Personality modulation of (un)conscious processing: Novelty Seeking and performance following supraliminal and subliminal reward cues

This study provides evidence that personality traits associated with responsiveness to conscious reward cues also influence responsiveness to unconscious reward cues. Participants with low and high levels of Novelty Seeking (NS) performed updating tasks in which they could either gain 1 euro or 5 cents. Gains were presented either supraliminally or subliminally at the beginning of each trial. Results showed that low NS participants performed better in the high-reward than in the low-reward condition, whereas high NS participants' performance did not differ between reward conditions. Interestingly, we found that low NS participants performed significantly better when rewards were presented unconsciously, whereas high NS participants' performance did not differ whether reward cues were presented subliminally or supraliminally. Our findings highlight the necessity of taking personality into account in unconscious cognition research. They also suggest that individual differences might determine whether implicit and explicit motives have similar or complementary influences.     

Conscious and unconscious reward cues can affect a critical component of executive control

The present study investigates whether updating an important function of executive control can be driven by unconscious reward cues. Participants had to memorize several numbers and update those numbers independently according to a sequence of arithmetic operations. At the beginning of each trial, a reward (1 euro or 5 cents) was presented, either subliminally or supraliminally. Participants could earn the reward if they found the correct response on the updating task. Results showed better performance when a high (conscious or unconscious) reward was at stake compared to a low reward. This suggests that subliminal information can influence a component process of executive control traditionally thought to require consciousness.