Incorporating subliminal perception in synthetic environments

Subliminal Cueing of Selection Behavior in a Virtual Environment

“…This is supported by previous work that has demonstrated an effective exploitation of shared context between deliberative factors, such as the importance of the current decision within the task, and a reactive context, which includes how susceptible the user might be in a particular configuration and indications of impending user action from low-level behaviors or implicit signals (Pizzi et al, 2012). The present findings suggest that subliminal cues cannot be expected to provide an exact communication with the user; instead, they can provide a less obtrusive and suggestive communication mechanism for guiding the user with less important decisions.…”

“…The first one is that, to incorporate subliminal cueing, the attention of the user should be focused prior to the stimulus, and the system should be compatible with a user response < 1000 ms. This suggests the use of intelligent interfaces that can track the user context to determine the most appropriate timing for subliminal cueing (Pizzi et al, 2012). Another implication derives from the actual magnitude of the observed effect.…”

“…We developed a framework that supports various mappings between user actions and behaviors; for example, in previous work we mapped gestures to user actions (Pizzi et al, 2012). We opted for a mouse-controlled, click-and-drag interaction in order to focus the experiment toward investigating cueing effects, but our system is compatible with gesture interaction.…”

“…Over the years, virtual reality (VR) has been considered in research for investigating perception and consciousness (Sanchez-Vives & Slater, 2005). Although the use of VR to study nonconscious perception is rare (Hilsenrat & Reiner, 2009), recent advancements of software and hardware make it possible to synthetically reproduce subliminal cues for a variety of situations and tasks (Pizzi et al, 2012).…”

“…A promising way to address these challenges is to take known constraints into account when designing the interface for subliminal HCI in virtual environments (Pizzi et al, 2012), for example, by embedding subliminal cues in a goal-directed task while guiding attention during its execution. Although there is a wealth of possibilities in terms of applications, research in this direction seems to lack a systematic approach to study subliminal influences.…”