On-Line Judgment Does not Impact Previous Decisions Made by Unconscious Thought

The current study examined whether the outcome processed by unconscious thought was influenced by the on-line judgment formed during new information presentation. In two experiments, information regarding mobile phones was presented in two temporally partitioned sessions. Subsequent to the presentation of the first information session, the participants were divided into two groups: conscious thought and unconscious thought. Following the presentation of the second session, all participants were asked to evaluate the mobile phones immediately. The results revealed that the unconscious thought group’s evaluations were based primarily on the first session, while those of the conscious thought group were based mainly on information from the second session. These findings indicate that the on-line judgment formed during new information presentation could impact the outcome processed by conscious thought but hardly affected the outcome processed by unconscious thought.