Dehaene S, Naccache L, Le Clec'H G, Koechlin E, Mueller M, Dehaene-Lambertz G, van de Moortele P F, Le Bihan D
INSERM U.334, Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot, CEA/DRM/DSV, Orsay, France.
Nature. 1998 Oct 8;395(6702):597-600. doi: 10.1038/26967.
Visual words that are masked and presented so briefly that they cannot be seen may nevertheless facilitate the subsequent processing of related words, a phenomenon called masked priming. It has been debated whether masked primes can activate cognitive processes without gaining access to consciousness. Here we use a combination of behavioural and brain-imaging techniques to estimate the depth of processing of masked numerical primes. Our results indicate that masked stimuli have a measurable influence on electrical and haemodynamic measures of brain activity. When subjects engage in an overt semantic comparison task with a clearly visible target numeral, measures of covert motor activity indicate that they also unconsciously apply the task instructions to an unseen masked numeral. A stream of perceptual, semantic and motor processes can therefore occur without awareness.
被遮蔽且呈现时间极短以至于无法看见的视觉词汇，仍可能促进后续相关词汇的加工，这一现象被称为掩蔽启动效应。对于掩蔽启动刺激能否在未进入意识的情况下激活认知过程，一直存在争议。在此，我们运用行为学和脑成像技术相结合的方法，来评估掩蔽数字启动刺激的加工深度。我们的结果表明，掩蔽刺激对大脑活动的电生理和血液动力学指标有可测量的影响。当受试者对一个清晰可见的目标数字进行公开的语义比较任务时，隐蔽运动活动指标表明，他们也会在无意识中将任务指令应用于一个不可见的掩蔽数字。因此，一系列感知、语义和运动过程可以在无意识状态下发生。
