Neuroimaging techniques have made breakthroughs in the field of conscious emotional processing possible. However, people process most emotional information at an unconscious level and this influences our daily life (Van den Noort, 2003). These unconscious processes still remain a great mystery. What are the limits of unconscious information processing? Neuroimagingand skin conductance studies w...

Individuals often form more reasonable judgments from complex information after a period of distraction vs. deliberation. This phenomenon has been attributed to sophisticated unconscious thought during the distraction period that integrates and organizes the information (Unconscious Thought Theory; Dijksterhuis and Nordgren, 2006). Yet, other research suggests that experiential processes are st...

This article reviews selected neuroscience and psychoanalytic writings about respective concepts regarding unconscious processes. Two objectives are pursued. The first is the modification of an apparent dualistic view of the psychoanalytic, dynamic unconscious described by Freud and the implicit, automated unconscious described by neuroscientists into a unified unconscious process concept. Seco...

In the present article, the role of endogenous feature-specific orienting for conscious and unconscious vision is reviewed. We start with an overview of orienting. We proceed with a review of masking research, and the definition of the criteria of experimental protocols that demonstrate endogenous and exogenous orienting, respectively. Against this background of criteria, we assess studies of u...