Subliminal Response Priming in Mixed Reality: The Ecological Validity of a Classic Paradigm of Perception

Abstract

Subliminal stimuli can affect perception, decision-making, and action without being accessible to conscious awareness. Most evidence supporting this notion has been obtained in highly controlled laboratory conditions. Hence, its generalization to more realistic and ecologically valid contexts is unclear. Here, we investigate the impact of subliminal cues in an immersive navigation task using the so-called eXperience Induction Machine (XIM), a human accessible mixed-reality system. Subjects were asked to navigate through a maze at high speed. At irregular intervals, one group of subjects was exposed to subliminal aversive stimuli using the masking paradigm. We hypothesized that these stimuli would bias decision-making. Indeed, our results confirm this hypothesis and indicate that a subliminal channel of interaction exists between the user and the XIM. These results are relevant in our understanding of the bandwidth of communication that can be established between humans and their physical and social environment, thus opening up to new and powerful methods to interface humans and artefacts.

A Review of the Research on Subliminal Techniques for Implicit Interaction in Symbiotic Systems

“…Another study [4] investigated the impact of subliminal cues in an immersive navigation task. Participants were seated in an immersive mixed-reality system, and their task was to navigate within a maze.…”

“…To briefly sum up, subliminal stimulation seems to be suitable for a variety of uses in concrete scenarios as those of memory retrieval [9] and problem solving [13] to bias decisionmaking in selection behavior [5,16] and navigation tasks [4]. In the specific context of symbiotic systems, such potential can be exploited to assist the user during critical phases or to manage his interaction without interrupting the task at hand [3] or generating mental workload [8,9].…”

“…Therefore, the integration of subliminal stimuli in user interfaces could enrich the information transmission between a computer and a human in an effective way when a large amount of data needs to be processed, and the user's cognitive system is at risk of becoming overloaded. Furthermore, the currently thriving research on adaptive and symbiotic systems [3][4][5][6][7] makes the interest in unconscious processes even greater. Symbiotic relationships between humans and computers need a reciprocal and deeper understanding, which could be achieved by expanding the bandwidth of the ordinary communication with machines beyond the mere symbolic exchange.…”

“…This article is not intended to enter into a detailed dissertation on this delicate subject; however, it is worth reporting that some authors [4,11] suggest that volitional behavior and automatic responses do not differ regarding the level of intentional control. Instead, they suggest that, in the former, the information is consciously accessible as propositional, and in the latter, it is accessible as a "feeling of."…”

“…Instead, they suggest that, in the former, the information is consciously accessible as propositional, and in the latter, it is accessible as a "feeling of." We mean that even subliminal stimulation results in a mental product that is available for intentional control: qualia-like states, feelings that the individual may or may not be inclined to act on [4].…”