Pohl, C. , Pfister, R. , Kiesel, A. & Kunde, W.
University of Wuerzburg
The own name constitutes a unique part of conscious awareness, but it is also unique for the unconscious mind? To answer this question, we employed a subliminal priming experiment. Participants decided as fast as possible whether a name or a non-word was presented as target. Unbeknown to them, already before the target, a masked prime stimulus was briefly presented. The prime was either one of the targets, a non-word, the own name of the participant, or the name of a yoked participant. When one's own name was presented as prime, responding to a name target was substantially facilitated, whereas presenting the name of the other participant had the same effect as presenting a non-word prime. Thus, we show that - in contrast to any other name - one's own name has the power to bias a person's actions, even when the presence of the own name is unexpected and unconscious. The brain identifies and processes its name even in the absence of conscious awareness.