Task-induced strategies and near-threshold priming: Conscious influences on unconscious perception (original) (raw)
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Unconscious Masked Priming Depends on Temporal Attention
Psychological Science, 2002
The cognitive processes at work in masked priming experiments are usually considered automatic and independent of attention. We provide evidence against this view. Three behavioral experiments demonstrate that the occurrence of unconscious priming in a number-comparison task is determined by the allocation of temporal attention to the time window during which the prime-target pair is presented. Both response-congruity priming and physical repetition priming vanish when temporal attention is focused away from this time window. These findings are inconsistent with the concept of a purely automatic spreading of activation during masked priming.
Psychologica Belgica, 2012
Recent studies have shown that subliminal priming effects can be of a semantic nature. However, the question remains how strong this kind of priming will prove to be. In the present study we investigated whether truly semantic unconscious priming only occurs for prime-target pairs that are strongly semantically related (e.g., cat-DOG) or whether priming effects can also be observed for pairs that are less semantically related (e.g., ant-DOG). A typical masked priming paradigm, with word primes and picture targets, was used and the relatedness between prime and target was manipulated. The results showed that prime-target relatedness significantly moderated the effects. A priming effect was only found for the strongly related prime-target pairs. This indicates that semantic subliminal priming requires a sufficient amount of semantic relatedness between prime and target, rendering it as sensitive to this semantic factor as supraliminal priming.
Associative priming in a masked perceptual identification task: Evidence for automatic processes
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 2002
Two experiments investigated the influence of automatic and strategic processes on associative priming effects in a perceptual identification task in which prime-target pairs are briefly presented and masked. In this paradigm, priming is defined as a higher percentage of correctly identified targets for related pairs than for unrelated pairs. In Experiment 1, priming was obtained for mediated word pairs. This mediated priming effect was affected neither by the presence of direct associations nor by the presentation time of the primes, indicating that automatic priming effects play a role in perceptual identification. Experiment 2 showed that the priming effect was not affected by the proportion (.90 vs..10) of related pairs if primes were presented briefly to prevent their identification. However, a large proportion effect was found when primes were presented for 1000 ms so that they were clearly visible. These results indicate that priming in a masked perceptual identification task...
Perception and preference in short-term word priming
Psychological Review, 2001
Responding optimally with unknown sources of evidence (ROUSE) is a theory of short-term priming applied to associative, orthographic-phonemic, and repetition priming. In our studies, perceptual identification is measured with two-alternative forced-choice testing. ROUSE assumes features activated by primes are confused with those activated by the target. A near-optimal decision discounts evidence arising from such shared features. Too little discounting explains the finding that primed words were preferred after passive viewing of primes. Too much discounting explains the findings of reverse preference after active processing of primes. These preference changes highlight the need to use paradigms (like the present ones) capable of separating preferential and perceptual components of priming. Evidence of enhanced perception was found only with associative priming and was very small in magnitude compared with preference effects. This article presents a new theory of short-term priming termed ROUSE, standing for responding optimally with unknown sources of evidence. Short-term priming refers to paradigms in which "irrelevant" primes are presented immediately prior to a target presentation to which a response must be given; typically, the task requires a lexical decision or naming response (measured by response time, used when the target is above threshold) or identification (measured by accuracy, when the target is presented at threshold). Associative, orthographic-phonemic, and repetition priming are considered. The new theory is closely tied to the results from a new set of studies that considerably expand the set of conditions tested in such paradigms. We believe the results would appear inexplicable without the associated theory. Conversely, the theory would be hard to justify without reference to the results. These considerations lead us to delay presentation of the theory until the results of the first study are presented. A central theme of this article is the attempt to understand the effect of a prime on performance. In particular, we are interested in distinguishing effects that alter the perceptual response to the target during and shortly after its presentation from preference
The effects of prime visibility on ERP measures of masked priming
Cognitive Brain Research, 2005
In two experiments, the effect of the duration (40, 80 and 120 ms) of pattern masked prime words on subsequent target word processing was measured using event-related potentials. In Experiment 1, target words were either repetitions of the prior masked prime (car-CAR) or were another unrelated word (job-CAR). In Experiment 2, primes and targets were either semantically related (cap-HAT) or were unrelated (car-HAT). Unrelated target words produced larger N400s than did repeated (Exp 1) or semantically related (Exp 2) words across the different prime durations and these N400 priming effects tended to be smaller overall for semantic than repetition priming. Moreover, there was only a modest decline in the size of N400 repetition priming at the shortest prime durations, and there was no relationship between this N400 effect and a measure of prime categorization performance. However, the size of semantic priming at the shortest durations was relatively smaller than at longer durations and was correlated with prime categorization performance. The findings are discussed in the context of the functional significance of the N400 as well as a model that argues for different mechanisms during masked repetition and semantic priming.
Consciousness and Cognition, 2007
Three experiments examined the role of response criteria in a masked semantic priming paradigm using an exclusion task. Experiment 1 used on-line prime-report (''report the prime if you saw it'') and exclusion instructions in which participants were told to avoid completing a word stem (e.g. mo-) with a word related to a prime (e.g. cash) flashed for 0, 38 or 212 ms. Semantic priming (i.e. exclusion failure) was significant in the items analysis, but was moderated by peoples' ability to report the prime in the participant analysis. Prime-report thresholds in Experiment 2 were made more liberal by instructing participants to guess on every trial. Prime-report increased from Experiment 1 as exclusion failures were eliminated. Experiment 3 clarified the relationship between awareness and prime identification using an on-line measure of confidence and different liberal prime report instructions. The current findings suggest that the ability to act upon (via exclusion performance) and report information in a masked prime is determined by a variable response criterion, which can be manipulated as an independent variable.
Automatic and controlled semantic processing: A masked prime-task effect
2005
Abstract A classical definition of automaticity establishes that automatic processing occurs without attention or consciousness, and cannot be controlled. Previous studies have demonstrated that semantic priming can be reduced if attention is directed to a low-level of analysis. This finding suggests that semantic processing is not automatic since it can be controlled. In this paper, we present two experiments that demonstrate that semantic processing may occur in the absence of attention and consciousness.
Cognition, 2005
We have recently argued that unconscious numerical stimuli might activate responses by a match with prespecified action trigger codes (action trigger account) rather than by semantic prime processing (elaborate processing account). [Van Opstal, F., Reynvoet, B., and Verguts, T. (2005). How to trigger elaborate processing? A comment on Kunde, Kiesel, and Hoffmann (2003). Cognition] replicate one piece of evidence for our inference-an inefficiency of primes not presented in target format (verbal or Arabic). But this was found only with letter masks and not with hash masks. The authors conclude that letter masks block unconscious prime processing, and that elaborate processing can account for unconscious priming effects if all its (sometimes subtle) side conditions are considered. We agree that the type of mask in general is an important factor in priming studies but we note that (i) the authors' mask-blocking hypothesis is not well supported by the data, (ii) clear evidence for semantic prime processing in their study is lacking and, (iii) differences in mask efficiency (rather than mask type) might account for the conflicting results. To corroborate this inference we replicate van Opstal et al.'s results with letter masks but reduced mask efficiency. Altogether their data do not challenge the action-trigger account nor do they strongly support the elaborate processing view.
Semantic priming in the prime task effect: Evidence of automatic semantic processing of distractors
Memory & Cognition, 2000
The automaticity of the semantic processing of words has been questioned because of the reduction of semantic priming when the prime word is processed nonsemantically-for example, in letter search (the prime task effect). In two experiments, prime distractor words produced semantic priming in a subsequent lexical decision task, but with the direction of priming (positive or negative) depending on the prime task. Lexico-semantic tasks produced negative semantic priming, whereas letter search produced positive semantic priming. These results are discussed in terms of task-based inhibition. We argue that, given the results from the distractors, the absence of semantic priming does not indicate an absence of semantic activation but reflects the action of control processes on prepotent responses when less practiced responses are needed.