JERUSALEM — A new study published in the journal Psychological Science found that people are more likely to consciously detect neutral spoken words than negative ones. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem conducted the study, which included 101 Hebrew-speaking adult participants.

During the study, participants performed a visual task that required them to identify whether a screen figurine matched the previous one. While completing this visual task, participants listened to a stream of meaningless pseudowords, with emotionally negative or emotionally neutral real Hebrew words occasionally inserted into the audio stream. After hearing the inserted words, participants reported if they noticed them and completed tests to measure their awareness. Participants consistently reported noticing neutral spoken words more often than negative spoken words.

Gal R. Chen, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the study's lead author, stated that the findings challenged initial assumptions. "We assumed initially that people would notice the negative stuff more because that is our conscious intuition." Chen said. She added that there is extensive data indicating that exposure to negative stimuli can slow individuals down or lead to more mistakes.

The finding persisted when researchers repeated the experiment with the same visual task and a larger set of words. A second experiment substituted the demanding visual task with an easier one, and participants in this modified condition still noticed neutral words more frequently than negative words.

Chen noted that this study illustrates a discrepancy between conscious intuition and unconscious processing. "This study is a nice example of how our conscious intuitions regarding what we notice are not always what our unconscious is doing." Chen said. The study suggested that the unconscious mind might suppress information it perceives as potentially harmful. She also indicated that this selection bias might differ in a clinical population compared to a normal population. The research focused on single words, not full conversations, and did not include highly positive or taboo words. Future research could explore whether this unconscious filtering process varies in individuals diagnosed with anxiety disorders, phobias, or post-traumatic stress disorder.