Subliminal priming with nearly perfect performance in the prime-classification task — TEI-tagged view

Finkbeiner · 2011 · cognitive-psychology · doi:10.3758/s13414-011-0088-8 · full text at the source · TEI xml · tagged edition · index · concepts · authors
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. Claim type is existence rather than critique: although the article is framed as a reply to Pratte and Rouder, its contribution is a positive demonstration that priming occurs under controlled task difficulty; the critique component is captured by the two contradicts relations. Replication status is contested because the paper's central claim stands in direct, explicit opposition to a published result on the same question. Two contradicts relations share a target because the paper states the disagreement twice with different content (empirical support vs. masking-procedure explanation). Extraction artefacts of the pdftext source ('targetrelated', 'targetand', 'targetclassification') are the source's own line-break joins and were copied unaltered; several conclusion sentences in this file are word-scrambled by the extractor and were avoided. 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.
Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
confidence interval 2 fields
Tags on this paper every tag the record carries, whether or not the words occur in the text below — a number is how many papers in the corpus carry that tag; a tag with no number is unique to this paper
subliminal priming7 prime-classification task task difficulty4 task-difficulty artifact behavioural-experiment117

Our tag layer for this paper

Cross-disciplinary analysis
content-tags & facets: phenomenon · claim-type · cross-domain-transfer · mechanism · claim-relation · replication-status · limitation — grounded in the full text
phenomenonsubliminal priming— “A subliminal priming effect is obtained when undetectable prime stimuli modulate targetrelated processes in some way.”
claim-typeexistence— “Thus, we conclude that subliminal priming effects can be observed even when taking the steps necessary to guard against the task-difficulty artifact.”
method — evidence— “To address the concerns with Pratte and Rouder’s (2009) procedure for controlling task difficulty, the primes in the present experiment were presented in color (red or green) in both the targetand prime-classification tasks.”
mechanismusing a backward mask that is visually similar to the prime (a letter string masking a letter-string prime) suppresses prime identity strongly enough to reach chance-level identification at durations that still produce priming, whereas dissimilar and repeated masks let the prime pop out— “This decision, along with their use of identical forward and backward masks, which causes the prime to “pop out” or appear in relief, contributed to the lack of effective masking in their experiment.”mechanisms[0]
mechanismdifferences in masking procedure, rather than differences in control of task difficulty, are what drive the opposite conclusions of the two studies— “We suggest that our findings stand in contrast to those of Pratte and Rouder (2009) because of important differences in the masking procedures between the two studies.”mechanisms[1]
mechanismwhen primes and targets share a stimulus set, learned stimulus-response mappings can be triggered automatically by an unseen prime, so apparent above-chance prime classification may reflect nonconscious motor activation rather than awareness— “then above-chance performance in the prime-classification task may index nonconsciously elicited motor processes— not visual awareness.”mechanisms[2]
contradicts Pratte and Rouder (2009)— “But Pratte and Rouder’s conclusion that controlling for the task-difficulty artifact eliminates subliminal priming lacks empirical support.”claim_relations[0]
contradicts Pratte and Rouder (2009)— “We suggest that our findings stand in contrast to those of Pratte and Rouder (2009) because of important differences in the masking procedures between the two studies.”claim_relations[1]
replicates Finkbeiner & Forster (2008); Kouider & Dehaene (2007)— “These results (see Fig. 3a) replicate several findings reported in the literature (cf. Finkbeiner & Forster, 2008; Kouider & Dehaene, 2007, for reviews), although this is the first demonstration of masked congruence priming that we are aware of with distinctly colored prime stimuli.”claim_relations[2]
builds-on Morey et al. (2008) mass-at-chance (MAC) model— “The prime-classification data from the present experiment were analyzed using the one-parameter MAC model (Morey et al., 2008), which is available as a package for the R language (http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/massatchance/).”claim_relations[3]
senseTHE CRITERION STATED AS AN IF-THEN, WHICH IS WORTH HOLDING VERBATIM: `If, in a separate task that assesses PRIME AWARENESS, subjects are not able to identify the prime stimuli at BETTER THAN CHANCE levels (i.e., d' is not statistically different from zero), then subliminal priming is said to have occurred.` `is said to have occurred` - the phenomenon is the conjunction of two measurements, and the paper is explicit that the word is licensed by the second one. dehaene1998 and holcomb2005 argue about WHAT was processed without awareness; this record is about what licenses the word `subliminal` at all, which is the prior question and the corpus had no clean statement of it— “If, in a separate task that assesses prime awareness, subjects are not able to identify the prime stimuli at better than chance levels (i.e., d′ is not statistically different from zero), then subliminal priming is said to have occurred”senses[0]
senseAND THE CRITIQUE IT ANSWERS IS AN ATTACK ON THE MEASUREMENT, NOT ON THE EFFECT: `In a recent critique of subliminal priming, Pratte and Rouder (2009) suggested that previous claims of subliminal priming may have been due to A failure to control the task difficulty between the experiment proper and the prime-classification task.` If the certifying task is simply harder, chance performance on it certifies nothing. That is the strongest form of methodological criticism - it does not dispute a result, it disputes what the result is evidence OF - and a corpus that records priming findings without recording this cannot represent why the literature is contested— “In a recent critique of subliminal priming, Pratte and Rouder (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71, 1276–1283, 2009) suggested that previous claims of subliminal priming may have been due to a failure to control the task difficulty between the experiment proper and the prime-classification task”senses[1]
senseTHE ANSWER IS BUILT INTO THE STIMULUS RATHER THAN ARGUED IN A DISCUSSION - PRINT THE PRIMES IN COLOUR: `In the prime-classification task, subjects reported the color of the primes very accurately, indicating almost perfect control of task difficulty, but they could not identify the primes.` 92.1% on colour, chance on identity, same stimulus, same trial, within subject. The colour report proves the task was easy and the subject was attending, so the identity failure cannot be blamed on difficulty. A control made of the stimulus, not of an argument - and the cleanest reply to an artifact objection I have tagged— “In the prime-classification task, subjects reported the color of the primes very accurately, indicating almost perfect control of task difficulty, but they could not identify the primes”senses[2]
senseAND A FOOTNOTE CARRIES THE STRONGEST SENTENCE IN THE PAPER: `The primes that were presented for 40 to ~60 ms were VISIBLE (d' > 2.0); the primes presented for LESS THAN 40 ms were NOT VISIBLE (d' not different from zero), and yet they produced reliable priming effects.` Visible primes prime and invisible primes prime. So the priming function and the awareness function are separable, and a study that finds priming has learned nothing about awareness until it measures awareness separately - which is the whole argument of this paper, stated in a footnote about a different experiment— “The primes that were presented for 40 to ~60 ms were visible (d′ > 2.0); the primes presented for less than 40 ms were not visible (d′ not different from zero), and yet they produced reliable priming effects”senses[3]
controlthe letters in the backward mask were randomly repositioned on every trial — held — rules out that the masking effect is specific to one mask arrangement rather than to masking as such— “The forward mask always appeared as it is depicted in Table 1; the letters in the backward mask were randomly assigned to different positions on each trial.”controls[0]
notesubliminal priming —distinct-from→ task-difficulty artifact — THE RESULT, AND 'distinct-from' IS DOING REAL WORK HERE. The artifact was proposed as an ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION of subliminal priming; this record separates them by controlling the artifact and keeping the effect. So the edge records not that two concepts differ, but that one was offered as the other and failed. Weight 0.9 rather than 0.95 because the paper itself attributes the contrast with Pratte and Rouder to 'important differences…' - which is a second unresolved difference between the labs, stated by the author.— “Thus, we conclude that subliminal priming effects can be observed even when taking the steps necessary to guard against the task-difficulty artifact”concept_edges[2]
weightsubliminal priming —distinct-from→ task-difficulty artifact — 0.9— “Thus, we conclude that subliminal priming effects can be observed even when taking the steps necessary to guard against the task-difficulty artifact”concept_edges[2]
outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation)control — heldcontrols[0]
evidential statusmechanism — the paper's own words: We suggest that— “We suggest that our findings stand in contrast to those of Pratte and Rouder (2009) because of important differences in the masking procedures between the two studies.”mechanisms[1]
replicationcontested
limitationEven with 240 prime-classification trials the design remains open to the low-power criticism levelled at subliminal priming studies.— “But the present study, despite including 1.5 times as many trials in the prime-classification task (N = 240) as the targetclassification task (N = 160), is still susceptible to the criticism that Rouder, Morey, and colleagues have persuasively leveled against many subliminal priming studies (cf. Morey, Rouder, & Speckman, 2008, 2009…limitations[0]
limitationThe prime-classification measure used here may itself have been insufficiently sensitive to prime awareness.— “The third possibility, which is related to the second, is that the prime-classification measure in the present experiment may not have been sufficiently sensitive.”limitations[1]
limitationThe .95 posterior criterion used to declare subliminality may be too strict, and the priming result is also reported under a relaxed .90 criterion.— “It should be noted that the criterion of .95 is very strict, and may be too strict for this application (Jeff Rouder, personal communication).”limitations[2]
Content tags
content-observations: finding · quantity · variable · definition · key-term — grounded in the full text
findingReliable masked congruence priming was obtained at both 40 ms and 50 ms prime durations.— “The planned comparisons revealed significant priming effects with both 40-ms primes…content_tags.findings[0]
findingPresenting primes in colour let subjects report the prime's colour almost as accurately as they classified targets, which the author takes as successful equating of difficulty across the two tasks.content_tags.findings[1]
findingPrime identification was 51.8%, not above chance, with 40-ms primes and 55.6%, above chance, with 50-ms primes.content_tags.findings[2]
findingSubliminality was confirmed for 16 of 21 subjects with 40-ms primes but for only 1 with 50-ms primes.
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content_tags.findings[3]
findingRestricting the priming analysis to only those subject-by-duration cells whose subliminality was confirmed still yielded a significant priming effect.
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content_tags.findings[4]
findingThe priming effect did not decrease as the criterion for subliminality increased.
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content_tags.findings[5]
findingThe authors conclude subliminal priming can be observed even when guarding against the task-difficulty artifact.
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content_tags.findings[6]
quantityM = 92.1% — mean accuracy of reporting the prime's colour in the prime-classification task
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content_tags.quantities[0]
quantityboth greater than 90% — colour-report accuracy and target-classification accuracy, showing the two tasks were matched for difficulty
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content_tags.quantities[1]
quantity51.8% ... 55.6% — prime identity accuracy at 40 ms and at 50 ms prime durations
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content_tags.quantities[2]
quantity16 of the 21 — subjects judged to be performing at chance on prime identity with 40-ms primes by the MAC model
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content_tags.quantities[3]
quantity21 — number of participants in the experiment
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content_tags.quantities[4]
quantityBayes factor of 0.26 — Bayes factor for the priming effect among subliminality-confirmed cells, i.e. the alternative is 3.85 times more likely than the null
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content_tags.quantities[5]
quantity9:1 ... 16:1 — odds in favour of subliminality and the resulting odds in favour of priming under the relaxed .90 criterion
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content_tags.quantities[6]
quantityapproximately 570 — prime-classification trials that would be needed, at n = 21 and 52% true performance, to keep the chance of wrongly accepting the null below 5%
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content_tags.quantities[7]
variableprime duration (independent)
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content_tags.variables[0]
variableprime type (independent)
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content_tags.variables[1]
variableRTs (dependent)
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content_tags.variables[3]
variablePrime Color (control)
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content_tags.variables[5]
variableprime–target SOA (control)
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content_tags.variables[6]
definitionsubliminal priming effect
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definitiontarget-classification task
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content_tags.definitions[1]
definitiontask-difficulty artifact
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content_tags.definitions[2]
definitionmass-at-chance model
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definitionnull-sensitivity problem
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Concepts
terms this paper carries, each with the sentence it was cut from — the layer that joins one paper to another. Terms with no quote yet are on CONCEPTS.html.
conceptsubliminal priming — not defined in this paper's own words; DEFINED BY THE OUTCOME OF A SEPARATE MEASUREMENT, and the paper says so in the sentence that introduces it: if d' on a prime-awareness task is not distinguishable from zero, then the priming that was observed 'is said to have occurred' subliminally. The phenomenon is a conjunction of two results, not a property of a stimulus
Quotation withheld — this paper is not ours to reproduce, and the page has already quoted as much of it as the rights layer allows. The tag, its field and its confidence stand; the sentence is at the publisher.
concepts[0]
conceptprime-classification task — not defined in this paper's own words; THE TASK THAT CERTIFIES A PRIME AS UNSEEN, and therefore the load-bearing part of every subliminal claim - which is exactly why Pratte and Rouder attacked it rather than the priming effect itself
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concepts[1]
concepttask difficulty — not defined in this paper's own words; the confound: if the certifying task is simply HARDER than the experiment, poor performance on it measures the task rather than the subject's access to the prime, and every subliminal claim built on it is unsafe
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concepts[2]
concepttask-difficulty artifact — not defined in this paper's own words; the confound given a name and a guard - long-duration primes were the field's existing answer, and this paper replaces them with a colour dimension that can be reported independently of identity
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concepts[3]
Statistics — cross-field join keys
field-invariant statistical terms, used in their statistical sense (gated on a number / symbol / test). A p-value or a standard deviation means the SAME thing in physics, biology, psychology and sociology — so these are the strongest cross-field join keys. Grounded verbatim.
repeated-measures ANOVA F
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content_tags.statistics[0]
one-sample t-test t as written: traditional one-sample t test
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content_tags.statistics[1]
paired-samples t-test t as written: paired-samples t test (twotailed)
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content_tags.statistics[2]
Bayes factor as written: Bayes factor calculator
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content_tags.statistics[3]
hierarchical Bayesian model as written: hierarchical model within the Bayesian framework
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content_tags.statistics[4]
posterior probability
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content_tags.statistics[5]
null-hypothesis significance testing as written: standard null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST)
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content_tags.statistics[6]
signal-detection sensitivity (d-prime) d′ as written: d′
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content_tags.statistics[7]
LOESS local regression as written: fitted polynomial (LOESS)
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content_tags.statistics[8]
confidence interval as written: 95% confidence intervals
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content_tags.statistics[9]

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