Revisiting the neuroscientific evidence for unconscious perception - the implications of affordances theory and biased competition.
Acta psychologica June 20, 2025 Ivaylo Borislavov Iotchev, Hein Thomas van Schie 1 citation
The equivalence hypothesis claims that conscious and unconscious perception rely on the same brain areas. This paper argues that interpretation is incompatible with the biased competition model, where different interpretations of reality compete and one must be suppressed. In that framework, a representation is defined not only by active information but also by suppressed information. Currently, there is no evidence that primes can suppress alternative interpretations. Biased competition explains why primes often merely bias the agent rather than becoming real targets for behavior. The theoretical proposal awaits further empirical investigation.