The power of the unconscious mind

Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have found evidence that we can read sentences and solve complex maths problems unconsciously.

The team, headed by Dr Ran Hassin, investigated the abilities of the unconscious mind using a new technique called continuous flash suppression (CFS), in which one eye views rapidly changing images, while the other eye views a continuous image at the same time.  The continuous image is not attended to, because the rapidly changing images dominate consciousness.  This allows items to be presented to the brain that are not consciously processed.

Dr Hassin’s team at the Psychology department found that simple equations and sentences presented to the unattended eye were actually processed quite a lot.  For example, they asked the students taking part in the experiment to read out numbers that appeared on a computer screen.  Before the number was presented, an equation was shown unconsciously.  Participants said the number more quickly if it was the answer to the previous equation, for example after ‘seeing’ 9 – 5 – 1 they were quicker to say 3 (the answer to the equation) than 4.

A similar effect was shown for words: short expressions were presented to one eye (while the other eye saw rapidly flashing images) until the participants said they could see the phrases: until they became consciously aware of them.  The researchers found that people were conscious of negative or unusual phrases (such as ‘human trafficking’ or ‘the bench ate the zebra’) before more positive or usual phrases (like ‘ironed shirt’ or ‘the lion ate a zebra’).  This suggests that the phrases were monitored unconsciously and the negative or unusual phrases were ‘picked up’.

This adds to the great debate of what consciousness is, and what it is actually used for, since seemingly complex processes can be achieved without it.