Repressiveness as a factor in the subliminal activation of brain and verbal responses.

Abstract

In a previous study, it was found that the average evoked response (AER) could discriminate between two stimuli presented at subliminal speeds. The effects of the subliminal stimulation could be detected through both free associations and certain components of the AER. The AER component which discriminated between the stimuli has been found in other investigations to be associated with attention. We set out to explore whether a dynamic personality factor, repressiveness, might be playing an identifiable role in these subliminal phenomena. After establishing the rank ordering of Ss' repressiveness on the basis of the Rorschach, correlations were obtained between this rank order and the electrophysiological and subliminally stimulated verbal effects found in free associations already obtained in a previous study. We discovered that the AER to both subliminal stimuli were negatively correlated with repressiveness. Correlations between repressiveness and the verbal responses to subliminal stimulation present in free associations were also negative. Thus repressive Ss showed less brain and verbal responsiveness to subliminal stimulation. The possibility that specific acts of repression were involved was suggested by the finding that significantly more of the repressive Ss forgot a word (pen) which was directly related to one of the subliminal stimuli. From these and other relevant experimental data, we hypothesized that there are attentional factors at work are closely related to personality functioning. In addition, there is reason to believe that the electrical activity of the brain as measured by the average evlked response can be remarkably sensitive to attentional, perceptual, and dynamic processes.