Unconscious Influences Research Articles

Unconscious Gender Bias in Fame Judgments?

In two experiments the conditions of, and the processes leading to, gender biases in fame judgments were investigated. In Experiment 1, the gender bias was not reduced in a condition that alerted participants to the gender of the names. In Experiment 2, participants' sex-role orientation, but not their gender, was related to the gender bias. The process dissociation procedure was used in both experiments in an attempt to separate conscious and unconscious memory processes contributing to the gender bias. Using L. L. Jacoby's (1991) original measurement model there appeared to be evidence for unconscious influences on the gender bias in fame judgments. Unfortunately, this evidence disappeared when a model was used that takes guessing and, hence, response biases into account, which confirms that measurement models that ignore response biases in the process dissociation procedure may lead to erroneous conclusions.

Measuring the Relative Magnitude of Unconscious Influences

As an alternative to establishing awareness thresholds, stimulus contexts in which there were either greater conscious or greater unconscious influences were defined on the basis of performance on an exclusion task. Target words were presented for brief durations and each target word was followed immediately by its three-letter stem. Subjects were instructed to complete each stem with any word other than the target word. With this task, failures to exclude target words indicate greater unconscious influences, whereas successful exclusion indicates greater conscious influences. Conscious influences were dominant at long durations (e.g., 241ms), but unconscious influences were dominant at short durations (e.g., 50ms). Performance on the exclusion task successfully predicated both qualitative differences in Stroop priming and qualitative differences in recognition memory previously associated with the different effects of conscious and unconscious influences. Taken together, these results demonstrate that an exclusion task allows both unconscious and conscious influences to be defined in terms of significant deviations from baseline performance. As such, exclusion tasks provide a method for distinguishing conscious from unconscious influences that does not require establishing thresholds for null awareness.

Recent developments in psychoanalytic technique: a review.

This article provides an update on recent trends in psychoanalytic theory, particularly the theory of technique. It discusses several trends that have coalesced into a major shift in emphasis. Psychoanalysis is moving to embrace a two-person psychology, focused on the relations between patient and analyst. In this new perspective the analyst is no longer seen as an objective observer, even potentially free from unconscious influences. These trends are discussed in terms of their origins in analytic experience, contemporary science, and philosophy. The struggle within psychoanalysis to deal with these new views is examined, and some implications for the practice of psychotherapy are offered.

Who Would Argue?

At present in scientific study of emotion, it is likely difficult to find psychologists who would argue against notion of cognitive mediation, so long as we accept a broad definition of what is cognitive. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of us may have little with which to quibble regarding Lazarus's interesting target article. Could any investigator of human emotion argue with a call for in-depth interviewing of subjects and reduced reliance on one-shot assessments? Would any emotion theorist disagree with contention that there are both biological universals and cultural sources of variability in way emotions are aroused and regulated (cf. Ekman, 1994; Russell, 1994)? And wouldn't all but hardest headed economist endorse contention that rationality is not easily defined in a practical way? Moreover, wouldn't both Freud and Skinner dismiss models of a static person-environment relationship and agree that these interactions are ongoing and changing? These are of issues that Lazarus raises, but they do not strike us-at least in moderate way in which he discusses them-as especially controversial or problematic. It was nice, as well, to read such an explicit acknowledgment of important role of nonconscious processes in generation of emotions. Indeed, interactions between emotion and cognition that are out of awareness are consuming considerable research attention of late, and several excellent summaries of this work have been published (Bornstein & Pittman, 1992; Niedenthal & Kitayama, 1994). Discussed in Niedenthal and Kitayama (1994) volume, for example, are ways in which emotion exerts unconscious influences on processes involved in transforming sensations into mental representations, mutual influences of emotion and perceptual thresholds for certain stimuli, and (most important from standpoint of Lazarus's theory) how much cognitive processing is required for perceivers to make judgments about emotional meaning of events. There is a subtle implication in target article that such research is not being done-for example, Lazarus calls for a return to microgenetic techniques used to study perception-but in fact it has become a thriving industry among social, clinical, and cognitive psychologists. We return to this point later. In studying nonconscious nature of appraisal, however, we are unsure of value of bringing back concepts such as ego defense. Surely individuals do not always see what they would prefer not to, but study of motivated inattention (described even at a macro level by Goffman, 1959, and others) is probably not advanced by introduction of psychodynamic terminology, lest this new look go way of original New Look. It is simply not clear that, even with indepth interviewing, we could determine reliably whether ego defenses are or are not involved in cognitive process. In studies utilizing painstakingly videotaped psychotherapy sessions of same patient over hundreds of hours, collaborators participating in Program on Conscious and Unconscious Mental Processes at University of California-San Francisco found it very difficult to agree on presence of a particular mechanism of defense during one epoch or another. Will scientists ever be able to distinguish egodefensive from nondefensive forms of inattention? We aren't sure, and that is why we agree, actually, with Lazarus's bottom line here: We should not equate automatic appraising with cognitive unconscious or dynamic unconscious. Perhaps this distinction itself just isn't very helpful. Moreover, there are ambiguities surrounding distinction between automatic appraising and dynamic unconscious or ego defense. Lazarus asserts that some automatic appraisals are result of defenses, but this conclusion implies that automatic appraising process must precede operation of a defense. In Lazarus's view, an individual must first appraise an event as distressing and generate a negative automatic appraisal; only then is it possible for this person to engage in defense (unconsciously), generating another automatic appraisal or a conscious appraisal. It would seem difficult to disentangle ongoing processes of automatic appraising and ego defense relying only on in-depth interviewing. In this complicated endeavor, experimental methodologies may be more helpful. Lazarus suggests that sometimes the person is making two appraisals at same timeone conscious as a defense, other unconscious, but both with different emotional outcomes. In-depth interviewing would not likely uncover this state of affairs, but it can be investigated experimentally. For example, two recent studies (Power & Brewin, 1990; Power, Brewin, Stuessy, & Mahoney, 1991) used an emotional priming task to investigate controlled and automatic processing of emotional material in samples of normal subjects. They varied stimulus-onset-asynchrony (SOA) between onset of a prime (positive or negative life-events) and onset of a probe (positive or

A response to graf and komatsu's critique of the process dissociation procedure: When is caution necessary?

Abstract In a recent paper, Graf and Komatsu (1994) argued that the process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991) is limited in its ability to separate and measure conscious and unconscious forms of memory and so should be “handled with caution”. Given that the study of unconscious influences has always posed a difficult problem for memory researchers, we agree with the general emphasis on caution. In this paper, we too advocate caution, especially as it applies to the use of indirect tests, assessing Graf and Komatsu's critique, and using the process dissociation procedure. We address the substantive issues raised by Graf and Komatsu and also point out the errors, both factual and logical, in their paper. Any method proposing to provide separate measures of conscious and unconscious influences requires judicious use and a careful examination of its underlying assumptions. The assumptions underlying the process dissociation framework are supported by a large number of experiments spanning a diverse range ...

The biasing effect of verbal labels on memory for ambiguous figures in patients with progressive dementia.

This experiment investigated the effects of verbal labels on recognition memory for ambiguous visual figures in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), patients with Huntington's disease (HD), and matched normal control subjects. The study employed ambiguous figures that could be interpreted in two different ways. During the study phase each figure was presented together with a verbal label that corresponded to one interpretation of the figure. After a 30-min retention interval a recognition memory test was given during which the study figures and distractor figures were presented one at a time without verbal labels. For each study figure two distractor figures were employed, each corresponding to a different interpretation of the study figure. The patients' overall recognition memory performance was severely impaired compared to control subjects. However, all subject groups tended to produce responses and response latencies to distractor items that were consistent with the verbal labels presented during the study phase. This bias effect occurred in the AD patients despite the fact that their recognition memory performance was at chance level. Indeed, there was no significant difference in the bias evidenced by the AD and HD patients and their respective matched control subjects. The bias effects were obtained in an explicit memory task, and the findings are discussed in terms of unconscious influences on explicit memory processes.

Conscious and unconscious influences on remembering information from the near and distant past: A developmental analysis

We examined adults' memory for the actors and actresses who won Academy Awards for their performances in specific motion pictures between 1992 to 1937. Fifty-six individuals between 41 to 81 years of age completed inclusion and exclusion versions of aMovie Memory Questionnaire in which they were required to identify actors and actresses who were paired with the names of movies they actually appeared in (e.g., Cher—Moonstruck) or they never appeared in (e.g., Robert DeNiro—Annie Hall), respectively. Estimates of the independent contributions of conscious and unconscious influences on recollection were obtained by analyzing subjects' performance on the inclusion and exclusion tasks via Jacoby's (1991)Process Dissociation Procedure. Results indicated that conscious recollection for motion picture information exhibited a typical retention function, whereas unconscious contributions to recollection remained relatively constant over the entire time range that was sampled. When age differences were considered, it was found that young-old participants displayed a higher level of conscious recollection than did middle-age and old-old adults. The role played by unconscious processes in recollection, however, did not vary by age group.

Unconscious influences on direct-test performance

From intense interest in implicit memory there have evolved various methods for separating the respective influence of implicit (unconscious) and explicit (conscious) processes on performance of various tasks. Two experiments are reported, utilizing a levels-of-processing (LOP) approach to manipulate encoding level and comparable indirect (word-stem completion) and direct (cued-completion) retention tests. Confidence ratings of recollection were taken for each direct test response. The aim of these experiments was to explore the role that guessing plays in direct-test performance (Experiments 1 and 2) and to contrast this with performance in a comparable indirect test (Experiment 2). Analysis of correctly guessed responses showed that direct-test performance was reliably influenced by unconscious processes, but differently as a function of LOP. Guessing stems of nonsemantically processed words was found to enhance performance, whereas guessing stems of semantically processed words had no effect on performance. Results are discussed in terms of the similarity between guessing in a direct test and engaging in an indirect test, and subjects' unwitting resourcefulness at being able to retrieve words they cannot explicitly remember.

Involuntary conscious memory and the method of opposition

Priming in an indirect test of stem completion should reflect involuntary memory, but can be accompanied by conscious awareness of the past (involuntary conscious memory) or unaccompanied by such awareness (involuntary unconscious memory). We adapted the method of opposition developed by Jacoby, Woloshyn, and Kelley (1989) to obtain a measure of stem-completion priming that should reflect only involuntary unconscious memory. Subjects completed stems with the first word coming to mind, but wrote down a different word if the word that came to mind first had been previously encountered. Facilitatory priming was expected only when involuntary unconscious influences outweighed inhibitory effects of involuntary conscious memory, or of intentional retrieval. We observed a facilitation effect for items processed graphemically at encoding, in conjunction with an inhibition effect for items processed semantically at encoding. In contrast, a standard indirect test showed similar levels of priming following graphemic and semantic encoding, whereas a direct test showed a strong advantage of semantic over graphemic encoding. We argue that the two encoding activities produced approximately equivalent involuntary influences of memory, but that items encoded semantically were associated with involuntary conscious memory to a greater extent than were items encoded graphemically. Comparing indirect and opposition test performance can provide a quantitative index of relative levels of involuntary conscious and involuntary unconscious memory.

The relationship between conscious and unconscious influences: Independence or redundancy?

Determining the relationship between conscious and unconscious influences is essential for obtaining valid estimates of the 2 types of influence. S. Joordens and P. M. Merikle (1993) recently argued that a redundancy relationship provides a plausible alternative to the independence model proposed by L. L. Jacoby, J. P. Toth, and A. P. Yonelinas (1993). In this article, the authors address Joordens and Merikle's concerns and still find the independence model preferable: First, the redundancy model requires the questionable assumption that a direct test (inclusion) is process pure. Second, results obtained with the independence model, but not with the redundancy model, converge with results from indirect tests. Finally, conclusions drawn from the independence model are in accordance with the theorizing that surrounds the concept of automaticity. Findings of task dissociations have been important for theorizing about both unconscious perception and unconscious influences of memory (implicit memory). People show evidence of perception and memory on indirect tests although they are seemingly unaware of the event that gave rise to those effects when given a direct test (e.g., Roediger & McDermott, 1993). However, Reingold and Merikle (1990), as well as we (Jacoby, Toth, & Yonelinas, 1993) have argued against the practice of equating unconscious influences with performance on indirect or implicit tests and conscious influences with performance on direct or explicit tests. The difficulty is that conscious processes might contaminate performance on indirect tests and, less obviously, unconscious processes might contaminate performance on direct tests. Consequently, we have sought process dissociations rather than task dissociations. That is, rather than equating processes with tasks, our strategy has been to gain estimates of the contributions of conscious and unconscious processes to performance of a single task and to show dissociations of effects of variables on those estimates.

The relationship between conscious and unconscious influences: Independence or redundancy?

The relationship between conscious and unconscious influences: Independence or redundancy?

Independence or redundancy? Two models of conscious and unconscious influences.

L. L. Jacoby, J. P. Toth, and A. P. Yonelinas (1993) assume that conscious and unconscious processes make independent contributions to task performance. As an alternative to the independence model, we suggest that a redundancy model based on the assumption that conscious processes are always associated with correlated unconscious processes can also be used to dissociate the separate influences of these processes. Using data reported by L. L. Jacoby et al., we show that each model leads to different but equally plausible estimates of conscious and unconscious influences, following both variations in attention (i.e., focused vs. divided) and in encoding (i.e., read vs. generate)

Countertransference: A Typological Expansion

Countertransference was viewed from the perspective of a 2 x 2 x n factorial typology (source x degree of consciousness x depth). This typology incorporated the conscious and unconscious influences of nonpsychological variables and their theoretical schema upon the analyst's therapeutic recommendations.

Influencing unconscious influences: The healing dimension of mediation

AbstractCurrent role definitions limit the potential for the mediation process to be a healing experience. This article examines the implications of considering mediation within a healing paradigm. Methods to increase the healing potential of the mediation process focus on the quality of the mediator‐client relationship, drawing from the mediator's highest consciousness or spiritual center, the use of indirect and embedded suggestion, and strategies that promote self‐healing. It is suggested that there is room for a model of mediation incorporating healing, which might be referred to as “holistic” mediation.

Separating conscious and unconscious influences of memory: Measuring recollection.

How can conscious and unconscious influences of memory be measured? In this article, a processdissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, 1991) was used to separate automatic (unconscious) and consciously controlled influences within a task. For recall cued with word stems, automatic influences of memory (a) remained invariant across manipulations of attention that substantially reduced conscious recollection and (b) were highly dependent on perceptual similarity from study to test. Comparisons with results obtained through an indirect test show the advantages of the process-dissociation procedure as a means of measuring unconscious influences. The measure of recollection derived from this procedure is superior to measures gained from classic test theory and signal-detection theory. The process-dissociation procedure combines assumptions from these 2 traditional approaches to measuring memory. Dissociations between performance on direct and indirect tests of memory supply examples of effects of the past in the absence of remembering (for reviews, see Hintzman, 1990; Richardson-Klavehn & Bjork, 1988). In an indirect test, subjects are not asked to report on memory for an event as they would be in a direct test, such as in a test of recognition or recall; rather, they engage in some task that can indirectly reflect memory for the occurrence of that event. Word stemand fragment-completion tasks are among the most popular indirect tests of memory (e.g., Graf & Mandler, 1984; Tulving, Schacter & Stark, 1982; Warrington & Weiskrantz, 1974). For a stem-completion task, subjects might read the word scalp and then be presented with the stem sea— with instructions to complete that stem with the first word that comes to mind. Evidence of automatic influences of memory that are dissociated from performance on a direct test is provided by the finding that prior presentation of a word increases the likelihood of that word being used to complete a stem, even though a direct test reveals no memory for the prior presentation of the word. Some of the most striking examples of dissociations come from the performance of patients suffering a neurological deficit. Korsakoff amnesics, for example, show near-normal effects of memory in their performance of a stem-completion task, even though

Implicit stereotyping in person judgment.

Three experiments demonstrated implicit gender stereotyping. A target's social category determined the use of previously primed stereotyped information, without Ss' awareness of such influence. After unscrambling sentences describing neutral or stereotyped behaviors about dependence or aggression, Ss evaluated a female or male target. Although ratings of female and male targets did not differ after exposure to neutral primes, Ss exposed to dependence primes rated a female target as more dependent than a male target who performed identical behaviors (Experiment 1A). Likewise, Ss rated a male, but not a female, target as more aggressive after exposure to aggression primes compared with neutral primes (Experiment IB). Experiment 2 replicated the implicit stereotyping effect and additionally showed no relationship between explicit memory for primes and judgment of target's dependence. I consider extremely fruitful this idea that social life should be explained, not by the notions of those who participate in it, but by more profound causes which are unperceived by consciousness, and I think also that these causes are to be sought mainly in the manner according to which the associated individuals are grouped. —Emile Durkheim (1897, translation in Winch, 1958, pp. 23-24) Essential to social psychology is the question of how people are evaluated. Hence, social psychologists have placed person judgment at the center of the research agenda of the discipline. Among the various components of person judgment is the process of stereotyping, whereby beliefs about a social group are used in judgments of the group or individual members of the group. Because stereotyped judgments simplify and justify social reality, they are among the most fundamental psychological events that determine the course of social relations. Our approach to stereotyping draws on theoretical analyses of unconscious processes that have emerged in contemporary writing about cognition. In particular, we build on recent observations and experimental discoveries that (a) unconscious influences on behavior are common rather than rare (Greenwald & Banaji, 1993; Jacoby & Kelley, 1987), (b) examining the processes involved in unconscious learning and memory can advance the understanding of social behavior (Bargh, 1984; Lewicki & Hill, 1987; Smith, in press), and (c) stereotypes and attitudes can operate unconsciously (Banaji & Greenwald, in press; Bargh, 1992; Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, & Pratto, 1992;

Independence or redundancy? Two models of conscious and unconscious influences.

Independence or redundancy? Two models of conscious and unconscious influences.

Unintended influences of perception and memory: Attention, awareness, and control.

There has been a great deal of recent interest in the finding of dissociations between performance implicit or indirect and explicit or direct tests of memory. Implicit tests (e.g., word stem completion) are said to primarily reflect automatic or unconscious uses of memory, whereas explicit tests (e.g., cued recall) primarily reflect strategic or consciously - controlled uses of memory. I argue that implicit tests of perception and memory share important characteristics with projective tests, such as the Rorschach test, that have traditionally been used to gain evidence of unconscious influences. For projective tests as well as implicit tests, it is dissociations with performance direct tests that provide evidence of unconscious influences. A Rorschach test is said to provide evidence of inner conflicts that could not be revealed by directly asking the person about those conflicts. Similarly, an implicit test of memory sometimes reveals evidence of memory, although when directly asked, a person is unable to report the relevant memory.Implicit and projective tests also share problems for interpretation. The major problem is that of relating processes to tasks. Most of us are not tempted to treat a Rorschach test as if it measures only unconscious influences. We realize that people may sometimes catch - on to the intent of a projective test, and fake performance. That is, we are convinced that a Rorschach test is not factor or process pure. Similarly, for the stem - completion task and other implicit tests of memory, people may sometimes intentionally use memory. Problems arising from the possibility of contamination of a supposed measure of unconscious influences is most obvious in the case of unconscious perception. The history of that area has been an apparently never ending circle of claimed demonstrations of unconscious perception, followed by disqualifying claims of contamination. Of course, it is well known that tests of unconscious perception sometimes reflect aware perception and that tests of implicit memory sometimes reflect intentional uses of memory. This possibility of contamination does, though, produce serious problems for interpretation. One strategy is to further refine the measure of unconscious influences in an attempt to produce a test that is process pure. This has been the strategy in investigations of unconscious perception and, to a lesser extent, in studies of implicit memory. However, it may be impossibleto construct a test of unconscious influences that is never contaminated by intentional uses of memory. …

Separating conscious and unconscious influences of memory: Measuring recollection.

Separating conscious and unconscious influences of memory: Measuring recollection.

Unconscious influences revealed. Attention, awareness, and control.

Recent findings of dissociations between direct and indirect tests of memory and perception have renewed enthusiasm for the study of unconscious processing. The authors argue that such findings are heir to the same problems of interpretation as are earlier evidence of unconscious influences--namely, one cannot eliminate the possibility that conscious processes contaminated the measure of unconscious processes. To solve this problem, the authors define unconscious influences in terms of lack of conscious control and then describe a process dissociation procedure that yields separate quantitative estimates of the concurrent contributions of unconscious and consciously controlled processing to task performance. This technique allows one to go beyond demonstrating the existence of unconscious processes to examine factors that determine their magnitude.