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A Review of the Research on Subliminal Techniques for Implicit Interaction in Symbiotic Systems

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Symbiotic Interaction (Symbiotic 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 8820))

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Abstract

Subliminal perception is a long-standing topic in psychology, which has been strongly debated throughout the twentieth century. Recently, unconscious information processing has gained attention in human-computer interaction (HCI) research on the basis that subliminal stimulation can covertly trigger automatic responses without generating mental workload. The aim is to increase the interaction efficiency between humans and systems by embedding subliminal stimuli in user interfaces. Moreover, the currently thriving research on adaptive and symbiotic systems makes the interest for unconscious processes even greater.

The purpose of the present paper is to give an overview of both the most recent findings about subliminal stimuli applied to concrete contexts and the main stimulation techniques to obtain unconscious perception. The techniques reviewed here are the binocular rivalry, visual masking, visual crowding, and rapid serial visual presentation with some latest variants of these classic paradigms.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Visual masking is one of the techniques used to make a visual stimulus subliminal; this technique is addressed in the section titled “Unconscious Perception.”

  2. 2.

    Subliminal cueing consists of the bias affecting choice among alternative targets or actions caused by a preceding subliminal stimulus.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the European Project CEEDS, The Collective Experience of Emphatic Data Systems, European Integrated Project (Number: 258749; Call: ICT 2009.8.4 Human-Computer Confluence).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

    Paolo Negri, Luciano Gamberini & Simone Cutini

  2. Human Inspired Technology Research Centre, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

    Luciano Gamberini

Authors
  1. Paolo Negri
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  2. Luciano Gamberini
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  3. Simone Cutini
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Correspondence to Paolo Negri .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Giulio Jacucci

  2. University of Padua, Padua, Italy

    Luciano Gamberini

  3. Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths - University of London, London, United Kingdom

    Jonathan Freeman

  4. University of Padua, Padua, Italy

    Anna Spagnolli

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Negri, P., Gamberini, L., Cutini, S. (2014). A Review of the Research on Subliminal Techniques for Implicit Interaction in Symbiotic Systems. In: Jacucci, G., Gamberini, L., Freeman, J., Spagnolli, A. (eds) Symbiotic Interaction. Symbiotic 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8820. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13500-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13500-7_4

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