Interaction of conscious and unconscious information in the process of cognitive problem solution

The article describes the procedures and results of experimental research, aimed at identifying the effects of cognitive activity under different conditions of conscious and unconscious processes interaction. Experimental designs included two types of conscious information (true/false), and two types of unconscious stimuli (relevant/irrelevant). The first experiment showed that informing about an unconscious influence, irrespective of the attitude to the stimuli content (relevant/irrelevant), may have a positive effect on the speed of cognitive problem solution. The second experiment showed that conscious marking (indicating whether it is relevant or irrelevant to the problem being solved) of each presented stimulus influences the sensitivity to the information contained in it.