Subliminally stimulated brain and verbal responses of twins differing in repressiveness.

Combined the average evoked response (AER) technique with subliminal stimulation to investigate unconscious mental processes in an objective and replicable way. Previous work has shown that the AER can discriminate between 2 subliminal stimuli (flashed at 1 msec.), while free associations have been found to contain stimulus-related words. Repressiveness, as rated on the basis of Rorschach performance, appears to be related to a diminution of evoked response amplitude and stimulus-related associates. 12 pairs of 12-21 yr. old twins were used as Ss. 6 pairs differed markedly in repressiveness and 6 pairs were similar in repressiveness. Replicating previous results, it was found that the repressive twins had smaller AER amplitudes than their nonrepressive siblings and associated fewer stimulus-related words. For supraliminal exposures (30 msec.), there was a tendency for amplitude of AER to be reversed as a function of repressiveness. Findings are discussed with respect to attentional and defensive factors. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)