Affect of the unconscious: visually suppressed angry faces modulate our decisions.

ABSTRACT: Emotional and affective processing imposes itself over cognitive processes and modulates our perception of the surrounding environment. In two experiments, we addressed the issue of whether nonconscious processing of affect can take place even under deep states of unawareness, such as those induced by interocular suppression techniques, and can elicit an affective response that can influence our understanding of the surrounding environment. In Experiment 1, participants judged the likeability of an unfamiliar item--a Chinese character--that was preceded by a face expressing a particular emotion (either happy or angry). The face was rendered invisible through an interocular suppression technique (continuous flash suppression; CFS). In Experiment 2, backward masking (BM), a less robust maski

SUBMITTER: Almeida J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4752568 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature