Subliminal primes were found to facilitate responses to subsequently presented suprathreshold targets-either by reducing response latency or by increasing response accuracy-if primes and targets are associated with the same response. Prominent evidence for unconscious influences on decision processes is provided by priming studies, in which subliminal stimuli are presented as primes to alter the conscious processing of subsequently presented target stimuli (for reviews see e.g., Van den Bussche et al., 2009 Ansorge et al., 2014 Henson et al., 2014). We further explored whether such subliminally acquired unconscious knowledge would interact with later encoded supraliminal information in guiding decision-making. Are decisions and choices exclusively determined by conscious information, or do humans integrate all available conscious and unconscious knowledge while making decisions? To address these questions, we tested whether subliminal information, i.e., information presented below the threshold of awareness, is stored in memory to guide later decisions unconsciously. We further ask how such unconscious knowledge interacts with consciously formed memories during decision-making. Here, we ask if intuitive decisions benefit from unconscious knowledge, i.e., from memories that were formed outside of awareness. Unconscious cognition might be most relevant in situations where decisions have to be made intuitively, for example if a deliberate analysis of decision alternatives and their possible consequences is not possible ( Betsch and Gloeckner, 2010 Zander et al., 2016). Increasing evidence suggests that decision-making is also influenced by unconscious mental processes ( Betsch and Gloeckner, 2010 Custers and Aarts, 2010 Baumeister et al., 2011 van Gaal et al., 2012 Creswell et al., 2013 Hassin, 2013). Decision-making is considered to depend on conscious deliberation ( Simon, 1955 Bettman et al., 1998 Kahneman, 2003 Newell and Shanks, 2014) because good decisions require long-term episodic memory, a proper analysis and integration of information, strategic reasoning and formal logic. supraliminally formed memories, their long-lasting impact on decision-making is noteworthy.ĭecision-making is the cognitive process of collectively integrating relevant knowledge to determine the optimal option among several possibilities. In view of the much weaker representational strength of subliminally vs. Importantly, the increased decision bias following the formation of identical unconscious and conscious memories and the reduced decision bias following to the formation of non-identical memories were determined relative to a control condition, where conscious memory formation alone could influence decisions. Instead, both unconsciously and consciously encoded memories influenced decisions: identical unconscious and conscious memories exerted the strongest bias on income decisions, while both incongruous and congruous (i.e., non-identical) subliminally and supraliminally formed memories canceled each other out leaving no bias on decisions. If conscious thought alone guided decisions (= H 0), supraliminal information should determine decision outcomes independently of the encoded subliminal information. Hence, the decision task was an implicit or indirect test of relational memory. Participants were encouraged to decide spontaneously and intuitively. To measure decision-making, participants viewed the same faces again (with occupations absent) and decided on the putative income of each person: low, low-average, high-average, or high. Following a delay of 20 min, participants consciously (re-)encoded the same faces now presented supraliminally along with either the same written occupations, occupations congruous to the subliminally presented occupations (same wage-category), or incongruous occupations (opposite wage-category). Participants were presented with subliminal pairs of faces and written occupations for unconscious encoding.
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Our experiment measured the influence of subliminally and supraliminally presented information on delayed (30–40 min) decision-making. Here, we hypothesize that both consciously and unconsciously acquired memories guide decisions. But growing evidence demonstrates that not only conscious but also unconscious thoughts influence decision-making.
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Simon Ruch 1,2 *, Elizabeth Herbert 3 and Katharina Henke 1,2