Unconscious processing plays a significant role in cognitive control, affecting how we resolve conflicts. In two experiments involving 60 participants, subliminal Stroop primes influenced brain activity, specifically showing Stroop effects on N450 amplitudes. Participants exhibited slower reaction times when previously exposed to conflicting primes, indicating that early unconscious conflict detection impacts conscious decision-making. However, there was no evidence supporting unconscious conflict resolution. These findings underscore the complexities of cognitive control and the neural mechanisms involved in managing conflicts without conscious awareness.
Grasp-related verbs processed without conscious awareness can influence how people recognize grasping actions. In a masked priming paradigm, participants classified objects requiring either precision or power grasps while subliminal Chinese action verbs served as primes. Behavioral responses were faster for semantically congruent cue-target pairs. Event-related potentials revealed congruency effects in the N400, P600, and P300 components, reflecting semantic integration, conflict monitoring, and action-related evaluation. Both precision- and power-grasping actions showed evidence of unconscious semantic processing, though they produced distinct neural patterns. These findings support the view that action-language processing involves overlapping neural mechanisms with action execution, even below the threshold of awareness.