Remaking "The Unconscious" Paradigm, Act I: ...The Gap" Between Subliminal Processing and the Unconscious "Mind...
Myron Tsikandilakis, Persefoni Bali, Roland Erich Uriko, Mohammad Eskandari, Victοria-Maria Pasachidou, Romina Leonor Toranzos, Konrad Szczesniak, Ivona Dömischová, Pierre-Alexis Mével, Christopher Madan, Alison Milbank
Integrative psychological & behavioral science November 4, 2026 DOI: 10.1007/s12124-026-10048-7 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Series of experimental studies Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Humans Emotions Awareness Consciousness Subliminal stimulation Visual perception Female Unconscious, psychology Models Concepts Methods |
| Key findings | Argues that truly imperceptible (subliminal) visual elicitors produced no behavioral, emotional, or physiological changes, with Bayesian analyses supporting null responses. Proposes instead that automatic, involuntary physiological-emotional responses to perceived but not imperceptible emotional content precede conscious awareness and cannot be consciously inhibited, and terms these "unconscious" rather than "subliminal." |
Abstract
The notion of subliminal processing often refers to perception that takes place below the threshold of conscious visual awareness. This is suggested to lead to behavioural and emotional changes with spontaneous and actionable evolutionary-survival and/or social-adaptation response value. Therefore, it has been suggested that the presentation of imperceptible visual elicitors can lead to responses, such as skin-conductance and heart-rate, and facial-emotional, and participant behavioural and self-report changes without conscious awareness. In a series of experiments, we disproved this theory. We showed that individually-adjusted, truly imperceptible elicitors did not induce any of these changes, when using null-hypothesis-testing, and, furthermore, provided evidence for null responses, when using Bayesian analyses. We proceeded to a series of novel and exploratory experiments on unconscious theory. We tested whether behavioural and emotional responses were reported to precede conscious awareness using overt presentations of visual-emotional elicitors. We showed evidence that the experience of physiological-emotional responses was reported to precede conscious awareness of a perceived visual-emotional content. These early responses were automatic and involuntary; they did not involve or require conscious access, or accessibility, and deliberation, and could not be physiologically restrained by conscious instruction for inhibition. We proposed that responses that can be termed unconscious, but not subliminal, are preceding, spontaneous and conditionally uninhibited experiential components of exposure to perceived, but not imperceptible, emotional elicitors. We extended that they involve genuine evolutionary-survival and social-adaptation value, compared to so-called subliminal processes, because they enable spontaneously-occurring, and progressively-intentional and intended behavioural and emotional adjustments, and readjustments, and adapting refinements.