Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, United States of America.
Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, United States of America; Neuroscape, Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, United States of America.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2023 Jun;236:103922. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103922. Epub 2023 May 9.
A recurring idea in psychology is that one is conscious only of the "outputs" of mental operations, but not of the operations themselves. Often, such "entry into consciousness" occurs involuntarily. To investigate involuntary entry, some experimentalists have used the reflexive imagery task (RIT). The RIT has revealed that, under certain conditions, external stimuli (e.g., line drawings) can elicit involuntary entry of high-level cognitions. In the basic version of the task, participants are presented with visual objects and instructed not to subvocalize (i.e., say in one's head) the names of these objects. Participants cannot suppress these subvocalizations on a majority of the trials. It has been proposed that, if RIT effects resemble a reflex, then perhaps they will habituate as reflexes do. In the "habituation" variant of the RIT, the same stimulus object (e.g., CAT) is presented on ten consecutive trials (ten "instantiations"), in order to induce habituation (i.e., a weakened RIT effect). It remains unknown whether such habituation effects arise for stimulus-elicited processes that depend, not on subvocalization, but on more complex processes, such as mental arithmetic. To illuminate this issue, we conducted a conceptual replication of the "habituation" RIT that involves, on each trial, the participant trying not to add two numbers (e.g., 14 and 2). We assessed whether the habituation effects were stimulus-specific or set-specific. Understanding the boundary conditions of the RIT effect and its habituation illuminates the limits of unconscious processes and the role of conscious processing.
心理学中的一个反复出现的观点是，人们只意识到心理运算的“输出”，而不是运算本身。通常，这种“进入意识”是无意识发生的。为了研究无意识的进入，一些实验者使用了内省意象任务（RIT）。RIT 揭示了，在某些条件下，外部刺激（例如，线条画）可以引起高级认知的无意识进入。在任务的基本版本中，参与者会看到视觉对象，并被指示不要在头脑中说出这些对象的名称。在大多数试验中，参与者无法抑制这些在头脑中说出的声音。有人提出，如果 RIT 效应类似于反射，那么它们可能会像反射一样习惯化。在 RIT 的“习惯化”变体中，同一个刺激对象（例如，CAT）会在连续的十次试验中呈现（十个“实例”），以诱导习惯化（即 RIT 效应减弱）。目前还不清楚这种习惯化效应是否会出现在依赖于非言语化但依赖于更复杂过程（如心算）的刺激引发的过程中。为了阐明这个问题，我们对涉及参与者试图不将两个数字相加（例如 14 和 2）的“习惯化”RIT 进行了概念复制。我们评估了习惯化效应是刺激特异性的还是特定于设定的。理解 RIT 效应及其习惯化的边界条件可以阐明无意识过程的限制和意识加工的作用。
