Ulm University, Department of Psychiatry, Germany. Electronic address: http://www.uni-ulm.de/~mkiefer/.
Ulm University, Department of Psychiatry, Germany.
Cognition. 2019 Jun;187:62-77. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.02.013. Epub 2019 Mar 2.
In contrast to classical theories of cognitive control, recent evidence suggests that cognitive control and unconscious automatic processing influence each other. First, masked semantic priming, an index of unconscious automatic processing, depends on attention to semantics induced by a previously executed task. Second, cognitive control operations (e.g., implementation of task sets indicating how to process a particular stimulus) can be activated by masked task cues, presented outside awareness. In this study, we combined both lines of research. We investigated in three experiments whether induction tasks and presentation of visible or masked task cues, which signal subsequent semantic or perceptual tasks but do not require induction task execution, comparably modulate masked semantic priming. In line with previous research, priming was consistently larger following execution of a semantic rather than a perceptual induction task. However, we observed in experiment 1 (masked letter cues) a reversed priming pattern following task cues (larger priming following cues signaling perceptual tasks) compared to induction tasks. Experiment 2 (visible letter cues) and experiment 3 (visible color cues) showed that this reversed priming pattern depended only on apriori associations between task cues and task elements (task set dominance), but neither on awareness nor on the verbal or non-verbal format of the cues. These results indicate that task cues have the power to modulate subsequent masked semantic priming through attentional mechanisms. Task-set dominance conceivably affects the time course of task set activation and inhibition in response to task cues and thus the direction of their modulatory effects on priming.
与经典的认知控制理论相反，最近的证据表明认知控制和无意识的自动加工过程会相互影响。首先，掩蔽语义启动，一种无意识自动加工的指标，依赖于先前执行任务引起的对语义的注意。其次，认知控制操作（例如，执行指示如何处理特定刺激的任务集）可以通过掩蔽的任务线索来激活，这些线索在意识之外呈现。在这项研究中，我们结合了这两条研究线索。我们在三个实验中研究了诱导任务和呈现可见或掩蔽的任务线索是否会以类似的方式调节掩蔽语义启动，这些线索指示随后的语义或感知任务，但不需要执行诱导任务。与之前的研究一致，在执行语义而非感知诱导任务后，启动效应始终更大。然而，在实验 1（掩蔽字母线索）中，与诱导任务相比，我们观察到任务线索后出现了相反的启动模式（信号感知任务的线索后启动效应更大）。实验 2（可见字母线索）和实验 3（可见颜色线索）表明，这种相反的启动模式仅取决于任务线索和任务元素之间的先验关联（任务集优势），而与意识或线索的口头或非口头格式无关。这些结果表明，任务线索通过注意机制具有调节随后的掩蔽语义启动的能力。任务集优势可能会影响对任务线索的任务集激活和抑制的时间进程，从而影响它们对启动的调节效应的方向。
