STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
261
UNCONSCIOUS VISUAL PERCEPTION IN
THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS
Katarína KOŠÍKOVÁ1, Ľubor PILÁRIK2
1
2
Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
Dúbravská cesta 9, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
E-mail: [email protected]
Department of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Health Care
Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra
Kraskova 1, 949 74 Nitra, Slovak Republic
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: In this paper the authors deal with the idea of the influence of subliminal perception in
the process of decision making. They present the results of two experimental studies performed
on a sample of university students. The objective of the research was to investigate whether the
subliminal presentation of stimuli can influence preferences for the object under consideration
and its subsequent evaluation. This was followed by an assessment in 2 experimental conditions in
each experimental research study (1st with an object and 2nd with an object associated with a
positive facial expression). The results of the experimental studies showed neither change in
preferences nor change of evaluation of subliminally presented stimuli, in either of the experimental conditions. According to our results, unconscious perception does not affect the decision
making process and, specifically, does not have any effects on the selection of subliminally
presented stimuli from several options and on its subsequent evaluation.
Key words: unconscious perception, unconscious emotions, decision making, subliminal presentation
INTRODUCTION
The concept of unconscious perception
is connected with many myths. Perhaps the
best known is the study about subliminal
perception by James Vicary (in Merikle, 2000).
He claimed that during a 6-week period in
1957, 45 thousand viewers saw two advertising messages “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Eat
popcorn”, while they watched a film (this
presentation lasted 3 milliseconds). He stated
that the sales of popcorn rose 57.7% and the
sales of Coca-Cola rose 18.1%. However he
has never released technical details of his
study and it is obvious that this experiment
can be methodologically easily attacked because there was no control group and in 1962
Vicary himself stated that the original study
was a fabrication. This apparently had a
greater advertising impact than any form of
unconscious perception might have had.
Concepts of subliminal, unconscious or
default perception are used by some authors
as synonyms (e.g., Merikle, 2000), but sometimes subliminal perception is considered a
special case of unconscious perception. In
general, we can say that subliminal perception is the perception of such stimuli, whose
presence is unnoticed but which influence
thinking, feeling and our subsequent behavior. The stimulus in this case cannot be per-
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STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
ceived because its characteristics lie below
the level of absolute threshold (very short
and weak stimuli) or differentiation (in comparison of two very similar stimuli) threshold of perception (Špok, 2007a).
Unconscious perception is one of the oldest and most controversial themes of experimental psychology. The history of investigation goes back to the 18th century. The first
research studies have attempted to prove the
existence of unconscious perception by
demonstrating that a stimulus is perceived
unconsciously when the subject is not aware
of perceiving it. This method worked with
the absence of conscious perception, where
inferences concerning the absence of awareness were based on the subject’s introspective reports (Merikle, Daneman, 1998). Later,
the researchers focused on the behavioral
measure of the awareness of the stimulus
(Balota, 1983; Fowler et al., 1981; McCauley
et al., 1980). These research studies were
based on the assumption that the inability
to distinguish similar stimuli suggests a complete absence of conscious perception. An
example of a behavioral measure is the study
of Kunst-Wilson and Zajonc (1980), in which
they tried to prove the influence of unconscious perception of stimulus on affective
reactions. Insignificant, irregular geometric
shapes were presented to participants for
1 msec. After the presentation, the perception of the stimuli was evaluated in two different ways: forced choice of recognition
(measure of the awareness of the stimulus)
and forced choice of preference (measure of
the unconscious perception).
Very often the observed phenomenon at
present is the effect of a mere exposure, represented by the study of R.B. Zajonc. Zajonc
(2001) mentioned that when 5 subliminal pictures are presented to the first group for 5
times each (together 25 times) and 1 subliminal picture is presented 25 times to the second group, it leads not only to significantly
more positive evaluation of this picture in
the second group, but also to better mood
and subjective feeling in this group after the
presentation. The most common methodology in examining unconscious perception is
the dissociation paradigm - the paradigm of
direct and indirect effect (e.g., Dell’Acqua,
Grainger, 1999; Draine, Greenwald, 1998;
Merikle, Reingold, 1991; Merikle, Reingold,
1998; Debner, Jacoby, 1994). This method
requires the use of two tasks: first one, which
demonstrates the absence of direct effect
(identification of semantic and structural
identity of stimulus) and second, which confirms the presence of indirect effect (effect,
which is the result of stimulus processing).
The direct effect tasks include, for example,
the method of detection, recognition, forced
choice and free statement. The tests which
verify indirect effect include, for example, the
preference test or fragment completion task
(Špok, 2007b; Merikle, Reingold, 1998).
Zajonc (2000) claims that unconscious
emotions are characterized by the following
signs:
1) they are caused by an unconscious
event, such as for example subliminal stimulus,
2) unconsciously caused affect is perceived as diffuse.
Several studies have proven the existence
of unconscious emotions. One of the first
studies was the study of Kunst-Wilson and
Zajonc (1980), in which they proved that
repeated exposure to a stimulus increases
the feeling that participants like the stimulus without realizing that they had been
exposed to it several times. Similarly, the
results of Murphy and Zajonc’s (1993) stud-
STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
ies state that subliminally presented affective stimulus (happy and angry facial expressions) can unconsciously influence the
evaluation of the stimulus given after subliminal priming. Unconscious emotions were
also recognized in clinical studies, in freefloating anxiety, for which it is typical that
a person is not aware of the origin of this
feeling (Zajonc, 2000). Kihlstrom et al.
(2000) characterize unconscious emotions
as those to which the change of ideas or
behavior is attributed and which are responsible for the emotional state, independent
of the person’s awareness.
Emotions enter the process of decision
making and without them the decision would
take a long time or the deciding person might
not find the right choice. Damasio (2000)
found, that patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage (connected with emotions) could not make the right decision, consider alternatives and choose one of them.
Findings of Damasio clearly point to the fact
that emotions are part of the decision making process and they are necessary to make
the decision choice itself. Many other studies even show a link between emotional intelligence and decision making process (e.g.,
Pilárik, Sarmány-Schuller, 2009; Pilárik,
Sarmány- Schuller, 2011; Avsec, 2012) as well
as a relation of decision making process and
analytical-intuitive style of decision making
(e.g., Sarmány-Schuller, 2010; SarmánySchuller, Kuračka, 2012).
Murphy and Zajonc (1993) in their study
examined whether the evaluation and preference for an object can be influenced by previous subliminal presentation of emotional
stimuli. They told participants that pictures
of Chinese ideograph, which should be evaluated on a 5-point scale, will be presented to
them. In the experimental group, presenta-
263
tion also included subliminal pictures of facial emotional expressions (smiling and
frowning face). The conclusion of the study
is that participants who were exposed to priming with positive facial expressions evaluated the ideographs significantly more positively than the control group.
Winkielman, Berridge and Wilbarger (2005)
in their work examined the influence of subliminally presented affective facial expressions (happy and angry) on consumer behavior and product evaluation. They found,
that subliminally presented pictures of positive facial expressions raised the participants’
consumer behavior and resulted in more positive evaluation of the product.
The common denominator of these research studies was using facial expressions
to induce emotional feeling on the subliminal level and to influence the participant’s
behavior. Participants also evaluated an object submitted by the researchers. It means
that previous research studies did not include selection from several alternatives.
The aim of this study was to find whether
and how can:
1) subliminally presented stimulus influence selection of this stimulus from other
offered alternatives and its subsequent
evaluation
2) subliminally presented emotionally accentuated stimulus, which is associated with
a concrete object, influence the selection of
this stimulus from many offered alternatives
and its subsequent evaluation.
EXPERIMENT 1
Participants
Our participants were 34 students from different types of universities (students of law,
264
STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
informatics, teaching, chemistry, pharmacy,
archaeology, energetics, journalism, ethnology, environmental studies and sociology)
from different regions of the Slovak Republic. The age range was 20-25 years. Mean
age and distribution based on gender is
listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Distribution and mean age of research group the 1st experiment
Gender
Women
Men
n
17
17
Mean age
22.2
23.8
Measures and Instruments
To detect the choices within the decision
making process we used an indirect effect
test of unconscious perception - The preference test. In this test participants had to classify four different colorful mugs according
to their own preference (1 = the most preferred, 4 = the least preferred). Subsequently
we measured the evaluation of the selected
object using three tasks:
“Evaluate the selected object on a scale
from 0-100.”
“Would you buy the selected object?”- with
the possibilities yes/no
If the participant answered yes, there was
a follow up question:
“How much would you pay for this object
(in euro)?”
At the same time, we used the direct effect
test, which was used to detect whether the
participant saw the subliminally presented
subject. In the forced choice test, the participant had to choose from different objects (in
experimental situation 1) and different facial
expressions (experimental situation 2), where
one of them was subliminally presented and
the others were semantically or structurally
similar.
Procedure
The experimental plan had an inner subject design, which was created from three
situations: 1) a presentation of subliminally
presented object, 2) a presentation of subliminally presented object associated with a
positive facial expression, and 3) a control
situation (without subliminally presented object).
Subliminally presented objects:
1) situation 1: pictures of a mug in four
different colors (yellow, red, blue and green),
2) situation 2: a picture of a smiling person
(four men and four women) holding a mug in
his/her hand.
In situation 1 in the middle of the screen
on the white field there was in the form of
cross displayed target for the period of 1000
milliseconds, which signalized beginning of
each test. Subsequently the picture of mug
in each color (yellow, blues, green and red)
was subliminally presented to participants
for period of 16 milliseconds. After presentation of the mug, there was so called mask.
The mask consisted of white field with a geometrical shape (circle, square, triangle and
rectangle) in the middle of the screen. The
geometrical shape was in the color of neutral
grey (hexadecimal color design: 666666,
R: 102, G: 102, B: 102) and was presented for
period of 2000 milliseconds. After each exposition there was a task, in which participants should determine which geometrical
shape they had seen. This task served as a
protective tool for the real focus of the experiment. The exposition of subliminal stimulus, mask and task for recognition of geometrical shape was repeated 16 times. Test
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STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
of forced choice was administrated after
these repetitions. Participant had to choose
from four different objects: (a mug- subliminally presented stimulus, a glass bottle, a
plate and a bowl). Subsequently the preference test was administrated and participants
were also asked to evaluate selected mug (in
a percentage as well as price) (Figure 1).
Situation 2 was different from the previous one because the colorful mug was associated with a picture of a person (man or
woman) expressing emotion of happiness.
To verify the absence of direct effect we used
the forced choice test, where the participants
had to choose one from three emotional facial expressions (happy, angry and neutral).
After this step the preference test and questions of objects’ evaluation were administrated to the participants (Figure 2).
Situation 3 was different from the previous two situations in the absence of subliminally presented objects.
Between each situation the participants
solved a puzzle (picture creation).
Direct effect test
Experimental situation 1
RED
Indirect effect test
target 1000 ms
sublimal stimul 16 ms
geom shape 2000 ms
BLUE
YELLOW
GREEN
RED
16 times
Figure 1. Graphical representation of experimental situation 1
Direct effect test
Experimental situation 2
BLUE
target 1000 ms
sublimal stimulus 16 ms
Indirect effect test
geom sha pe 2000 ms
BLUE
YELLOW
16 times
Figure 2. Graphical representation of experimental situation 2
GREEN
RED
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STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
RESULTS
In experimental situation 1 we tried to find
out whether there will be change of preference and evaluation of the object after its
subliminal presentation. We did not find statistically significant difference between
object’s evaluation before and after its
subliminal presentation (Z = 1.20, p > .10).
No change occurred in the percentage evaluation of the object (t(33) = 1.56, p > .10) or its
price (Z = .21, p. >10).
In experimental situation 2 we associated
the object with a positive facial expression
and we found that change occurred neither
in the object’s preference (Z = -.50, p > .10)
nor in the percentage evaluation (t(33) = .31,
p > .05) nor in the price evaluation of the
object (Z = 1.85, p > .05).
DISCUSSION
Our results of the first experiment show
that no change occurred in either the experimental situation, which means that participants did not choose subliminally presented
object more often than other objects, or in
the object’s evaluation after its subliminal
presentation. These findings are consistent
with the previous results of Švecová and
Sarmány-Schuller (2005), who have not confirmed the change in objects preference after
their subliminal presentation. The fact that a
change did not occur in the selection or
evaluation of the object can probably be attributed to an intervening variable, which is
the participants’ color preference. As our results provided new information and stimuli,
we decided to modify the experimental design and carry out experimental study 2. As
crucial seems to be the usage of the sublimi-
nal stimulus, which was a colorful mug. So in
our other study we used objects that were in
neutral colors (black-white, or shades of
grey), because we wanted to eliminate the
influence of color preference in the participants’ decision making process.
EXPERIMENT 2
Participants
Participants were 42 students from different types of universities (students of economics, informatics, teaching, geography,
marketing, finance, law, biology, nursery,
human resources, and sociology) from different regions of the Slovak Republic. The
age range was 20-25 years. Mean age and
distribution based on gender is listed in Table
2.
Table 2. Distribution and mean age of
research group the in 2nd experiment
Gender
Women
Men
n
17
25
Mean age
22.4
22.3
Measures and Instruments
To detect choices within the decision making process we used the indirect effect test
of unconscious perception - Preference test.
In this test the task of the participants was
to rank 8 objects. Four objects were presented subliminally (a mug, a vase, a bowl
and a bottle) and another four objects were
with subliminally presented objects that are
semantically or structurally similar (a flower
pot, a dish soap, a candlestick, a plate). Participants had to rank these objects in their
own preference (1 = the most preferred, 8 =
STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
the least preferred). The number of objects,
compared to the previous research, was
higher in order to reduce the percentage of
the object’s random selection. Subsequently,
we measured the evaluation of the selected
object using two tasks:
“Evaluate the selected object on a scale
from 0-100.”
“How much would you pay for this object
(in euro)?”
Free choice test - we used it to verify direct effect of subliminally presented stimulus. We asked participants whether they had
noticed any flashing of a picture during the
experiment and if yes they should write down
Experimental situation 1
what was in the picture. The instruction was:
“During the experiment, there was a flashing picture. Did you see what it was? If yes,
write down what you saw in the picture.”
Procedure
The experimental plan had an inner subject design, which was created from three
situations: 1) a presentation of subliminally
presented object, 2) a presentation of subliminally presented object associated with a
positive facial expression, and 3) a control
situation (without subliminally presented
object).
Direct effect test = free statement of participant
Indirect effect test
target 1000 ms
sublimal stimulus 16 ms
geom shape 2000 ms
16 times
Figure 3. Graphical representation of experimental situation 1
Experimental situation 2
Direct effect test = free statement of participant
Indirect effect test
target 1000 ms
sublimal stimulus 16 ms
267
geom shape 2000 ms
16 times
Figure 4. Graphical representation of experimental situation 2
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STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
Subliminally presented objects:
1) situation 1: pictures of four objects (a
mug, a vase, a bowl and a bottle) in grey
color (Figure 3);
2) situation 2: pictures of a smiling person
(four men and four women) holding one object in his/her hand shown in grey color (Figure 4).
The procedure of the experiment was the
same as in Experiment 1.
RESULTS
In experimental situation 1 we did not find
statistically significant difference between
the evaluation of the object before and after
its subliminal presentation (Z = -.07, p > .10).
There was no change in the percentage of
the object’s evaluation (Z = -.53, p > .10) or
its price evaluation (Z = -1.37, p > .10).
In experimental situation 2 we associated
the object with the positive facial expression
and we realized that there was no change in
the object’s preference (Z = -.50, p > .10) or
price evaluation (Z = -1.61, p > .05). But when
we subsequently eliminated participants who
were aware of the object’s presentation, based
on dissociation paradigm (n = 6), we determined a statistically significant change in the
amount of money (Z = -2.45, p < .05) toward
the lower amounts after subliminal presentation of this object.
DISCUSSION
Based on the results of the second experiment we can claim the conclusions from the
previous experiment. After eliminating color
as a variable, which might have influenced
the preference of stimuli, we found that there
was no change in preference or evaluation
of subliminally presented object. Participants
did not place the subliminally presented object in a more prominent place, compared to
the control situation, and they did not assign to this object a higher percentage nor
did they show a tendency to pay more for
this object.
Based on the dissociation paradigm we
verified the level of awareness of presented
objects. According to the participants’ statements we found, that the presentation of a
subliminally presented object was not realized by 43% of the participants, and this
group’s decision making process was not influenced by subliminal presentation of the
object.
Moreover, the second experimental situation, where subliminally presented object was
associated with an emotional facial expression, did not bring a change in the decision
making process of the participants.
The detection rate of the awareness of the
presented objects was reasonable. Participants in one group did partially realize seeing the presented stimulus, when they
claimed that they had seen a face, figure,
woman, man and so on, but they had not seen
the object which was part of the picture.
Therefore, we can assume that there was no
association of a smile with the object but the
positive emotional state was induced. The
same conclusion was reached by Zajonc
(2001). The possible explanation of the situation, manifested in the participants showing a tendency to pay less for the object,
could be Isen’s (Isen, Daubman, Nowicki,
1987) mood maintenance hypothesis. The
mood maintenance hypothesis assumes that
positive people tend to risk less to preserve
their mood. The lower amount of money paid
leads to maintenance of positive mood, because a loss of larger amount of money could
change their mood to a negative one.
STUDIA PSYCHOLOGICA, 54, 2012, 4
On the other hand, our results do not support the findings of Murphy and Zajonc
(1993). Subliminally presented objects were
not evaluated more positively and did not
influence the preference of subliminally presented stimuli. The effect of subliminal
stimuli on the decision making process of
individuals depends on personal preferences
or current needs (see Karremans, Stroebe,
Claus, 2006).
CONCLUSION
The results of the experiments discussed
above did not support the influence of subliminally presented stimuli on the decision
making process of individuals. Interesting,
however, should be the focus on stimuli characteristics, which have a tendency to evoke
emotions in the deciding individuals and distinguish the effect of emotions as actual state
vs. emotions associated with the consequences of a decision. It also opens the requirement to detect individual threshold because ad hoc set characteristics of presented
stimuli do not guarantee that presentation
of selected stimulus can be considered as
subliminal.
Received June 27, 2012
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NEUVEDOMENÁ VIZUÁLNA PERCEPCIA V PROCESE ROZHODOVANIA
K. K o š í k o v á , Ľ. P i l á r i k
Súhrn: V tomto článku sa autori zaoberajú problematikou vplyvu subliminálnej percepcie na
proces rozhodovania. Práca prináša výsledky experimentálneho výskumu realizovaného na súbore
vysokoškolských študentov. Výskumným problémom bolo zistiť, či môže subliminálna prezentácia
podnetu ovplyvniť preferenciu tohto predmetu a jeho následné hodnotenie. Realizované boli 2
experimenty, k aždý s dvoma experimentálnymi podmienkami (s podnetom a s predmetom
asociova ným s pozitívnym výra zom tváre). Výsledky výskumu u kazujú , že a ni v jednej
z experimentálnych štúdii nedošlo k zmene preferencie a ani zmene hodnotenia subliminálne
prezentovaného podnetu. Naše výsledky naznačujú, že nevedomá percepcia neovplyvňuje proces
rozhodovania, k onkrétne nemá žiadny efekt na výber subliminálne prezentovaných stimulov
z viacerých ponúkaných alternatív ako ani na ich následné hodnotenie.