Our brain reads, while we can't: EEG reveals word-specific brain activity in the absence of word recognition

This electroencephalography (EEG) study provides significant neurophysiological evidence for the processing of words outside conscious awareness. Brain potentials were recorded while 25 participants were presented with words and shapes, each of them with 17, 34, and 67 ms presentation duration times (“no presentation” was included as control condition). Participants were instructed to report whether they have seen anything and if yes, what it was (shape or word). If they saw a word and were able to read it, they were asked to report having read it. Crucially, even though only 2.9% of the 17 ms word presentations were classified as readable, these presentations elicited significant brain activity near the Wernicke area that was missing in the case of 17 ms shape presentations. The respective brain activity difference lasted for about 150 ms being statistically significant between 349 and 409 ms after stimulus onset. It is suggested that this neurophysiological difference reflects non-conscious (i.e., subliminal) word processing. Some aspects of the NeuroIS discipline include text messages and the current findings demonstrate that those text messages can be processed by the nervous system even in the absence of their conscious recognition.