The nature of semantic priming by subliminal spatial words: Embodied or disembodied?

Roberto Bottini, Madalina Bucur, Davide Crepaldi · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · 2016 · cognitive-psychology · 10.1037/xge0000197 · record unknownnd-the-nature-of-semantic-priming-by
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Where this record's text came from. faceted 2026-08 by reading the locally held text (pdftext); every evidence string verified as an exact substring of that text before merging. Six behavioural experiments; the headline finding is a null result (no priming when only the embodied route is left open), so claim type is null-result even though the introduction is largely a critique of earlier embodied readings. Replication status refers to the paper's own null result and is 'untested'; the fact that its Experiment 1 replicates Ansorge et al. (2010) is recorded as a claim_relation instead. The PDF text is hard-wrapped, so quotes that run over a line break carry the extracted text's blank-line breaks verbatim. No author/year metadata was in the queue entry; the article text names Bottini, Bucur and Crepaldi, and states it is to appear in JEP:G. 2026-08-19 and 2026-08-25 schema-0.3 passes: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.

How to read this page. The article itself is not reproduced here — this paper is not cleared for redistribution, so what follows is the tag layer alone. The evidence sentences are withheld with the article. The table at the foot lists every tag the record carries; each row names the facet it belongs to, and the whose words column says whether the tag records the paper's own wording or the tagger's sentence about the paper. Every tag links to each other paper in the corpus carrying it. The machine-readable edition of the same thing is the TEI file beside this one, where the tags live in standOff, and the article is at its publisher via the link below. When we have changed our mind. Some entries in the table begin with a word in capitals and the reason for it. EVIDENCE CORRECTED — the finding still stands, but we had quoted the wrong sentence from the paper, and the quotation has been replaced with the right one. RETRACTED — the entry itself was wrong; it stays on the page, marked, with the reason, rather than being deleted. WITHDRAWN AND REPLACED — the entry was wrong, and a corrected version of it appears in the entries below. Each mark carries its own reason, in brackets, because the reasons differ from one entry to the next. An entry we have WITHDRAWN is removed from this page and kept in the record, with its reason. A line reading Audit and a date is a later re-reading of the entry against its whole sentence: DOUBTFUL means it was kept, and the reason says what is loose about it. Quotation marks inside the tagger's sentence. Where a tag is the tagger's own sentence, a phrase in quotation marks inside it is borrowed from the paper — the tagger's wording around it is not. The paper's own sentence is the evidence quote for that row; on this page it is withheld with the article, and the article is at its publisher. Nothing inside quotation marks anywhere on this page is ours: if it is quoted, it is the paper's. Whose words a concept carries. A concept entry records a term the paper itself uses, so the term, the sense given for it, and its evidence are the paper's own words, quoted where the paper fixes them. This is the opposite of a sense entry in the tag table, which is the tagger's sentence about how the paper uses a term. Where a concept entry could not be grounded in the paper's words, the entry says so on its own row.

Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
standard deviation 3 fields · confidence interval 2 fields

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 4 concept tags on this paper, all 4 are grounded in a quoted sentence. All carry the tagger's gloss of what the term means in this paper, which is not something the article can license.

embodied semantic priming symbolic priming sensorimotor conscious access Sensorimotor activation during comprehension arises from integrating linguistic information with non-linguistic information held in modality-specific cortices, and that integration requires conscious access, so subliminal words stay confined to segregated linguistic networks. Without awareness, processing remains restricted to specialised, segregated neural networks, which is why distant sensorimotor and association areas are not recruited. Primes that are low-prototypical members of their category trigger disembodied centre-surround inhibition, which reverses the sign of masked priming and explains the negative effects reported elsewhere. masked priming spreading activation account source confusion Stimulus-Response Mapping mechanism Embodied Priming d-prime Congruity duration of the prime display response time error rate response speed orientation of the colored buttons number of syllables frequency of occurrence ANOVA effect size t-test correlation regression we regressed priming against d–prime standard deviation median split a subject-wise median split confidence interval arcsine transformation ANOVA on the arc-sine transformed error rates behavioural-experiment

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relation to other work	`claim_relations`	how this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies
claim type	`claim_type`	the shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
concept edge	`concept_edges`	an asserted relation between two concepts, with the sentence asserting it
concept	`concepts`	an idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
content tag	`content_tags`	a finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper
control	`controls`	an experiment run to eliminate a rival explanation
limitation	`limitations`	what the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanism	`mechanisms`	how the reported effect is said to come about
method	`method`	how the paper produced its evidence
phenomenon	`phenomenon`	the effect or regularity under study
sense	`senses`	a distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it

The paper

The full text is not reproduced here. This article is not cleared for redistribution, so the page carries the tag layer only. Its evidence sentences are withheld; the grounding status remains with each tag, and the article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000197. The reading view exists for the papers whose licence permits it.

Every tag on this page

claim_relations 4 · claim_type 1 · concept_edges 1 · concepts 4 · content_tags 36 · controls 2 · limitations 2 · mechanisms 3 · method 1 · phenomenon 1 · senses 4

Relations on this page carry a quotation for the claim. Where a relation was separately evidenced — and so tested against the vocabulary for its type — the row says so; none of 1 relation here carry that mark. The rest are the tagger’s reading of the sentence quoted beside them.

facet	tag	field	conf.	whose words
claim_type	null-result Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_type`		the paper's words
phenomenon	masked semantic priming by spatial words Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`phenomenon`		the paper's words
method	behavioural-experiment Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: behavioural-experiment	`method`		the paper's words
mechanisms	mechanisms Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: Sensorimotor activation during comprehension arises from integrating linguistic information with non-linguistic information held in modality-specific cortices, and that integration requires conscious access, so subliminal words stay confined to segregated linguistic networks.	`mechanisms[0]`		the tagger's words
mechanisms	mechanisms Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: Without awareness, processing remains restricted to specialised, segregated neural networks, which is why distant sensorimotor and association areas are not recruited.	`mechanisms[1]`		the tagger's words
mechanisms	mechanisms Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: Primes that are low-prototypical members of their category trigger disembodied centre-surround inhibition, which reverses the sign of masked priming and explains the negative effects reported elsewhere.	`mechanisms[2]`		the tagger's words
limitations	Prime duration and stimulus onset asynchrony were confounded, so the paper cannot say which drove the effect. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[0]`		the tagger's words
limitations	Why this paper found facilitation where Dudschig et al. found inhibition is left unresolved and handed to future work. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[1]`		the tagger's words
controls	the response keys were always described by COLOUR (green or red, counterbalanced across subjects) and never by spatial position Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: that the effect is spatial stimulus-response compatibility rather than semantic priming · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held	`controls[0]`	0.95	the tagger's words
controls	a practice block of 32 trials preceded the experiment Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: that early experimental trials are contaminated by learning the task · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held	`controls[1]`	0.95	the tagger's words
concepts	embodied semantic priming Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: embodied semantic priming	`concepts[0]`	0.95	the paper's words
concepts	symbolic priming Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: symbolic priming	`concepts[1]`	0.95	the paper's words
concepts	sensorimotor Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: sensorimotor	`concepts[2]`	0.95	the paper's words
concepts	conscious access Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: conscious access	`concepts[3]`	0.95	the paper's words
senses	A NULL WITH ITS OWN POSITIVE CONTROL, IN THE SAME APPARATUS: `when symbolic and nonsemantic mechanisms were prevented, allowing only for a genuinely embodied semantic priming, no effect was found. Conversely, facilitation emerged in the same experimental paradigm when embodied priming was prevented and symbolic priming was allowed.` Six experiments, and the machine works when you leave the other route open. A failed manipulation cannot selectively succeed - which is the objection every unconscious-priming null has to answer, and this one answers it by construction rather than by argument. Same structure as hesselmann2016 at three times the scale Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[0]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	AND THE LEVEL CLAIM IS EXACT: `Quotation withheld.` Unconscious words reach meaning and stop before simulation. The `although` is the whole value: this is not a claim that unconscious processing is shallow - the words got to semantics - but that the chain BREAKS at a specific link. A corpus of masked-priming records mostly argues about whether meaning was reached at all; this one grants that and asks what comes after Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[1]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	AND THE CONCLUSION IS OFFERED AS A CONDITION, NOT A MECHANISM: `Quotation withheld.` `might need` is inside the quote. What makes this more than a hedge is that it is falsifiable in an obvious way - show sensorimotor activation from an unconscious word under any conditions and it is gone - and the authors have just spent six experiments failing to do that themselves Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[2]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	AND IT SITS AGAINST dehaene1998 IN THIS CORPUS, WITHOUT CONTRADICTING IT. dehaene1998 concluded that an unreportable numeral was `unconsciously processed according to task instructions, ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE MOTOR SYSTEM`. This paper finds no sensorimotor activation from unconscious words at all. Both can be right, because `reaches the motor system` names two things: dehaene1998's is a TRAINED RESPONSE MAPPING - a digit compared to 5, a hand prepared, an arbitrary rule applied - and Bottini's is SIMULATION OF MEANING, the claim that understanding `up` re-enacts upward experience. An unconscious stimulus can drive the first and fail the second. Same shape as the two senses of `nonconscious`, and the corpus currently indexes both pairs under one heading Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[3]`	0.85	the tagger's words
claim_relations	replicates → Ansorge et al. (2010), Experiment 1 Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[0]`		the tagger's words
claim_relations	contradicts → Dudschig et al. (2014) Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[1]`		the tagger's words
claim_relations	contradicts → the elaborate processing hypothesis (Kunde, Kiesel, & Hoffmann, 2003) Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[2]`		the tagger's words
claim_relations	contradicts → radical theories of Embodied Semantics Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[3]`		the tagger's words
concept_edges	embodied semantic priming —contrasted-with→ symbolic priming Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. strength of the relation: 0.95 · note: THE CONTRAST IS THE EXPERIMENT. The two routes are pitted against each other by closing one and opening the other in the same paradigm, and the asymmetry of the result - null for embodied, facilitation for symbolic - is the paper. Weight 0.95: explicit in the quote, and the design exists for nothing else. also in: embodied semantic priming · symbolic priming	`concept_edges[0]`	0.95	the tagger's words
content_tags	ANOVA Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: ANOVA	`content_tags.statistics[0]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	effect size Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: effect size	`content_tags.statistics[1]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	t-test Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: t-test	`content_tags.statistics[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	correlation Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: correlation	`content_tags.statistics[3]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	regression Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: regression	`content_tags.statistics[4]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	standard deviation Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: standard deviation	`content_tags.statistics[5]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	median split Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: median split	`content_tags.statistics[6]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	confidence interval Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: confidence interval	`content_tags.statistics[7]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	arcsine transformation Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: arcsine transformation	`content_tags.statistics[8]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	In Experiment 2 no priming effect emerged with spatial words. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.findings[0]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	EVIDENCE CORRECTED (RE-GROUNDED - THE POINTER WAS WRONG, NOT THE CLAIM) · Experiment 3 raised the prime duration from 33 to 50 ms to test whether priming emerges while primes stay outside awareness. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. EVIDENCE CORRECTED: RE-GROUNDED - THE POINTER WAS WRONG, NOT THE CLAIM. The old evidence was verbatim, anchored and correctly cut, and it contained NONE of this claim's numbers (33, 50). The paper states the claim in one sentence elsewhere and the tagger did not use it. the project, 2026-08-23: 'WE HAVE SPENT THE DAY VERIFYING THAT QUOTES ARE REAL AND NONE OF IT ASKS WHETHER THEY ARE RELEVANT.' Confirmed by reading the claim, the old span and the candidate together; the candidate carries every number AND the claim's own content words.	`content_tags.findings[1]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	Primes and targets need not be semantically related for an effect to appear. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.findings[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	When the task made the response mapping non-spatial so that only embodied priming could operate, no priming appeared at all — neither facilitation nor inhibition. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.findings[3]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	In the identical paradigm with gender primes and gender symbols, where embodiment was impossible but evidence accumulation was possible, facilitatory priming reappeared. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.findings[4]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	The pattern gives a case where unconscious words are processed semantically yet activate no sensorimotor representation, so motor activation is not an automatic or necessary part of semantic processing. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.findings[5]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	masked priming Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: masked priming	`content_tags.definitions[0]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	spreading activation account Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: spreading activation account	`content_tags.definitions[1]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	source confusion Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: source confusion	`content_tags.definitions[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	Stimulus-Response Mapping mechanism Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: Stimulus-Response Mapping mechanism	`content_tags.definitions[3]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	Embodied Priming Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: Embodied Priming	`content_tags.definitions[4]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	d-prime Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: d-prime	`content_tags.definitions[5]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	Congruity Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: Congruity	`content_tags.variables[0]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	duration of the prime display Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: duration of the prime display	`content_tags.variables[1]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	response time Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: response time	`content_tags.variables[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	error rate Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: error rate	`content_tags.variables[3]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	response speed Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: response speed	`content_tags.variables[4]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	orientation of the colored buttons Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: orientation of the colored buttons	`content_tags.variables[6]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	number of syllables Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: number of syllables	`content_tags.variables[7]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	frequency of occurrence Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: frequency of occurrence	`content_tags.variables[8]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	695ms vs 714ms — mean RT for congruent versus incongruent trials in Experiment 1, the baseline replication Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[0]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	p= 0.28 — the null congruity effect in Experiment 2, where primes and targets came from separate word sets Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[1]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	p= 0.41 — the null congruity effect in Experiment 5, the condition that isolated embodied priming Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	5 ms — size of the congruity effect for the faster half of RTs in Experiment 6, where only symbolic evidence-accumulation priming was possible Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[3]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	0.04, SD= 0.27 — mean d-prime for prime visibility in Experiment 1, not different from zero Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[4]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	480 trials — number of experimental trials each participant completed Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[5]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	Twenty-four — number of participants recruited for Experiment 1 Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[6]`		the tagger's words

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