instructions. This is the first demonstration that unconscious stimuli can prime task sets independently of a current attentional set that specifies stimulus-task mappings. Such priming was not influenced by spatial attention cues, in contrast to clear attention influences in comparison trials that mimicked conditions employed by previous studies.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1943-3921
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-011-0221-8
ID  - ref1
ER  -