一直以來，意識的功能究竟為何仍極具爭議，本研究檢驗無意識下字義是否能被處理及其限度來探討此議題。本實驗比較意識(實驗一)及無意識(實驗二至四)下的促發效果，並操弄促發項與目標項的連結類型。實驗的促發項將以雙眼同時呈現(實驗一)或在雙眼分視下以持續閃現派典來遮蔽(實驗二至四)，並操弄促發項和目標項之間的語義一致性。促發項均為帶有冷或熱意義的中文雙字詞，參與者需判斷目標項屬於冷或熱，同時記錄其反應時間。實驗一發現當促發項為閾上知覺時，目標項與其語義一致時(相較於語義不一致時)會有正向促發效果(反應時間縮短)，顯示三種連結類型(直接、跨型式、間接概念連結)的訊息均可以被處理。實驗二的促發項和目標項均為與溫度相關之文字，但促發項僅呈現在一眼，同時將一高對比、快速變換的彩色色塊(持續閃現派典)呈現於另一眼，使得促發項被抑制而無法被參與者知覺。結果發現當促發項與目標項語義一致時，其反應時間較語義不一致時更慢，顯示無意識下有負向促發的效果。當目標項換成具冷或熱意義的圖片(實驗三)或具有溫度關聯的性格詞(實驗四)時，其反應時間不受語義一致性的影響。本研究首度顯示出持續閃現抑制下無意識字義處理之限度：持續閃現抑制下的字義可被處理；當促發項與目標項屬於同屬性刺激時，具促發效果，但當兩者分屬不同類型的刺激(例如：文字與圖片)或較間接的抽象概念連結，則無促發效果。

The function of consciousness remains under debate. We excavated this issue via examining whether and to what extent that the unconscious semantic information can be processed. By manipulating the semantic congruency between the prime and a subsequent target, we observed and compared conscious (Experiment 1) and unconscious (Experiment 2-4) semantic priming effect among different types of semantic association. The prime was either binocular presented (i.e., visible) or suppressed by colorful Mondrians using continuous flash suppression (CFS) paradigm. The prime was a Chinese word which carries the meaning of either coldness or warmth, and participants had to discriminate whether the target was warm or cold with their reaction times (RTs) recorded. We first verified that there was a positive priming effect for semantic congruency in all types of association (i.e., direct, cross-form and indirect conceptual association) when primes were perceptually visible in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, both the primes and targets were words semantically related to temperature directly, whereas the primes were perceptually invisible via being presented simultaneously with a high-contrast dynamic mask (i.e., CFS) to one of each eye. The results showed slower mean RTs in the congruent than the incongruent condition, suggesting a negative priming effect under CFS. The target was then replaced with illustrations of cold and warm scenes (Experiment 3) or conceptually related words describing personalities (Experiment 4), which represented more distant semantic association. The results showed no difference in RTs between the incongruent and congruent conditions. These results delineated the boundary conditions of semantic processing under CFS. Word meanings can be accessed and spread to highly-associated meanings, but not when the prime and target are different forms (e.g., word vs. illustration) or indirectly associated concepts.

Introduction 1
Experiment 1: Semantic Priming with Awareness 8
Method 10
Result 22
Discussion 24
Experiment 2: Directly Semantic Association under CFS 25
Method 25
Result 31
Discussion 33
Experiment 3: Cross-Form Semantic Association under CFS 36
Method 36
Result 39
Discussion 41
Experiment 4: Indirectly Conceptual Association under CFS 42
Method 42
Result 45
Discussion 46
General Discussion 47
References 53

Baars, B. J. (2002). The conscious access hypothesis: origins and recent evidence. Trends in cognitive sciences, 6(1), 47-52.
Barbot, A., & Kouider, S. (2012). Longer is not better: nonconscious overstimulation reverses priming influences under interocular suppression. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 74(1), 174-184.
Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annu. Rev. Psychol., 59, 617-645.
Bayne, T., Chalmers, D. J., & Cleeremans, A. (2003). The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, Dissociation. In: Oxford.
Bergman, P., Ho, H.-N., Koizumi, A., Tajadura-Jiménez, A., & Kitagawa, N. (2015). The pleasant heat? evidence for thermal-emotional implicit associations occurring with semantic and physical thermal stimulation. Cognitive neuroscience, 6(1), 24-30.
Brainard, D. H., & Vision, S. (1997). The psychophysics toolbox. Spatial vision, 10, 433-436.
Chen, Y.-C., & Yeh, S.-L. (2012). Look into my eyes and I will see you: Unconscious processing of human gaze. Consciousness and cognition, 21(4), 1703-1710.
Chen, Z., Poon, K.-T., & DeWall, C. N. (2015). Cold thermal temperature threatens belonging: The moderating role of perceived social support. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(4), 439-446.
Costello, P., Jiang, Y., Baartman, B., McGlennen, K., & He, S. (2009). Semantic and subword priming during binocular suppression. Consciousness and cognition, 18(2), 375-382.
Dehaene, S., & Changeux, J.-P. (2011). Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing. Neuron, 70(2), 200-227.
Dehaene, S., Charles, L., King, J.-R., & Marti, S. (2014). Toward a computational theory of conscious processing. Current opinion in neurobiology, 25, 76-84.
Dehaene, S., & Naccache, L. (2001). Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: basic evidence and a workspace framework. Cognition, 79(1-2), 1-37.
Eimer, M., & Schlaghecken, F. (2003). Response facilitation and inhibition in subliminal priming. Biological psychology, 64(1-2), 7-26.
Eo, K., Cha, O., Chong, S. C., & Kang, M.-S. (2016). Less is more: semantic information survives interocular suppression when attention is diverted. Journal of Neuroscience, 36(20), 5489-5497.
Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J., & Glick, P. (2007). Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends in cognitive sciences, 11(2), 77-83.
Griffith, V., & Koch, C. (2014). Quantifying synergistic mutual information. In Guided Self-Organization: Inception (pp. 159-190): Springer.
Hedger, N., Adams, W. J., & Garner, M. (2015). Fearful faces have a sensory advantage in the competition for awareness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(6), 1748.
Heyman, T., & Moors, P. (2014). Frequent words do not break continuous flash suppression differently from infrequent or nonexistent words: Implications for semantic processing of words in the absence of awareness. PloS one, 9(8), e104719.
Huber, D. E. (2008). Immediate priming and cognitive aftereffects. Journal of experimental psychology: general, 137(2), 324.
Huber, D. E., & O'Reilly, R. C. (2003). Persistence and accommodation in short‐term priming and other perceptual paradigms: temporal segregation through synaptic depression. Cognitive Science, 27(3), 403-430.
Hung, S.-M., Styles, S. J., & Hsieh, P.-J. (2017). Can a word sound like a shape before you have seen it? Sound-shape mapping prior to conscious awareness. Psychological Science, 28(3), 263-275.
Jiang, Y., Shannon, R. W., Vizueta, N., Bernat, E. M., Patrick, C. J., & He, S. (2009). Dynamics of processing invisible faces in the brain: automatic neural encoding of facial expression information. NeuroImage, 44(3), 1171-1177.
Kang, M.-S., Blake, R., & Woodman, G. F. (2011). Semantic analysis does not occur in the absence of awareness induced by interocular suppression. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(38), 13535-13545.
Karpinski, A., Yale, M., & Briggs, J. C. (2016). Retracted: Unconscious arithmetic processing: A direct replication. European Journal of Social Psychology, 46(3), 384-391.
Kim, C.-Y., & Blake, R. (2005). Psychophysical magic: rendering the visible ‘invisible’. Trends in cognitive sciences, 9(8), 381-388.
Kouider, S., & Dehaene, S. (2007). Levels of processing during non-conscious perception: a critical review of visual masking. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1481), 857-875.
Merikle, P. M., & Daneman, M. (1998). Psychological investigations of unconscious perception. Journal of consciousness studies, 5(1), 5-18.
Moors, P., Boelens, D., Van Overwalle, J., & Wagemans, J. (2016). Scene integration without awareness: no conclusive evidence for processing scene congruency during continuous flash suppression. Psychological Science, 27(7), 945-956.
Moors, P., & Hesselmann, G. (2018). A critical reexamination of doing arithmetic nonconsciously. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 25(1), 472-481.
Moors, P., Hesselmann, G., Wagemans, J., & van Ee, R. (2017). Continuous flash suppression: Stimulus fractionation rather than integration. Trends in cognitive sciences, 21(10), 719-721.
Mudrik, L., Faivre, N., & Koch, C. (2014). Information integration without awareness. Trends in cognitive sciences, 18(9), 488-496.
Oizumi, M., Albantakis, L., & Tononi, G. (2014). From the phenomenology to the mechanisms of consciousness: integrated information theory 3.0. PLoS computational biology, 10(5), e1003588.
Prioli, S. C., & Kahan, T. A. (2015). Identifying words that emerge into consciousness: Effects of word valence and unconscious previewing. Consciousness and cognition, 35, 88-97.
Sklar, A. Y., Deouell, L. Y., & Hassin, R. R. (2018). Integration despite Fractionation: Continuous Flash Suppression. Trends in cognitive sciences, 22(11), 956-957.
Sklar, A. Y., Levy, N., Goldstein, A., Mandel, R., Maril, A., & Hassin, R. R. (2012). Reading and doing arithmetic nonconsciously. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(48), 19614-19619.
Stein, T., Senju, A., Peelen, M. V., & Sterzer, P. (2011). Eye contact facilitates awareness of faces during interocular suppression. Cognition, 119(2), 307-311.
Tan, J.-S., & Yeh, S.-L. (2015). Audiovisual integration facilitates unconscious visual scene processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(5), 1325.
Tononi, G. (2004). An information integration theory of consciousness. BMC neuroscience, 5(1), 42.
Tononi, G. (2008). Consciousness as integrated information: a provisional manifesto. The Biological Bulletin, 215(3), 216-242.
Tononi, G. (2011). The integrated information theory of consciousness: an updated account. Archives italiennes de biologie, 150(2/3), 56-90.
Tononi, G., Boly, M., Massimini, M., & Koch, C. (2016). Integrated information theory: from consciousness to its physical substrate. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17(7), 450.
Treisman, A. M., & Gelade, G. (1980). A feature-integration theory of attention. Cognitive psychology, 12(1), 97-136.
Tsuchiya, N., & Koch, C. (2005). Continuous flash suppression reduces negative afterimages. Nature neuroscience, 8(8), 1096.
Van Gaal, S., & Lamme, V. A. (2012). Unconscious high-level information processing: implication for neurobiological theories of consciousness. The neuroscientist, 18(3), 287-301.
Wentura, D., & Frings, C. (2005). Repeated masked category primes interfere with related exemplars: new evidence for negative semantic priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31(1), 108.
Williams, L. E., & Bargh, J. A. (2008). Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth. Science, 322(5901), 606-607.
Yang, E., Brascamp, J., Kang, M.-S., & Blake, R. (2014). On the use of continuous flash suppression for the study of visual processing outside of awareness. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 724.
Yang, E., Zald, D. H., & Blake, R. (2007). Fearful expressions gain preferential access to awareness during continuous flash suppression. Emotion, 7(4), 882.
Yang, Y.-H., & Yeh, S.-L. (2011). Accessing the meaning of invisible words. Consciousness and cognition, 20(2), 223-233.
Yang, Y.-H., & Yeh, S.-L. (2018a). Can emotional content be extracted under interocular suppression? PloS one, 13(11), e0206799.
Yang, Y.-H., & Yeh, S.-L. (2018b). Unconscious processing of facial expression as revealed by affective priming under continuous flash suppression. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 25(6), 2215-2223.
Yang, Y.-H., Zhou, J., Li, K.-A., Hung, T., Pegna, A. J., & Yeh, S.-L. (2017). Opposite ERP effects for conscious and unconscious semantic processing under continuous flash suppression. Consciousness and cognition, 54, 114-128.
Yuval-Greenberg, S., & Heeger, D. J. (2013). Continuous flash suppression modulates cortical activity in early visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(23), 9635-9643.
Zhou, W., Jiang, Y., He, S., & Chen, D. (2010). Olfaction modulates visual perception in binocular rivalry. Current Biology, 20(15), 1356-1358.
Zhou, Y., Ho, H.-N., & Watanabe, J. (2017). Perceptual-Semantic Congruency Facilitates Semantic Discrimination of Thermal Qualities. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 2113.
Zou, J., He, S., & Zhang, P. (2016). Binocular rivalry from invisible patterns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(30), 8408-8413.