Another look at semantic priming without awareness

Abstract

In a recent study, McCauley, Parmelee, Sperber, and Carr (1980) reported results indicating that semantic priming had been produced by visual stimuli that were backward masked at durations too brief for greater than chance report. The conclusions drawn from such an experiment are critically dependent upon whether or not the primes were actually masked below the threshold for identification during priming trials. The three experiments reported here provide evidence that this requirement was not met. Rather, McCauley et al.'s (1980) methodology allowed for an uncontrolled increase in light adaptation during the actual testing of prime efficacy in the priming session. This increase in light adaptation reduced the effectiveness of the backward mask and resulted in an increase in prime visibility during priming trials. Thus, semantic priming probably occurred under conditions in which commensurate visual information was actually available.

Unconscious perception: A model-based approach to method and evidence

“…Stirring considerable interest, Marcel's (1983a) experiments appeared to demonstrate semantic priming effects under objective threshold conditions; moreover, early replications seemed promising (e.g., Balota, 1983;Carr, McCauley, Sperber, & Parmelee, 1982;Fowler, Wolford, Slade, & Tassinary, 1981). However, when further replications failed, skepticism grew that the initial experiments had actually indexed subjective rather than objective thresholds (Holender, 1986;Merikle, 1982;Nolan & Caramazza, 1982;Purcell, Stewart, & Stanovich, 1983). This skepticism was reinforced by Cheesman and Merikle's (1984) experiments, which seemed to show that semantic priming effects did not occur at carefully determined objective thresholds, but rather only at subjective thresholds.…”

“…For example, Purcell et al (1983) and Holender (1986) showed that failing to equate effective luminance levels for the direct and indirect tasks likely produced spurious results in certain earlier studies (e.g., McCauley, Parmelee, Sperber, & Carr, 1980). Unfortunately, this was likely also a problem in Hill's (1988, 1992) experiments, which led us to omit them from our review.…”

Two techniques for investigating perception without awareness

“…One criterion for lack of awareness is inability to make a forced-choice identification of Sl (Cheesman & Merikle, 1984;Purcell et al, 1983; others have used inability to identify S.. but not forced-choice: Carr et al, 1982;McCauley et al, 1980). Suppose, for example, that S, is always one of four color words, RED, YELLOW, GREEN, or BLUE.…”

“…The evidence on whether such priming effects can be found is in fact quite mixed (for positive results see Balota, 1983;Carr, McCauley, Sperber, & Parmelee, 1982;Fowler, Wolford, Slade, & Tassinary, 1981;Marcel, 1980Marcel, , 1983McCauley, Parmelee, Sperber, & Carr, 1980, and the related designs of Allport, 1977;Evett & Humphreys, 1981;Humphreys, Evett, & Taylor, 1982; for negative results and methodological criticisms see Cheesman & Merikle, 1984;Merikle, 1982;Purcell, Stewart, & Stanovich, 1983 forced-choice discrimination concerning S, should be used.…”

Associative and repetition priming with the repeated masked prime technique: No priming found

“…These studies reported associative priming of word recognition from word primes that were so strongly masked that they were apparently undetectable (e.g., Carr, McCauley, Sperber, & Parmelee, 1982;Dagenbach, Carr, & Wilhelmsen, 1989;Fowler, Wolford, Slade, & Tassinary, 1981;KempWheeler & Hill, 1988;Marcel, 1983). However, there were a number of failures to replicate (e.g., Purcell, Stewart, & Stanovich, 1983), and this prompted a methodological debate about determining threshold levels for the prime. Cheesman and Merikle (1984) distinguished between subjective awareness thresholds reported by participants and objective thresholds based on the ability to make forced choice decisions about masked items.…”