Unconscious and conscious processes during visual perception

Abstract

Ongoing unconscious processes may be influenced by related conscious processes without self-awareness. (a) When the conscious semantic interpretation of physically identical shapes changes due to their angular rotation, the sequence of saccadic movements arid the localization of eye fixations over the shapes change as well. (b) The amplitude of the P 300 wave of visual evoked potentials is related to the conscious cognitive interpretation of identical stimuli. (c) The instants of figure reversals are influenced by conscious cognitive programs delineated by means of corresponding experimental instructions. It is assumed that unconscious and conscious processes may be considered functional manifestations of the same complex and specific neuronal network at different levels of its hierarchical organization and that mutual interactions between both types of processes do not require the existence of any mediating "interface" system.