Biafora Melanie, Schmidt Thomas
Center for Cognitive Science, Experimental Psychology Unit, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Str. Geb. 57, 67663, Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2020 Jun;82(3):1333-1354. doi: 10.3758/s13414-019-01822-4.
We present a new experimental technique to induce dissociations between the visibility of a masked prime and its ability to induce a priming effect in response times. In three experiments, we systematically couple an independent variable known to influence the priming effect (prime-mask SOA) with a variable expected to influence prime visibility but not priming (mask contrast). This way, we create mask-contrast functions where mask contrast either increases with SOA, decreases, or remains constant at maximum or minimum levels. We show that different mask-contrast functions can lead to qualitatively different time courses of masking without affecting the time course of priming, allowing for double dissociations (e.g., increasing priming effects under decreasing prime visibility). For the first time, we demonstrate such double dissociations for response priming by color as well as shape stimuli. We also show that the technique requires stimuli that decouple the mask's ability to mask the prime from its ability to activate the response. We conclude that mask-contrast functions can accentuate or even induce dissociations between priming and masking, opening new possibilities for studying perception without awareness.
我们提出了一种新的实验技术，用于在掩蔽启动刺激的可见性与其在反应时间上诱发启动效应的能力之间诱导分离。在三个实验中，我们系统地将一个已知会影响启动效应的自变量（启动刺激 - 掩蔽刺激的刺激呈现间隔）与一个预期会影响启动刺激可见性但不影响启动效应的变量（掩蔽对比度）相结合。通过这种方式，我们创建了掩蔽对比度函数，其中掩蔽对比度要么随刺激呈现间隔增加，要么减少，要么在最大或最小水平保持不变。我们表明，不同的掩蔽对比度函数可以导致在不影响启动效应时间进程的情况下，掩蔽的时间进程在性质上有所不同，从而实现双重分离（例如，在启动刺激可见性降低的情况下增加启动效应）。我们首次通过颜色和形状刺激证明了这种针对反应启动的双重分离。我们还表明，该技术需要刺激能够将掩蔽刺激掩蔽启动刺激的能力与其激活反应的能力分离开来。我们得出结论，掩蔽对比度函数可以突出甚至诱导启动效应和掩蔽之间的分离，为无意识感知的研究开辟了新的可能性。
