Phonological Ambiguity Detection Outside of Consciousness and Its Defensive Avoidance.

Freud proposes that in unconscious processing, logical connections are also (heavily) based upon phonological similarities. Repressed concerns, for example, would also be expressed by way of phonologic ambiguity. In order to investigate a possible unconscious influence of phonological similarity, 31 participants were submitted to a tachistoscopic subliminal priming experiment, with prime and target presented at 1 ms.

Processing of a Subliminal Rebus during Sleep: Idiosyncratic Primary versus Secondary Process Associations upon Awakening from REM- versus Non-REM-Sleep.

Primary and secondary processes are the foundational axes of the Freudian mental apparatus: one horizontally as a tendency to associate, the primary process, and one vertically as the ability for perspective taking, the secondary process. Primary process mentation is not only supposed to be dominant in the unconscious but also, for example, in dreams. The present study tests the hypothesis that the mental activity during REM-sleep has more characteristics of the primary process, while during non-REM-sleep more secondary process operations take place.

P3b, consciousness, and complex unconscious processing.

How can perceptual consciousness be indexed in humans? Recent work with ERPs suggests that P3b, a relatively late component, may be a neural correlate of consciousness (NCC). This proposal dovetails with currently prevailing cognitive theory regarding the nature of conscious versus unconscious processes, which holds that the latter are simple and very brief, whereas consciousness is ostensibly required for more durable, complex cognitive processing. Using a P3b oddball paradigm, we instead show that P3b and even later, related slow wave activity occur under rigorously subliminal conditions.

Extremely rigorous subliminal paradigms demonstrate unconscious influences on simple decisions.

While showing unconscious influences on complex decisions is indeed difficult, relevant awareness in relatively simpler subliminal paradigms is more easily assessed. Utilizing objective detection (vs. more typical identification or classification) tasks to assess awareness overcomes longstanding residual methodological problems, and prior work using such methods (e.

Subliminal unconscious conflict alpha power inhibits supraliminal conscious symptom experience.

Our approach is based on a tri-partite method of integrating psychodynamic hypotheses, cognitive subliminal processes, and psychophysiological alpha power measures. We present ten social phobic subjects with three individually selected groups of words representing unconscious conflict, conscious symptom experience, and Osgood Semantic negative valence words used as a control word group. The unconscious conflict and conscious symptom words, presented subliminally and supraliminally, act as primes preceding the conscious symptom and control words presented as supraliminal targets.

Subliminal affect valence words change conscious mood potency but not valence: is this evidence for unconscious valence affect?

Whether or not affect can be unconscious remains controversial. Research claiming to demonstrate unconscious affect fails to establish clearly unconscious stimulus conditions. The few investigations that have established unconscious conditions fail to rule out conscious affect changes.

Anxiety, attributional thinking,and the primary process.

In earlier publications, experimental evidence was provided for the existence of the primary vs. secondary process mental organization posited by Freud. A well-established cognitive categorization test based on attributional and relational similarity was found to map on to primary and secondary principles of mental organization respectively, thus offering the opportunity to test hypotheses drawn from psychoanalytic theory independent of the clinical situation.

Unconscious inhibition and facilitation at the objective detection threshold: replicable and qualitatively different unconscious perceptual effects.

Although the veridicality of unconscious perception is increasingly accepted, core issues remain unresolved [Jack, A., & Shallice, T. (2001).

Unconscious perception: a model-based approach to method and evidence.

Unconscious perceptual effects remain controversial because it is hard to rule out alternative conscious perception explanations for them. We present a novel methodological framework, stressing the centrality of specifying the single-process conscious perception model (i.e.

Characterization of event related potentials using information theoretic distance measures.

Analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs) using signal processing tools has become extremely widespread in recent years. Nonstationary signal processing tools such as wavelets and time-frequency distributions have proven to be especially effective in characterizing the transient phenomena encountered in event-related potentials. In this paper, we focus on the analysis of event-related potentials collected during a psychological experiment where two groups of subjects, spider phobics and snake phobics, are shown the same set of stimulus: A blank stimulus, a neutral stimulus and a spider stimulus.

A temporal dissociation of subliminal versus supraliminal fear perception: an event-related potential study.

Current theories of emotion suggest that threat-related stimuli are first processed via an automatically engaged neural mechanism, which occurs outside conscious awareness. This mechanism operates in conjunction with a slower and more comprehensive process that allows a detailed evaluation of the potentially harmful stimulus (LeDoux, 1998). We drew on the Halgren and Marinkovic (1995) model to examine these processes using event-related potentials (ERPs) within a backward masking paradigm.

The priority of primary process categorizing: experimental evidence supporting a psychoanalytic developmental hypothesis.

Earlier work has provided experimental evidence for the existence of the primary and secondary process mental organization posited by Freud and has demonstrated that primary process effects are the more active unconsciously (Brakel et al. 2000). Primary and secondary processes were assessed by a categorization test in which qualitatively different principles could be used.

A neural correlate of consciousness related to repression.

In previous research Libet (1966) discovered that a critical time period for neural activation is necessary in order for a stimulus to become conscious. This necessary time period varies from subject to subject. In this current study, six subjects for whom the time for neural activation of consciousness had been previously determined were administered a battery of psychological tests on the basis of which ratings were made of degree of repressiveness.