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Category: Project

Description: This project was developed to test the idea that unconscious semantic processing is mostly limited to symbolic information, while conscious processing reflects the contribution of symbolic and situated, extra-linguistic knowledge. To test this hypothesis, we took advantage of the mapping between space and time, which can happen along both a sagittal (e.g., back is past, ahead is future) and a lateral axis (e.g., left is past, right is future). However, only the former mapping is encoded in language use (e.g., "the future is ahead of you", not "to your right"), thus establishing a symbolic, linguistic tie that the lateral metaphor lacks. Based on this, we ran an original and a self-replication priming experiment with temporal targets preceded by spatial primes that could be presented either below or above the threshold for conscious perception. In support of our proposal, we find similar sagittal and lateral priming supraliminally, while the masked effect is stronger on the sagittal axis, and weak to non-existent on the lateral one