Figure 1.
Stimulus example of Experiments 1 and 2.
Figure 2.
Living pictures showed stronger responses in SC magnitude than nonliving pictures in the negative-high condition (A). The average SC change waveforms are illustrated for negative (B), positive (C) and neutral (D) pictures by condition. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.
Figure 3.
Nonhuman animals showed stronger responses in SC magnitude than inanimate objects only for negative pictures in the context without a human (A). The animate advantage in SC responses was also shown in nonhuman contexts when pictures of snakes and spiders were compared to those of guns and chainsaws (B). Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.
Figure 4.
The procedure of Experiment 3.
The sandwich-mask paradigm was used to present the pictures (A). The following emotional judgment (B) and semantic judgment (C) tasks were used to assess the participants’ levels of conscious awareness.
Figure 5.
Nonhuman animals elicited stronger responses in SC magnitude than inanimate objects in the negative condition (A). The animate advantage in SC responses was also shown regardless of human context when the pictures of snakes, spiders and sharks were compared to those of guns (B). Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.