Chapter 6 Subliminal emotion perception in brain imaging: findings, issues, and recommendations

Progress in Brain Research

Volumn 156, Issue , 2006, Pages 105-121

  Wiens, Stefan ^a,b  

^a STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

^b KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE   (Sweden)

Author keywords

attention; backward masking; brain imaging; consciousness; emotion; subliminal perception

Indexed keywords

AWARENESS; BRAIN; CONSCIOUSNESS; EMOTION; ENERGY; EXPERIENCE; HUMAN; NEUROIMAGING; PERCEPTION; PERCEPTIVE DISCRIMINATION; PERCEPTIVE THRESHOLD; PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY; PSYCHOPHYSICS; REVIEW; THEORETICAL STUDY; VISUAL MASKING; ATTENTION; PHYSIOLOGY;

ATTENTION; BRAIN; CONSCIOUSNESS; EMOTIONS; HUMANS; PERCEPTUAL MASKING; PSYCHOPHYSICS; SUBLIMINAL STIMULATION;

EID: 33749052916     PISSN: 00796123     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1016/S0079-6123(06)56006-6     Document Type: Review

References (86)

1. Anders S., Birbaumer N., Sadowski B., Erb M., Mader I., Grodd W., and Lotze M. Parietal somatosensory association cortex mediates affective blindsight. Nat. Neurosci. 7 (2004) 339-340
2. Anderson A.K., Christoff K., Panitz D., De Rosa E., and Gabrieli J.D.E. Neural correlates of the automatic processing of threat facial signals. J. Neurosci. 23 (2003) 5627-5633
3. Azzopardi P., and Cowey A. Is blindsight like normal, near-threshold vision?. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94 (1997) 14190-14194
4. Bishop S.J., Duncan J., and Lawrence A.D. State anxiety modulation of the amygdala response to unattended threat-related stimuli. J. Neurosci. 24 (2004) 10364-10368
5. Björkman M., Juslin P., and Winman A. Realism of confidence in sensory discrimination - the underconfidence phenomenon. Percept. Psychophys. 54 (1993) 75-81
6. Bowers K.S. On being unconsciously influenced and informed. In: Bowers K.S., and Meichenbaum D. (Eds). The Unconscious Reconsidered (1984), Wiley, New York 227-272
7. Carlsson K., Petersson K.M., Lundqvist D., Karlsson A., Ingvar M., and Ohman A. Fear and the amygdala: manipulation of awareness generates differential cerebral responses to phobic and fear-relevant (but nonfeared) stimuli. Emotion 4 (2004) 340-353
8. Cheesman J., and Merikle P.M. Priming with and without awareness. Percept. Psychophys. 36 (1984) 387-395
9. Cheesman J., and Merikle P.M. Distinguishing conscious from unconscious perceptual processes. Can. J. Psychol. 40 (1986) 343-367
10. Costen N.P., Shepherd J., Ellis H., and Craw I. Masking of faces by facial and non-facial stimuli. Vis. Cogn. 1 (1994) 227-251
11. Cowey A. The 30th Sir Frederick Bartlett lecture: fact, artefact, and myth about blindsight. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. A 57 (2004) 577-609
12. Cowey A., and Stoerig P. Blindsight in monkeys. Nature 373 (1995) 247-249
13. Critchley H.D., Mathias C.J., and Dolan R.J. Fear conditioning in humans: the influence of awareness and autonomic arousal on functional neuroanatomy. Neuron 33 (2002) 653-663
14. Cumming G., and Finch S. Inference by eye - confidence intervals and how to read pictures of data. Am. Psychol. 60 (2005) 170-180
15. de Gelder B., Vroomen J., Pourtois G., and Weiskrantz L. Non-conscious recognition of affect in the absence of striate cortex. Neuroreport 10 (1999) 3759-3763
16. Dolan R.J., and Vuilleumier P. Amygdala automaticity in emotional processing. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 985 (2003) 348-355
17. Duncan J. 2 techniques for investigating perception without awareness. Percept. Psychophys. 38 (1985) 296-298
18. Eriksen C.W. Discrimination and learning without awareness: a methodological survey and evaluation. Psychol. Rev. 67 (1960) 279-300
19. Esteves F., and Öhman A. Masking the face: recognition of emotional facial expressions as a function of the parameters of backward masking. Scand. J. Psychol. 34 (1993) 1-18
20. Etkin A., Klemenhagen K.C., Dudman J.T., Rogan M.T., Hen R., Kandel E.R., and Hirsch J. Individual differences in trait anxiety predict the response of the basolateral amygdala to unconsciously processed fearful faces. Neuron 44 (2004) 1043-1055
21. Fisk G.D., and Haase S.J. Unconscious perception or not? An evaluation of detection and discrimination as indicators of awareness. Am. J. Psychol. 118 (2005) 183-212
22. Frith C., Perry R., and Lumer E. The neural correlates of conscious experience: an experimental framework. Trends Cogn. Sci. 3 (1999) 105-114
23. Haase S.J., and Fisk G.D. Valid distinctions between conscious and unconscious perception?. Percept. Psychophys. 66 (2004) 868-871
24. Haase S.J., Theios J., and Jenison R. A signal detection theory analysis of an unconscious perception effect. Percept. Psychophys. 61 (1999) 986-992
25. Hannula D.E., Simons D.J., and Cohen N.J. Opinion - imaging implicit perception: promise and pitfalls. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 6 (2005) 247-255
26. Hendler T., Rotshtein P., Yeshurun Y., Weizmann T., Kahn I., Ben-Bashat D., Malach R., and Bleich A. Sensing the invisible: differential sensitivity of visual cortex and amygdala to traumatic context. Neuroimage 19 (2003) 587-600
27. Holender D. Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic-listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: a survey and appraisal. Behav. Brain Sci. 9 (1986) 1-23
28. Holender D., and Duscherer K. Unconscious perception: the need for a paradigm shift. Percept. Psychophys. 66 (2004) 872-881
29. Killgore W.D., and Yurgelun-Todd D.A. Activation of the amygdala and anterior cingulate during nonconscious processing of sad versus happy faces. Neuroimage 21 (2004) 1215-1223
30. Kim C.Y., and Blake R. Psychophysical magic: rendering the visible 'invisible'. Trends Cogn. Sci. 9 (2005) 381-388
31. Kouider S., and Dupoux E. Partial awareness creates the "illusion" of subliminal semantic priming. Psychol. Sci. 15 (2004) 75-81
32. Kunimoto C., Miller J., and Pashler H. Confidence and accuracy of near-threshold discrimination responses. Conscious Cogn. 10 (2001) 294-340
33. LeDoux J.E. Emotion circuits in the brain. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 23 (2000) 155-184
34. Liddell B.J., Brown K.J., Kemp A.H., Barton M.J., Das P., Peduto A., Gordon E., and Williams L.M. A direct brainstem-amygdala-cortical 'alarm' system for subliminal signals of fear. Neuroimage 24 (2005) 235-243
35. Lovibond P.F., and Shanks D.R. The role of awareness in Pavlovian conditioning: empirical evidence and theoretical implications. J. Exp. Psychol. Anim. Behav. Process. 28 (2002) 3-26
36. Macmillan N.A. The psychophysics of subliminal perception. Behav. Brain Sci. 9 (1986) 38-39
37. Macmillan N.A., and Creelman C.D. Response bias: characteristics of detection theory, threshold theory, and nonparametric indexes. Psychol. Bull. 107 (1990) 401-413
38. Macmillan N.A., and Creelman C.D. Detection Theory: A User's Guide (1991), Cambrigde University Press, New York
39. Marois R., and Ivanoff J. Capacity limits of information processing in the brain. Trends Cogn. Sci. 9 (2005) 296-305
40. Merikle P.M. Perception without awareness: critical issues. Am. Psychol. 47 (1992) 792-795
41. Merikle P.M., and Cheesman J. Current status of research on subliminal perception. Adv. Consum. Res. 14 (1987) 298-302
42. Merikle P.M., and Daneman M. Conscious vs. unconscious perception. In: Gazzaniga M.S. (Ed). The New Cognitive Neurosciences (2000), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1295-1303
43. Merikle P.M., and Joordens S. Parallels between perception without attention and perception without awareness. Conscious Cogn. 6 (1997) 219-236
44. Merikle P.M., and Reingold E.M. On demonstrating unconscious perception: comment on Draine and Greenwald (1998). J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 127 (1998) 304-310
45. Merikle P.M., Smilek D., and Eastwood J.D. Perception without awareness: perspectives from cognitive psychology. Cognition 79 (2001) 115-134
46. Morris J.S., DeGelder B., Weiskrantz L., and Dolan R.J. Differential extrageniculostriate and amygdala responses to presentation of emotional faces in a cortically blind field. Brain 124 (2001) 1241-1252
47. Morris J.S., Öhman A., and Dolan R.J. Conscious and unconscious emotional learning in the human amygdala. Nature 393 (1998) 467-470
48. Öhman A. Face the beast and fear the face: animal and social fears as prototypes for evolutionary analyses of emotion. Psychophysiology 23 (1986) 123-145
49. Öhman A., and Soares J.J.F. Unconscious anxiety: phobic responses to masked stimuli. J. Abnorm. Psychol. 103 (1994) 231-240
50. Öhman A., and Wiens S. On the automaticity of autonomic responses in emotion: an evolutionary perspective. In: Davidson R.J., Scherer K., and Goldsmith H.H. (Eds). Handbook of Affective Sciences (2003), Oxford University Press, New York 256-275
51. Pasley B.N., Mayes L.C., and Schultz R.T. Subcortical discrimination of unperceived objects during binocular rivalry. Neuron 42 (2004) 163-172
52. Pastore R.E., Crawley E.J., Berens M.S., and Skelly M.A. "Nonparametric" A ' and other modem misconceptions about signal detection theory. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 10 (2003) 556-569
53. Pegna A.J., Khateb A., Lazeyras F., and Seghier M.L. Discriminating emotional faces without primary visual cortices involves the right amygdala. Nat. Neurosci. 8 (2005) 24
54. Pessoa L. To what extent are emotional visual stimuli processed without attention and awareness?. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 15 (2005) 188-196
55. Pessoa L., Japee S., Sturman D., and Ungerleider L.G. Target visibility and visual awareness modulate amygdala responses to fearful faces. Cereb. Cortex 16 (2006) 366-375
56. Pessoa L., McKenna M., Gutierrez E., and Ungerleider L.G. Neural processing of emotional faces requires attention. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99 (2002) 11458-11463
57. Pessoa L., Padmala S., and Morland T. Fate of unattended fearful faces in the amygdala is determined by both attentional resources and cognitive modulation. Neuroimage 28 (2005) 249-255
58. Phillips M.L., Williams L.M., Heining M., Herba C.M., Russell T., Andrew C., Brammer M.J., Williams S.C.R., Morgan M., Young A.W., and Gray J.A. Differential neural responses to overt and covert presentations of facial expressions of fear and disgust. Neuroimage 21 (2004) 1484-1496
59. Rauch S.L., Whalen P.J., Shin L.M., McInerney S.C., Macklin M.L., Lasko N.B., Orr S.P., and Pitman R.K. Exaggerated amygdala response to masked facial stimuli in posttraumatic stress disorder: a functional MRI study. Biol. Psychiatry 47 (2000) 769-776
60. Reingold E.M. Unconscious perception and the classic dissociation paradigm: a new angle? Percept. Psychophys. 66 (2004) 882-887
61. Reingold E.M., and Merikle P.M. On the inter-relatedness of theory and measurement in the study of unconscious processes. Mind Language 5 (1990) 9-28
62. Robinson M.D. Running from William James' bear: a review of preattentive mechanisms and their contributions to emotional experience. Cogn. Emotion 12 (1998) 667-696
63. Roser M., and Gazzaniga M.S. Automatic brains - interpretive minds. Curr. Dir. Psychol. 13 (2004) 56-59
64. Sergent C., Baillet S., and Dehaene S. Timing of the brain events underlying access to consciousness during the attentional blink. Nat. Neurosci. 8 (2005) 1391-1400
65. Sergent C., and Dehaene S. Is consciousness a gradual phenomenon? Evidence for an all-or-none bifurcation during the attentional blink. Psychol. Sci. 15 (2004) 720-728
66. Sheline Y.I., Barch D.M., Donnelly J.M., Ollinger J.M., Snyder A.Z., and Mintun M.A. Increased amygdala response to masked emotional faces in depressed subjects resolves with antidepressant treatment: an fMRI study. Biol. Psychiatry 50 (2001) 651-658
67. Shevrin H., and Dickman S. The psychological unconscious - a necessary assumption for all psychological theory. Am. Psychol. 35 (1980) 421-434
68. Snodgrass J.G., and Corwin J. Pragmatics of measuring recognition memory: applications to dementia and amnesia. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 117 (1988) 34-50
69. Snodgrass M. Disambiguating conscious and unconscious influences: do exclusion paradigms demonstrate unconscious perception?. Am. J. Psychol. 115 (2002) 545-579
70. Snodgrass M., Bernat E., and Shevrin H. Unconscious perception at the objective detection threshold exists. Percept. Psychophys. 66 (2004) 888-895
71. Snodgrass M., Bernat E., and Shevrin H. Unconscious perception: a model-based approach to method and evidence. Percept. Psychophys. 66 (2004) 846-867
72. Stoerig P. Varieties of vision: from blind responses to conscious recognition. Trends Neurosci. 19 (1996) 401-406
73. Stoerig P., Zontanou A., and Cowey A. Aware or unaware: assessment of cortical blindness in four men and a monkey. Cereb. Cortex 12 (2002) 565-574
74. Vuilleumier P. How brains beware: neural mechanisms of emotional attention. Trends Cogn. Sci. 9 (2005) 585-594
75. Vuilleumier P., Armony J.L., Driver J., and Dolan R.J. Effects of attention and emotion on face processing in the human brain: an event-related fMRI study. Neuron 30 (2001) 829-841
76. Weiskrantz L. Blindsight. A Case Study and Implications (1986), Oxford University Press, New York
77. Weiskrantz L., Warrington E.K., Sanders M.D., and Marshall J. Visual capacity in hemianopic field following a restricted occipital ablation. Brain 97 (1974) 709-728
78. Whalen P.J., Kagan J., Cook R.G., Davis F.C., Kim H., Polis S., McLaren D.G., Somerville L.H., McLean A.A., Maxwell J.S., and Johnstone T. Human amygdala responsivity to masked fearful eye whites. Science 306 (2004) 2061
79. Whalen P.J., Rauch S.L., Etcoff N.L., McInerney S.C., Lee M.B., and Jenike M.A. Masked presentations of emotional facial expressions modulate amygdala activity without explicit knowledge. J. Neurosci. 18 (1998) 411-418
80. Wiens, S. (2006) Remain aware of awareness [Correspondence]. Nat. Rev. Neurosci.
81. Wiens S., Fransson P., Dietrich T., Lohmann P., Ingvar M., and Öhman A. Keeping it short: a comparison of methods for brief picture presentation. Psychol. Sci. 15 (2004) 282-285
82. Wiens S., and Öhman A. Unawareness is more than a chance event: comment on Lovibond and Shanks (2002). J. Exp. Psychol. Anim. Behav. Process 28 (2002) 27-31
83. Wiens, S. and Öhman, A. (2005a). Probing unconscious emotional processes: on becoming a successful masketeer. In: Coan, J.A., Allen, J.J.B. (Eds.), The Handbook of Emotion Elicitation and Assessment. Series in Affective Sciences. Oxford University Press, Oxford, in press.
84. Wiens S., and Öhman A. Visual masking in magnetic resonance imaging. Neuroimage 27 (2005) 465-467
85. Williams M.A., McGlone F., Abbott D.F., and Mattingley J.B. Differential amygdala responses to happy and fearful facial expressions depend on selective attention. Neuroimage 24 (2005) 417-425
86. Williams M.A., Morris A.P., McGlone F., Abbott D.F., and Mattingley J.B. Amygdala responses to fearful and happy facial expressions under conditions of binocular suppression. J. Neurosci. 24 (2004) 2898-2904