The study examines children's preconscious processing of auditory subliminal stimuli. Subjects used five adjective continua scales to rate the affect of a blurred neutral face and their own affect. Subjects preferring left hemisphere cognition were most sensitive to the subliminal stimulation. And, subjects processing messages unilaterally were significantly more sensitive to subliminal stimuli than were subjects processing the messages bilaterally. Further, subjects' personal affect was influenced by the subliminal stimuli at a significantly greater level than subjects' ratings of a neutral face. Finally, significant differences emerged among the rating scales, with some scales more sensitive to the subliminal effect than others. Results are discussed in light of research on functional brain asymmetry.
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