Definitely maybe: can unconscious processes perform the same functions as conscious processes?

Abstract

Hassin recently proposed the “Yes It Can” (YIC) principle to describe the division of labor between conscious and unconscious processes in human cognition. According to this principle, unconscious processes can carry out every fundamental high-level cognitive function that conscious processes can perform. In our commentary, we argue that the author presents an overly idealized review of the literature in support of the YIC principle. Furthermore, we point out that the dissimilar trends observed in social and cognitive psychology, with respect to published evidence of strong unconscious effects, can better be explained by the way how awareness is defined and measured in both research fields. Finally, we show that the experimental paradigm chosen by Hassin to rule out remaining objections against the YIC principle is unsuited to verify the new default notion that all high-level cognitive functions can unfold unconsciously.

No evidence for surface organization in Kanizsa configurations during continuous flash suppression

“…That is, our results fail to provide evidence that, during CFS, traditional pacmen stimuli can induce figure-ground processes that might lead to a differential effect for stimuli able to induce a surface percept. This observation is consistent with a broader set of recent studies focusing on the extent to which mid-and high-level stimuli are represented during CFS (Faivre & Koch, 2014;Gayet, Van Der Stigchel, & Paffen, 2014;Hedger, Adams, & Garner, 2015;Hesselmann & Knops, 2014;Hesselmann & Moors, 2015;Heyman & Moors, 2014;Moors, Huygelier, Wagemans, de-Wit, & van Ee, 2015). That is, there is converging evidence that suppressed stimuli are processed to a limited extent during CFS and that any process that requires complex integration of several features of the suppressed stimulus is unlikely to take place.…”

“…Given that the relationship between perceptual organization and awareness necessarily involves the choice of a suitable paradigm to render a stimulus invisible, it remains plausible that Kanizsa surfaces can be constructed in the absence of visual awareness depending on the nature of suppression of the paradigm that was employed (Breitmeyer, 2015;Breitmeyer, Koç, Oğmen, & Ziegler, 2008;Hesselmann & Moors, 2015). Indeed, using visual masking, a paradigm for which it has been argued that the initial feedforward transfer of input to higher areas, there is evidence that masked Kanizsa like stimuli can influence performance on a subsequent shape discrimination task (Poscoliero, Marzi, & Girelli, 2013).…”

A critical reexamination of doing arithmetic nonconsciously

“…Nonconscious arithmetic would be the most recent culmination point in a decades-long debate among cognitive scientists about the existence and potency of subliminal perception (Doyen, Klein, Simons, & Cleeremans, 2014). This debate has been characterized by a repeating cycle of provocative claims followed by methodological criticism, primarily aimed at the psychophysical and statistical methods used to establish the absence of conscious perception (Hesselmann & Moors, 2015). Of note, for the purpose of this reexamination, we solely relied on the data that were used to claim the existence of nonconscious arithmetic.…”

Between-Subject Variability in the Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression Paradigm: Potential Causes, Consequences, and Solutions

“…Recent findings using this method have sparked the debate about the extent to which visual input is processed in the absence of consciousness (e.g., Hassin, 2013; Gayet et al, 2014; Yang et al, 2014; Hesselmann and Moors, 2015). Response times (RTs) in b-CFS experiments are lower than in traditional detection tasks, where information is not interocularly suppressed.…”