Department of Psychology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
Department of Psychology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China; Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, USA.
Conscious Cogn. 2024 Mar;119:103670. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2024.103670. Epub 2024 Feb 28.
The debate over the independence of attention and consciousness is ongoing. Prior studies have established that invisible spatial cues can direct attention. However, our exploration extends beyond spatial dimensions to temporal information as a potent guide for attention. A intriguing question arises: Can unconscious temporal cues trigger attentional orienting? To investigate, we employed a modified reaction-time task in Experiments 1 and 2, using Gabor stimuli or human facial stimuli as temporal cues rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression. We aimed to uncover temporal expectation effects (TE effects) without conscious awareness. Moreover, Experiments 3 and 4 probed the boundaries of this unconscious processing, assessing whether conscious temporal cues could modulate TE effects. Our results confirm that invisible temporal cues can induce TE effects, and these effects can be overridden by conscious temporal cues. This dissociation between temporal attention and consciousness provide a new perspective on our understanding of their relationship.
关于注意和意识的独立性的争论仍在继续。先前的研究已经证实，不可见的空间线索可以引导注意力。然而，我们的探索超越了空间维度，将时间信息作为注意力的有力引导。一个有趣的问题出现了：无意识的时间线索能否引发注意定向？为了研究这个问题，我们在实验 1 和实验 2 中使用了改良的反应时任务，使用 Gabor 刺激或人类面部刺激作为时间线索，通过连续闪光抑制使其变得不可见。我们旨在揭示没有意识觉察的时间预期效应（TE 效应）。此外，实验 3 和实验 4 探究了这种无意识处理的边界，评估有意识的时间线索是否可以调节 TE 效应。我们的结果证实，不可见的时间线索可以引起 TE 效应，并且这些效应可以被有意识的时间线索所覆盖。这种时间注意和意识之间的分离为我们理解它们之间的关系提供了一个新的视角。
