Abstract
Are there unconscious affective processes? Evidence from the mere exposure and affective priming paradigms. Recent findings have shown dissociations between explicit and explicit measures in a number of psychological processes such as perception, memory, learning, decision making, and emotion. This research has served to renew the interest for the study of unconscious processes. The paper reviews and summarizes results showing the existence of unconscious emotional processes. These data were obtained from two main lines of research, the traditional mere exposure and the emotional priming paradigms. A large number of findings suggest that previous experiences influence emotional behavior unconsciously. Some recent neuropsychological findings are consistent with the idea of unconscious affects. The identification of a subcortical thalamoamygdala pathway seems to be in accordance to the hypothesis. It seems like some affective influences are mediated by low-level systems. These influences seems responsible for unconscious affects without the implication of higher-level cognitions.
