Attentional Modulation of Unconscious ‘‘Automatic’’ Processes: Evidence from Event-related Potentials in a Masked Priming Paradigm — TEI-tagged view

Kiefer, Brendel · · neuroscience · source · full text (txt) (not published) · 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. Method is tagged electrophysiology because scalp ERP recording is the decisive measure, but the design is equally a behavioural lexical-decision experiment (RT and error rates) - the paper's own point is that the two measures dissociate. The supplied file has no year, venue or DOI in the header block; the running head inside the text identifies it as Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18:2, 184-198, but that lies in the page-furniture rather than in a quotable claim. Replication status is untested for the novel attention claim, even though the paper's SOA effect replicates earlier work (recorded as a claim_relation). 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.
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
automatic processes temporal attention masked priming11 N4006 electrophysiology110

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
phenomenonmasked semantic priming (N400)— “In two experiments, it was investigated whether masked semantic priming effects can be modulated by temporal attention to the prime using a cueing procedure.”
claim-typemechanism— “The present results show that temporal attention to the prime is a prerequisite for obtaining masked N400 priming effects.”
method — evidence— “ERPs were recorded while subjects performed a primed lexical decision task.”
mechanismTemporal attention amplifies the activation of the masked prime's stimulus representation, and this amplification is what allows an unconsciously perceived prime to trigger the automatic semantic process indexed by the N400— “Attention is thought to amplify the activation of the stimulus representation.”mechanisms[0]
mechanismAttentional amplification acts on conscious and unconscious stimuli alike, so attention and awareness are separable— “We therefore propose that attention is able to enhance the processing of both consciously and unconsciously perceived stimuli.”mechanisms[1]
mechanismA temporal window of attention opened around the predicted target boosts processing of primes falling close to it in time— “Temporal attention is assumed to amplify the processing of the masked primes that were presented temporally close to the targets.”mechanisms[2]
extends Naccache, Blandin & Dehaene (2002)— “The Naccache et al. (2002) study provides supportive evidence for an attentional modulation of unconscious, automatic processes, but also has some limitations.”claim_relations[0]
contradicts Schneider & Shiffrin (1977); Posner & Snyder (1975)— “These results therefore challenge the classical view of automatic processes to occur autonomously and independent of attentional influences (Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977; Posner & Snyder, 1975).”claim_relations[1]
replicates Deacon et al. (2000); Kiefer & Spitzer (2000); Brown & Hagoort (1993)— “The dependency of masked N400 priming effects on the prime–target SOA in Experiment 1 is in line with findings from earlier ERP priming studies demonstrating reliable masked N400 priming effects at very short SOAs (i.e., <200 msec) (Deacon et al., 2000; Kiefer & Spitzer, 2000), but not at SOAs of 200 msec and longer (Kiefer &…claim_relations[2]
senseTHE DEFINITIONAL CLAIM IS QUOTED HERE VERBATIM AND THEN CONTRADICTED BY THE SAME PAPER. `In classical theories of attentional control, independence of capacity-limited attention is a defining feature of automatic processes (Posner & Snyder, 1975).` If independence from attention is what makes a process automatic, and the process turns out not to be independent of attention, then either it is not automatic or the definition is wrong. The paper takes the second option and keeps the word - which is precisely the move this corpus exists to make visible, and it is made in an introduction without comment— “In classical theories of attentional control, independence of capacity-limited attention is a defining feature of automatic processes”senses[0]
senseTHE RESULT, AND `PREREQUISITE` IS A STRONGER WORD THAN `MODULATES`: `The present results show that temporal attention to the prime is a prerequisite for obtaining masked N400 priming effects.` Not amplified, not enhanced - required. Without attention in the prime's time window there is no masked N400 priming at all. neely1977 built a design to separate the automatic component from the attentional one; this says the separation does not hold at the boundary— “The present results show that temporal attention to the prime is a prerequisite for obtaining masked N400 priming effects.”senses[1]
senseAND THE CONTROL THAT MAKES IT INTERESTING IS ONE CLAUSE IN THE HYPOTHESIS: masked priming is amplified when attention is directed to the stimulus stream in the prime's time window, `even in the absence of any prime awareness.` Attention moves; awareness stays at zero. Without that clause the result reads as `attending made the prime visible` - a different and far less interesting paper. Same manoeuvre as marcel1983's second mask and eckstein2007's awareness measures. Sixth record running where the instrument turns out to be part of the phenomenon, and the first where the thing being modulated is the definition itself— “We hypothesized that masked priming is amplified when attention is directed to the stimulus stream in the time window of masked prime presentation, even in the absence of any prime awareness.”senses[2]
controla CONTROL EXPERIMENT identical to Experiment 1 except that the cue stimulus was not task-relevant and did not direct attention — held — rules out that the modulation follows from the cue's physical presence rather than from the attention it directs— “We therefore conducted a control experiment in which the experimental design was the same as in Experiment 1 except that the cue stimulus was not task-relevant and did not prompt subjects to attend to the stimulation stream.”controls[0]
controlfiller trials at an intermediate cue-prime interval were included — held — rules out that subjects learn the trial-length structure and prepare differently for short and long intervals— “Filler trials with an intermediate CPI were also included in order to have smoother transitions between trial lengths.”controls[1]
effect direction (stated by the tagger, no quotation)temporal attention —causes→ N400 — increasesconcept_edges[0]
notetemporal attention —causes→ N400 — 'PREREQUISITE' IS WHY THIS IS 0.95 AND WHY 'increases' UNDERSTATES IT. The enforced axis vocabulary offers increases / reduces / eliminates / no-change, and the claim here is stronger than any of them: without temporal attention the effect does not occur. The nearest available value is 'increases' and it is recorded with that gap stated rather than papered over. A fifth value - 'is-required-for' - would be the honest one, and that goes to Shir with the other schema items rather than being invented here. Both endpoints named as words, the sentence is a results statement, no hedge to preserve.— “The present results show that temporal attention to the prime is a prerequisite for obtaining masked N400 priming effects.”concept_edges[0]
weighttemporal attention —causes→ N400 — 0.95— “The present results show that temporal attention to the prime is a prerequisite for obtaining masked N400 priming effects.”concept_edges[0]
outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation)control — heldcontrols[0]
outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation)control — heldcontrols[1]
replicationuntested
limitationThe cueing manipulation may have been too weak to fully disengage temporal attention from the prime, which could explain why behavioural priming was unaffected.— “Alternatively, although a significant RT effect of the cue–prime intervals suggests an effective manipulation of attention, our cueing procedure could have been less powerful to disengage temporal attention from the masked prime compared to the unattended condition in the Naccache et al. study.”limitations[0]
limitationSome backward priming from target to prime cannot be entirely ruled out in Experiment 2.— “Although this effect was not significant and none of our subjects verbally reported awareness of the masked primes in the priming experiment, it cannot be entirely excluded that some backward priming might have occurred, which could have modulated masked priming effects.”limitations[1]
Content tags
content-observations: finding · quantity · variable · definition · key-term — grounded in the full text
findingThe masked N400 priming effect was strongest when the cue interval and the SOAs were short.— “Most importantly, this masked N400 priming effect was strongest when the cue interval and the stimulus onset asynchronies were short.”content_tags.findings[0]
findingTemporal attention to the prime is a prerequisite for masked N400 priming.— “The present results show that temporal attention to the prime is a prerequisite for obtaining masked N400 priming effects.”content_tags.findings[1]
findingWith a task-irrelevant cue, N400 priming was considerably reduced and no longer modulated by the cue-prime interval.— “Thus, compared to Experiment 1, N400 priming effects were considerably reduced and were not modulated by the CPI.”content_tags.findings[2]
findingMasked behavioural priming was significant but did not vary with the cue-prime interval.— “Masked behavioral priming was significant, but did not differ as a function of the CPI.”content_tags.findings[3]
findingPrime visibility was at chance for the analysed participants, supporting the claim that the primes were unconscious.— “For the remaining 16 participants, identification performance was distributed around the chance level of 50%, which is expected by mere guessing.”content_tags.findings[4]
findingRegression found no significant correlation between priming effects and prime identification scores.— “However, for both behavioral and N400 priming effects, regression analysis did not yield any significant correlations, neither at the short CPIs (all ps > .15) nor at the long CPIs (all ps > .09).”content_tags.findings[5]
quantityF(1,15) = 31.064, MSE = 948, p < .0001 — Main effect of semantic relatedness on lexical decision reaction time in Experiment 1— “Analysis of the RT data yielded reliable priming effects [main effect semantic relatedness, F(1,15) = 31.064, MSE = 948, p < .0001]”content_tags.quantities[0]
quantityF(1,15) = 34.405, MSE = 17.83, p < .0001 — Main effect of semantic relatedness on N400 amplitude in the 400-599 msec window of Experiment 1— “Analysis again yielded a highly significant main effect of semantic relatedness [F(1,15) = 34.405, MSE = 17.83, p < .0001].”content_tags.quantities[1]
quantity16 subjects, mean age 25.1 years — Analysed sample of Experiment 1 after excluding three participants whose prime identification exceeded chance— “The remaining 16 subjects (6 men and 10 women) had an average age of 25.1 years (range 18–32 years).”content_tags.quantities[2]
quantity49.45% and 49.38% — Masked prime identification accuracy in the short and long cue-prime interval conditions, both at the 50% chance level— “Accuracy of word identification did not differ between the CPI conditions (short: 49.45%, long: 49.38%; p > .95).”content_tags.quantities[3]
quantity67 msec or 200 msec — The two prime-target stimulus onset asynchronies used to track the time course of masked priming— “In order to track the time course of masked priming, the prime–target SOA was either short (67 msec) or long (200 msec).”content_tags.quantities[4]
quantity33.5 msec — Duration of the masked prime word presentation— “In either case, the random letter string was followed by the prime word, which was shown for 33.5 msec.”content_tags.quantities[5]
quantity800 trials — Total trials per participant, split into five blocks of 160— “The total number of 800 trials (640 experimental and 160 filler trials) was divided in five blocks of 160 trials each.”content_tags.quantities[6]
quantity0.97% versus 1.79% — Lexical decision error rates for semantically related versus unrelated word pairs in Experiment 1— “Subjects performed lexical decisions more accurately on trials with related word pairs (0.97%) than with unrelated word pairs (1.79%).”content_tags.quantities[7]
variableSOA (independent)— “In order to track the time course of masked priming, the prime–target SOA…content_tags.variables[1]
variablecue relevance (independent)content_tags.variables[3]
variableN400 amplitude (dependent)content_tags.variables[4]
variableobjective measure of prime identification (control)content_tags.variables[6]
variableRT (dependent)content_tags.variables[8]
variableER (dependent)content_tags.variables[9]
definitionsemantic priming
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content_tags.definitions[0]
definitionmasked priming procedure
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content_tags.definitions[1]
definitionN400 priming effect
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content_tags.definitions[2]
definitioncue prime interval
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content_tags.definitions[3]
definitionstimulus onset asynchrony
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content_tags.definitions[4]
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.
conceptautomatic processes — not defined in this paper's own words; DEFINED BY A NEGATIVE, AND THE NEGATIVE IS WHAT THIS PAPER REMOVES: 'independence of capacity-limited attention is a defining feature of automatic processes (Posner & Snyder, 1975).' Not a property automatic processes happen to have - the property that makes them automatic. neely1977 built its whole design to isolate this component of the same 1975 theory
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]
concepttemporal attention — not defined in this paper's own words; attention directed to a moment rather than a place, manipulated by a cue that arrives either just before the masked prime or long before it. The manipulation is on the TIMING of attention, not on its target - which is what lets awareness stay at zero while attention moves
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[1]
conceptmasked priming — not defined in this paper's own words; a prime the subject cannot report, followed by a target. Here it is the dependent variable rather than the tool: the question is not what masked primes do but whether what they do can be turned up and down from outside
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concepts[2]
conceptN400 — not defined in this paper's own words; the event-related potential component that indexes semantic mismatch - 'Unrelated prime-target pairs elicited a larger N400 than related pairs'. An electrophysiological measure sidesteps the reporting problem that bounds every behavioural record on this axis in the corpus: it does not ask the subject anything
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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.
ANOVA F as written: Repeated-measures ANOVAs
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content_tags.statistics[0]
F-test / main effect F as written: main effect semantic relatedness, F(1,15) = 31.064, MSE = 948, p < .0001
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post hoc multiple comparison test as written: Fisher’s LSD post hoc tests
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content_tags.statistics[2]
Huynh-Feldt correction for sphericity as written: degrees of freedom were adjusted according to the method of Huynh-Feldt
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content_tags.statistics[3]
signal detection sensitivity (d-prime) d0 as written: d0 sensitivity measures ... calculated from hit rates ... and false alarm rates
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regression as written: a regression analysis on masked priming effects
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content_tags.statistics[5]
between-subjects factor in mixed ANOVA as written: entered as a between-subject variable
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