Séminaire LICAÉ : Cecilia Dapor

How much does our body “know” about an emotional or social stimulus before we even become aware of it? In this work, we explore the deep connection between early visual perception and social skills, analyzing what happens at a physiological level before a stimulus reaches conscious awareness. Using a visual masking paradigm (breaking continuous flash suppression, b-CFS), we temporarily rendered different types of stimuli (emotional faces, full bodies, and threatening animals) “invisible” while recording real-time galvanic skin response, pupil dilation, and facial EMG (zygomaticus and corrugator). The results show clear preconscious physiological activation, with pupillary sensitivity to social faces modulated by individual social traits. We thus demonstrate how the body automatically reacts to emotionally relevant stimuli, offering a key contribution to the debate on the influence of social predispositions on basic perceptual processes. 

La présentation sera en anglais.