【作者】 彭宇彬； 丁锦红； 郭春彦；

【Author】 Yubin Peng;Jinhong Ding;Chunyan Guo;School of Psychology,Capital Normal University;

【机构】 首都师范大学心理学院；

【摘要】 一直以来,工作记忆都被认为与意识紧紧联系在一起,然而最近的研究发现,阈下的刺激可以储存在工作记忆中,同时,一些复杂的认知计算也可以无意识的进行,而这正是工作记忆的功能。这些研究都说明了无意识工作记忆的存在,然而其与一般意义上的工作记忆有什么相似或不同之处还不明确。前人的研究发现了情绪会对工作记忆产生影响,本研究考察情绪是否也会影响无意识工作记忆。为了获得更准确地指标,本研究采用了眼动追踪技术,比较被试在不同的情绪状态下完成无意识工作记忆任务的表现。在实验开始前,被试完成正负情绪量表(PANAS),评估其当前的情绪状态。通过在每个无意识工作记忆试次前呈现情绪图片(负性、中性,和正性)来诱发情绪,每组后让被试再填写正负情绪量表,与实验前填写的对比,以确认诱发情绪的效果。在每个试次中,情绪图片首先呈现3000ms,随后是500ms的注视点。接着在矩阵的各个点上出现黑色或白色的圆点,被试需要判断其为黑色或者白色。被试做出判断后圆点消失,150ms后呈现下一个圆点。在一些试次中,圆点的位置是有规律的,比如说"Z"形,然而在实验后的访谈中,被试表示不知道规律的存在。这里的逻辑是,如果被试能从之前的四个圆点的位置中提取出规律,并应用于对第五个点的位置的判断,那么第五个点的眼跳潜伏期和/或反应时会更快。结果发现,三种情绪中的规律条件的眼跳潜伏期都快于非规律条件,且这种促进作用在情绪间没有差异,而反应时只在中性和负性情绪中存在这样的效应。我们认为这是因为反应时所指代的认知过程比较混杂,反应时不如眼跳潜伏期纯净、直接。总的来说,我们发现情绪不会影响无意识工作记忆的表现,我们认为这是因为情绪所占用的认知资源与无意识工作记忆所需的认知资源不同,这与前人发现的无意识工作记忆不受外显的认知负荷的研究有异曲同工之处,这为理解工作记忆与无意识工作记忆的关系提供了新的视角。更多还原

【Abstract】 Working memory are thought to be intertwined with consciousness, yet recently empirical studies show that subliminal stimuli can be stored in working memory and complex cognitive computations, which is thought to be the function of working memory, can be performed unconsciously. This kind of researches have proved the existence of unconscious working memory, while the cognitive nature of unconscious working memory remains unclear. Previous studies have revealed that negative emotion would severely affect conscious spatial working memory, here we tested whether this effect exists in unconscious working memory. Using eye-tracking method, the current study investigated whether unconscious WM is a discrete mechanism from conscious WM in terms of emotion. Before the beginning of the experiment, the participants were given a positive and negative affect schedule(PANAS), they were asked to rate how accurately each of the terms on the scale described the way that they were feeling at that moment(1 = not at all, 5 = very much). After each session of the experiment, the participants filled out another PANAS scale, which would be compared with the baseline to see whether the emotional pictures did elicit different emotions or not. Negative, neutral, and positive pictures from IAPS, which were used to elicit emotion, were presented to the participants in the beginning of each trail. All of the trials began with a picture(negative, neutral, or positive emotion), which remained on the screen for 3000 ms, followed by a fixation lasting for 500 ms. Black or white disks then were shown in the different intersections of the matrix. The participants were told to judge the color of the disks. The disk remained on the screen until participants press the keyboard to make the color judgement. Once the participants respond, the present disk disappeared and the next disk was shown 150 ms later. In some trials, the locations of the disks were regularly(for example, zigzag), which was unaware to the participants according to a post-examine inquiry. The logic here is that if participants could extract the pattern from the first four disks, they would apply this pattern to the location of the last disk, leading to an unconscious anticipation of the location of the last disk, which can be reflected by a faster saccade latency to the last disk and/or a faster RT of the color judgement task. Our data revealed that the RTs of the last disk in pattern condition was significantly faster than those in the no-pattern condition in negative and neutral emotion, the saccade latencies of pattern set condition was significantly faster than those in the no-pattern condition in all 3 emotional conditions, we considered this difference between oculomotor data and behavioral data was due to the mixed process indicated by RT. The saccade latency, which is a purer and more directive indicator of unconscious working memory, suggested that emotion would not readily affect unconscious WM as it would to conscious WM. We consider the reason the absence of that the emotion effect on unconscious working memory in our study was because the resources for emotional processes(according to previous studies, that`s the same with conscious cognitive processes) are different from that for unconscious cognitive processes. An interesting indication of this explanation is that unconscious cognitive process has its own resource pool, which is independent with the conventional cognitive resource. This is in line with a previous study which proved that unconscious WM could remain intact under conscious cognitive load. This difference of emotion effect between conscious WM and unconscious WM shed new light on the relationship between those two different WM mechanisms in the aspect of emotion.更多还原