Nonconscious perception of autostereographic images ¹⁵⁷³

The possibility of using autostereograms in the research of unconscious perception was studied. We used three tasks: lexical decision, simple arithmetic problems, anagrams. The results of all experiments demonstrated the influence of unconscious perception of the autostereograms on the problem-solving process, the possibility of unconscious perception of autostereograms without special eye defocusing. Studies with one and two eyes showed that the way of perception (monocular or binocular) is not important for our experiments. It shows the possibilities of unconscious processing. Probably, the image in the autostereogram can be considered as a signal against noise. We made model studies (implemented spatial-frequency filtering of images through a Gaussian blur, using wavelet packet filtering with Gabor elements). Low-frequency filtering allows to select the signal in the stereogram, without building a three-dimensional image.

Keywords: autostereographic images, unconscious perception, signal detection

Column: Psychology of Perception