1. Results:
Experiment 4
cont.
Main effect of Time: Significant increase in
the number of words recalled in their
correct position from Time 1 to Time 2,
F(1,79)=22.130, p<.001, n2
=.219
Acknowledgments
My thanks and gratitude to my supervisor David Vernon for
all his time, effort and patience.
Many thanks to CCCU for the opportunity and funding that
enabled me to do this PhD.
OSPAN
Introduction
Subliminal written information can be presented using two formats, single-
word or multi-word primes.
Both prime formats have been successfully processed unconsciously
(Armstrong & Dienes, 2013, 2014; Greenwald & Liu, 1985; Sklar et al., 2012).
Additionally, positive cognitive behavioural changes have been
reported following both subliminal formats.
Subliminal single-word primes have increased academic
performance (Lowery et al., 2007) and influenced recollection
performance (Mitchell et al., 2002).
Subliminal multi-word primes have also increased academic
performance (Ariam & Siller, 1982; Parker, 1982).
However, the two stimuli formats have not yet been
compared. This research aimed to compare the
two formats to see which elicited the most
robust behavioural change on
working memory (WM)
performance.
Method: Experiment 3
Participants completed the conceptual span
WM task (CST) to measure semantic WM
performance before and after a lexical decision
task (LDT).
During the LDT, participants were subliminally
primed with 30 exposures to one of six
messages.
Strahan et al. (2002) state the importance of
participant motivation for subliminal
stimulation to be successful, thus a 'motivation
enhancement strategy' was used to increase
participants motivation to improve their WM
performance.
References
W P
Discussion
‐Support sketch production and visualization
‐Support session storage and retrieval
‐Support private/public production of sketches
‐Provide a broad view of the drawings, like papers
arranged on a wall
‐Provide a fine view of a drawing
‐Support UI design with different level of fidelities
g.a.m.b.i.t server
Sketch
Repositories
Eclipse Sketch Applications
(Desktop)
Collaboration
Large surfaces
Commands (AJAX requests)
Poster template by Ugo Sangiorgi based on Felix Breuer's work
Requirements
User Interface
Design Sessions
Despite increased participant motivation to improve WM performance, a longer SOA period and
memory specific stimuli, no change in WM performance was attributed to subliminal stimulation.
[1] Ariam, S., & Siller, J. (1982). Effects of
subliminal oneness stimuli in Hebrew on
X
SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE
(NON)WORD
Backward masking is the traditional technique to disguise subliminal stimuli, however Grainger et
al. (2003) suggest it interferes with the processing of subliminal stimuli. It's possible this
interference hampered the intended effect of the subliminal stimuli in this present research.
In conclusion, whilst this research does not provide support for successful subliminal priming, it
does highlight the need to carefully consider the combination of stimulus presentation speed,
SOA period, and masking technique.
Future research may wish to replace traditional backward masking with alternative method of
masking, such as grey scale colour contrasting (Lamy et al., 2008) or continuous flash suppression
(Tsuchiya & Koch, 2005).
[2] Armstrong, A. M., & Dienes, Z. (2013). Subliminal
understanding of negation: Unconscious control by
subliminal processing of word pairs. Consciousness and
Cognition, 22(3), 1022-1040
[3] Armstrong, A. M., & Dienes, Z. (2014). Subliminal understanding
of active versus passive sentences. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory,
Research, and Practice, 1(1), 32
[4] Grainger, J., Diependaele, K., Spinelli, E., Ferrand, L., & Farioli, F. (2003).
Masked repetition and phonological priming within and across modalities.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 29(6), 1256
[5] Greenwald, A. D., & Liu, T. J. (1985). Limited unconscious processing of meaning. Bulletin of
the Psychonomic Society, 23(4), 292
[6] Lamy, D., Mudrik, L., & Doeuell, L. Y. (2003). Unconscious auditory information can prime visual
word processing: A process-dissociation procedure study. Consciousness & Cognition, 17(3), 688-698
[7] Levy, B. (1996). Improving memory in old age through implicit self-stereotyping. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 71(6), 1092
[8] Lowery, B. S., Eisenberger, N. I., Hardin, C. D., & Sinclair, S. (2007). Long-term effects of subliminal
priming on academic performance. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 29(2), 151-157
[9] Mitchell, J. P., Macrae, C. N., Schooler, J. W., Rowe, A. C., & Milne, A. B. (2002). Directed
remembering: Subliminal cues alter nonconscious memory strategies. Memory 10(5-6), 381-388
[10] Parker, K. A. (1982). Effects of subliminal symbiotic stimulation of academic performance. Further
evidence on the adaption-enhancing effects of oneness fantasies. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 29(1),
19
[11] Sklar, A. Y., Levy, N., Goldstein, A., Mandel, R., Maril, A., & Hassin, R. R. (2012). Reading and
doing arithmetic nonconsciously. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(48), 19614-19619
[12] Strahan, E. J., Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P. (2002). Subliminal priming and persuasion: Striking
while the iron is hot. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38(6), 556-568
[13] Tsuchiya, N., & Koch, C. (2005). Continuous flash suppression reduces negative afterimages.
Nature Neuroscience, 8(8), 1096-1101
academic performance of Israeli high school
students. Further evidence on the adaption-
enhancing effects symbiotic fantasies in
another culture using another language.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 91(5), 343
Procedure: Experiment 3
LDT
Results: Experiment 3
Motivation:
Participants were
significantly more motivated
to improve their WM
performance following the
motivation enhancement
strategy, t(107)=8.835, p<.001
CST:
Main effect of Time: Significant increase in the number of
words correctly recalled from Time 1 to Time 2, F(1, 102)=
33.445, p<.001, n2
=.247.
Discussion:
Experiment 3
Despite increased motivation to improve
WM performance, the change in WM
performance was not found as a function of
subliminal stimulation
Ultra fast presentation speed and immediate
backward masking of LDT letter strings
produce a small stimulus onset asynchrony
(SOA) of 14ms, leaving little time for
unconscious processing.
Additionally, previous research tends to present
stimuli specific to the behaviour intended to change
e.g., 'Remember' for memory (Mitchell et al., 2002).
It is possible results of Experiment 3 were caused by
insufficient time for unconscious processing and lack
of specific subliminal stimuli.
Thus Experiment 4 addressed these issues.
Method: Experiment 4
Participants completed the CST and the operation span
task (OSPAN) before and after the LDT.
During the LDT they were exposed to one of four
messages 30 times.
An additional backward mask was added
after the subliminal stimulus to increase the
SOA to 514ms.
Procedure: Experiment 4
LDT
Finally, the 'affective messages were
removed, and the 'cognitive'
messages were replaced by
'memory specific'
messages.
Results: Experiment 4
CST: Main effect of Time: Significant increase in the
number of correctly recalled words from Time 1 to
Time 2, F(1,81)=32.240, p<.001, n2
=.291.
SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE
XXXXXXXXXX
No interaction between Time and
subliminal Format or Content of message,
thus WM improvement is due to practice.