PARALLELS BETWEEN PERCEPTION WITHOUT ATTENTION AND PERCEPTION WITHOUTAWARENESS

Do studies of perception without awareness and studies of perception w ithout attention address a similar underlying concept of awareness? To answer this question, we compared qualitative differences in performa nce across variations in stimulus quality (i.e., short vs. long prime- mask stimulus onset asynchrony) with qualitative differences in perfor mance across variations in the direction of attention (i.e., focused v s. divided). The qualitative differences were based on three different phenomena: Stroop priming, false recognition, and exclusion failure. Zn all cases, variations in stimulus quality and variations in the dir ection of attention led to parallel findings. These results suggest th at perception with and without awareness and perception with and witho ut attention are equivalent ways of describing the same underlying pro cess distinction. (C) 1997 Academic Press.