Unconscious influence over executive control

: conflict adaptation through chromatic flicker fusion

Abstract

Executive control and its modulation over attentional mechanisms allow us to detect and adapt to conflicting information. Recently, given the number of studies suggesting a less limited role of unconsciously perceived information, researchers have been debating whether conflict detection and adaptation are possible in the absence of awareness. So far, the literature is not consensual regarding such possibility. With particular relevance, a study by Wu and colleagues (2015), replaced the more usual suppression technique – masked priming – with an interocular suppression technique, with the results showing a total absence of any impact by suppressed information.Through a typical Flanker Task, and using Chromatic Flicker Fusion as a suppression technique, a more adequate technique for processes associated with executive control, we assessed conflict derived from masked flankers (and visible flankers, i.e., with no CFF suppression). In addition, by providing blocks with different proportions of congruent to incongruent trials, we accounted for possible adaptation effects. Our results showed that, in the visible condition, the expected conflict pattern and adaptation effects were observed, but the same was not found in the masked condition, where flankers did not manage to evoke a clear conflict pattern in performance. Although some effects were seen in this latter condition, they were interpreted as possibly resulting from a low-level processing (i.e., a more basic processing). Hence, the overall results are similar to those found in Wu and colleagues’ (2015) study, helping to support earlier theories regarding the inherent limitations of unconsciously perceived information.

Date of Award	17 Apr 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Sandra C. Soares (Supervisor)