Abstract: Inattentional blindness (Mack & Rock, 1998)?describes a strong connection between attention and reports of visual awareness: observers are functionally blind to a fully-visible, unexpected object when their?attention?was engaged in another task, event, or object. This phenomenon, inattentional blindness, is especially robust and forces us to recognize that the content of the perceived visual world is enormously limited (Gu, Stocker, & Badler, 2005). However, few factors have been identified which could reduce inattentional blindness and not all critical stimuli (CS) remained undetected under inattention. These factors are: (1) meaning of critical stimuli related to the task-relevant goal of the observers (Ansorge, Horstmann, & Carbone, 2005); (2) the physical features such as the color or shape of the unexpected object are similar to those of the attended objects (Gu, et al., 2005); (3) Biologically or socially important stimuli, smiling faces or our names (Mack, Pappas, Silverman, & Gay, 2002; Mack & Rock, 1998). The current study was aim to investigate that without attention set, whether the widely associated stimuli is able to promote attention and thus reduce blindness to important information. The experiment examines that whether the task irrelevant object has the ability to enhance our signal value for attention and improve visual awareness when primed with stimuli of the same category without a certain goal. 79 students volunteering in our experiment were primed with 35 pictures belonging to one category the same to the critical stimuli appearing in the critical trial or the other when they do an alphabetical rearrangement task (refer to figure 1 for details). Three experimental trials later, a critical stimulus appeared on the screen without any notice in the forth trial (inattention trial). Immediately after the trial beginning at the time of the rearrangement the CS was presented, subjects were asked whether they saw anything new that had not been presented on previous trials on the screen. If subjects reported that they saw something, they were asked to identify it by choosing it from a list of 9 pictures and indicating the quadrant the critical stimulus stayed. The fifth trial (divided-attention trial) was the same as the forth trial except that (1) at the onset of this trial, subjects were explicitly instructed to both perform the rearrangement task and detect the CS during the task; (2) questions about the CS were asked until they completed the rearrangement task. The sixth trial (full-attention trial) proceeded as the same as inattention trial except that the participants were instructed to ignore the rearrangement task and to pay attention only to the CS. In line with our prediction, the results show that in comparison with priming in irrelevant category condition, subjects in the relevant condition are more likely to detect the critical stimuli in the inattention trial. These indicate that previous relevant experience provides us some preparations to support visual awareness even without attention set under inattention condition. In addition, the results show us widely associated meaning, not only socially derived associations activated in mind is an important factor for facilitating attention and visual awareness.The experiment examines that whether the task irrelevant object has the ability to enhance our signal value for attention and improve visual awareness when primed with the same category stimuli without a special goal. 79 students volunteering in our experiment were primed with 35 pictures belonging to one category same as the critical stimuli (CS) appearing in the critical trial or the other when they were doing an alphabetical rearrangement task (refer to figure 1 for details). Three experimental trials later, in the forth trial (inattention trial) a critical stimulus appeared on the screen without any notice. Immediately after the trial in which the CS was presented, subjects were asked whether they had seen anything new that had not been presented on previous trials on the screen. If subjects reported that they had seen something, they were asked to identify it by choosing it from a list of 9 pictures and indicating the quadrant where the critical stimulus appeared. The fifth trial (divided-attention trial) was the same as the forth trial except that (1) at the onset of this trial, subjects were explicitly instructed to both perform the rearrangement task and detect the CS during the task; (2) questions about the CS were asked until they completed the rearrangement task. The sixth trial (full-attention trial) proceeded as the attention trial which was the same as inattention trial except that the participants were instructed to ignore the rearrangement task and to pay attention only to the CS. In line with our prediction, the results show that in comparison with irrelevant category priming condition, subjects in relevant category condition are more likely to detect the critical stimuli under inattention trial. These indicate that previous relevant experience provides us some preparations to support visual awareness even without attention set under inattention. In addition, the results show us widely associated meaning, not only socially derived associations activated in mind is an important factor for easing attention and visual awareness.

Key words: inattentional blindness, associated meaning, awareness, priming, attention set

摘要： 本研究考察在无注意定势的参与下，类别信息的意义连结对于无意视盲的作用。被试在实验任务之前观察、学习某一类别的若干刺激，以激活其类别概念和表征。结果表明，启动相关类别概念的被试在非注意情况下觉察到非预期的、显著刺激的可能性更大。这说明，意义连结可以广泛地作用于类别刺激，即使没有注意定势的影响，也能自动地注意到相关的刺激，从而促进其意识的加工。

关键词: 无意视盲, 意义连结, 意识, 启动, 注意定势