Unconscious prioritization for face-to-face people.
Yingtao Fu, Mei Zhou, Jifan Zhou, Mowei Shen, Hui Chen
Journal of experimental psychology. General May 1, 2024 DOI: 10.1037/xge0001556 via PubMed
Summary
Facing pairs of human heads gain privileged access to conscious awareness compared to nonfacing pairs, even when presented outside awareness. Eleven experiments using a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm showed that two human faces facing each other broke into awareness faster than nonfacing pairs. This advantage could not be explained by low-level or mid-level visual features. Disrupting holistic processing of the two agents significantly reduced the facing advantage. The effect was specific to human agents and did not occur with daily objects, directional arrows, or nonhuman animals. These results suggest that social information, specifically the facingness between two individuals, can be integrated unconsciously and influences what reaches conscious awareness.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 4 |
| Key finding | Facing pairs of human heads gain privileged access to conscious awareness compared to nonfacing pairs, an effect specific to human agents and dependent on holistic processing. |
Abstract
One central question in the scientific and philosophical study of consciousness is regarding the scope of human consciousness. There is a lively debate as to whether high-level information integration is necessarily dependent on consciousness. This study presents a new form of unconscious integration based on the facingness between two individuals. Using a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm, Experiments 1-3 found that two facing human heads got a privilege in breaking into awareness compared to nonfacing pairs. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated that the breakthrough difference between facing and nonfacing pairs could not be attributed to low-level or mid-level factors. Experiments 6, 7a, and 7b showed that the unconscious priority of facing pairs was significantly diminished when the holistic processing of the two agents was disrupted. Experiments 8-11 demonstrated that the advantage of facing pairs was only observable for human agents and not for daily objects, directional arrows, or nonhuman animals. These findings have critical implications for better understanding the scope of human consciousness and the origins of social vision. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).