Unconscious thinking does affect one's conscious thinking, without an individual even knowing about it, said a team of three researchers from the University of New South Wales.

Psychologists and other scientists have debated whether or not decisions people make are impacted by unconscious information.

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Previous research suggests the brain holds on to information that modifies the conscious thought-making process without even noticing the information. This might explain some instances, for example, as to why individuals occasionally make apparently illogical decisions.

As part of their study, the scientists placed a dynamic dichoptic mask on each of the study's volunteers to better understand what might be going on in their minds. The dichoptic mask let the team show different images to each eye.

Participants were flashed pictures of moving dots and asked to tell the scientists which way the dots were going -- right or left. The catch was the movement in either direction wasn't initially perceivable. Movement only became more obvious as the experiment went on.

The faster a volunteer saw which direction the dots were moving, the higher his score.

In some of the experiments, colored dots were moving randomly in front of one eye, while grey-colored dots moving either right or left were displayed on the other eye.

The information provided to the brain by the moving colored dots overwhelmed the brain, obscuring the imagery of the grey dots to the other eye. Previous research show that when faced with such a situation, the human brain can "see" what's happening with the moving grey dots, but only on an unconscious level, when the person isn't aware of it.

In the new study, scientists tested whether or not providing some information unconsciously through two types of exposure could cause changes to the accuracy in the images presented in the actual experiment.

The team found that the participants were able to make out the direction of the grey dots when they saw them prior to being shown the moving colored dots.

The results suggest unconscious information was somehow affecting their score. This is an example of unconscious information affecting decision making, the team claimed.

TagsUnconscious though, Conscious thought, Decision-making, decisions