Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, United States.
Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, United States; Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, United States.
Conscious Cogn. 2018 Jul;62:9-20. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2018.04.007. Epub 2018 Apr 27.
Percepts and urges often enter consciousness involuntarily. The Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT) reveals how high-level cognitions, too, can enter consciousness involuntarily. In the task, the eliciting stimuli are visual (e.g., picture of a cat), and the involuntary imagery is verbal (e.g., the subvocalization "cat"). The generalizability of the RIT effect has been questioned because verbal imagery is an easily elicited form of imagery. Do such effects arise for other kinds of imagery? It is known that imagery is more elicitable in some senses (e.g., vision) than in other senses (e.g., olfaction). We found such differences in an RIT in which food items were presented as orthographic stimuli or as drawings. Although subjects were instructed to suppress mental imagery, involuntary imagery still arose: Olfactory (effect in ∼40% of trials), taste (∼54%), touch (∼60%), and visual/auditory (∼79%). Of theoretical import, effects were comparable when the eliciting stimuli were orthographs or visual objects.
知觉和冲动常常无意识地进入意识。反射意象任务（RIT）揭示了高级认知也可以无意识地进入意识。在任务中，诱发刺激是视觉的（例如，猫的图片），而无意识的意象是言语的（例如，下意识的“猫”）。RIT 效应的普遍性一直受到质疑，因为言语意象是一种容易引发的意象形式。其他类型的意象是否会产生这种效果？众所周知，在某些感觉（例如视觉）中，意象比其他感觉（例如嗅觉）更容易引发。我们在 RIT 中发现了这样的差异，其中食物以正字法刺激或图画呈现。尽管受试者被指示抑制心理意象，但无意识的意象仍然出现：嗅觉（在大约 40%的试验中）、味觉（大约 54%）、触觉（大约 60%）和视觉/听觉（大约 79%）。具有理论意义的是，当诱发刺激是正字法或视觉物体时，效果是可比的。
