Levels of processing during non-conscious perception: a critical review of visual masking — TEI-tagged view

Kouider, Sid, Dehaene, Stanislas · 2008 · cognitive-psychology · doi:10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009 · full text at the source · TEI xml · tagged edition · index · concepts · authors
Where this record's text came from. cited by the priming manuscript; metadata resolved from Crossref. TEXT PROVENANCE, 2026-08-15: the tags on this record were read from the 2008 OUP chapter (doi:10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009), which has no open copy. The staged text is NOT that chapter: it is the 2007 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B review of the same title, word for word (Kouider & Dehaene, 362:857-875, doi:10.1098/rstb.2007.2093), fetched from PMC2430002 on 2026-08-14. All 9 of the 9 quotes already on this record were located verbatim in it, which is why the anchors were written. THAT COMPARISON COVERED ONLY THE QUOTED PASSAGES: it shows the two texts agree where we quoted, and is not evidence that the chapter and the review are the same document - a chapter can reprint a review with revisions, and every passage we did not quote from is untested. Supersedes the earlier note on this record that no full text was held and no grounded tags were asserted; both were true when written and neither is true now. 2026-08-17, 2026-08-18 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. Update, 16 September 2026: ANOTHER VERSION OF THIS PAPER IS STAGED ON DISK, and it is NOT a separate record. The corpus holds this review as the 2008 Oxford book chapter (DOI 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009). The SAME review was printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in 2007 (DOI 10.1098/rstb.2007.2093), and that printing is staged at an internal file. THE TWO STAGED BODIES ARE BYTE-IDENTICAL - 84,755 characters, sha1 9c50ddcd8119 for both - so the difference between them is bibliographic only and every quote on this record grounds identically against either. It is kept rather than deleted because it is the only trace on disk that the journal DOI resolves to this text. No version record is created: that would require tagging a paper under the standing freeze, and there is no textual difference to tag.
This record’s own method is review, and the tags below follow from that. A review’s findings, quantities and statistics are things stated IN this paper, and some of them report results obtained elsewhere. No tag on this page names a different author. Measured across every review in this corpus, 81% of a review’s tags carry no citation at all — most of them are the review speaking. The corpus does not adjudicate the rest: read an unmarked tag as a claim this paper makes, not necessarily one it made first.
Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
masking 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
subliminal5 preconscious2 conscious access4 top-down attention masking9 attentional blink2 review319

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 perception under visual masking— “Subliminal perception is inferred when a stimulus is demonstrated to be invisible while still influencing thoughts, feelings, actions, learning or memory.”
claim-typemechanism— “We conclude by arguing that for a stimulus to reach consciousness, two factors are jointly needed: (i) the input stimulus must have enough strength (which can be prevented by masking) and (ii) it must receive top-down attention (which can be prevented by drawing attention to another stimulus or task).”
method — evidence— “With these conflicting theories in mind, the present article provides an overview of past and current researches on non-conscious perception.”
mechanismA CHANGE OF OPERATIONAL DEFINITION RECLASSIFIES THE SAME UNCHANGED TASK FROM EVIDENCE OF UNAWARENESS TO EVIDENCE OF AWARENESS: according to this NEW OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF AWARENESS, the discrimination tasks PREVIOUSLY USED AS INDIRECT MEASURES thought to prove non-conscious influences NOW BECAME THE DIRECT MEASURE thought to INDEX AWARENESS of the stimulus. Nothing about the experiment changed; the definition moved, and the evidence changed sides with it— “According to this new operational definition of awareness, the discrimination tasks previously used as indirect measures thought to prove non-conscious influences now became the direct measure thought to index awareness of the stimulus.”mechanisms[0]
mechanismAND THE REDEFINITION LEAVES A MEASUREMENT VACANCY, WHICH IS STATED AS A PROBLEM RATHER THAN A CONSEQUENCE: such a NEW DEFINITION OF AWARENESS LEFT RESEARCHERS WITH THE DIFFICULT PROBLEM OF INVENTING NEW INDIRECT MEASURES of subliminal processing. Redefining the term did not merely reinterpret the old results, it removed the instruments, and new ones had to be invented to fill the place the definition had emptied— “Of course, such a new definition of awareness left researchers with the difficult problem of inventing new indirect measures of subliminal processing.”mechanisms[1]
mechanismA THRESHOLD FOR A MENTAL STATE IS DEFINED AS A PERFORMANCE LEVEL ON A TASK, AND THE DEFINITION IS ARGUED FOR RATHER THAN ASSUMED: Eriksen further argued that the OBJECTIVE THRESHOLD FOR CONSCIOUSNESS SHOULD BE DEFINED AS A SITUATION WHERE FORCED-CHOICE DISCRIMINATION IS AT CHANCE. The word `objective` in the term names the kind of evidence the definition admits, and what it denotes is a number produced by a procedure— “Eriksen further argued that the objective threshold for consciousness should be defined as a situation where forced-choice discrimination is at chance.”mechanisms[2]
mechanismAND THAT DEFINITION IS THEN JUDGED TOO CONSERVATIVE BY THE PEOPLE WHO DECLINED IT, WITH THE REASON GIVEN AS CONTAMINATION OF THE MEASURE: their main argument against the use of objective measures was that they can lead to ABOVE-CHANCE PERFORMANCE DUE TO NON-CONSCIOUS INFLUENCES, thus making the definition of an objective threshold AN EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE MEASURE OF CONSCIOUS ACCESS. The measure meant to detect awareness is said to respond to the very thing it is supposed to exclude— “Their main argument against the use of objective measures was that they can lead to above-chance performance due to non-conscious influences, thus making the definition of an objective threshold an extremely conservative measure of conscious access.”mechanisms[3]
mechanismA CRITERION FOR A SUBJECTIVE REPORT IS SHOWN TO DEPEND ON THE EXPERIMENTER RATHER THAN ON THE SUBJECT: this CONFIDENCE CRITERION DEPENDS ON THE EXPECTATIONS THAT THE EXPERIMENTER IS IMPOSING ON THE SUBJECT. What the measurement records is partly a property of the person taking it, which is stated flatly and in one sentence— “This confidence criterion depends on the expectations that the experimenter is imposing on the subject.”mechanisms[4]
mechanismA THRESHOLD ESTIMATE IN WIDE USE IS DECLARED STATISTICALLY UNRELIABLE, WITH THE SAMPLE SIZE NAMED: Merikle used signal detection theory to show that the SMALL SAMPLE OF ITEMS FREQUENTLY USED TO EVALUATE THE THRESHOLD for conscious perception - NOT MORE THAN 20 TRIALS - IS NOT STATISTICALLY RELIABLE. The number that defines the term is shown to be unmeasurable at the sample size the field was using— “Second, Merikle (1982) used signal detection theory to show that the small sample of items frequently used to evaluate the threshold for conscious perception (not more than 20 trials) is not statistically reliable.”mechanisms[5]
mechanismA MEASUREMENT PROCEDURE'S OMISSION IS SHOWN TO BIAS THE TERM IT DEFINES, AND THE DIRECTION OF THE BIAS IS GIVEN: since semantically related target stimuli can INCREASE, RETROSPECTIVELY, THE IDENTIFICATION OF MASKED PRIMES, the ABSENCE OF ANY TARGET STIMULI DURING THRESHOLD DEFINITION PROCEDURES in the earlier experiments PROBABLY UNDERESTIMATED PRIME VISIBILITY. The calibration omitted stimuli that are known to change the quantity being calibrated— “Since semantically related target stimuli can increase, retrospectively, the identification of masked primes ( Bernstein et al . 1989 ), the absence of any target stimuli during threshold definition procedures in the experiments of Marcel and others probably underestimated prime visibility.”mechanisms[6]
mechanismAN INFERENCE PATTERN THE FIELD RELIED ON IS REFUTED IN GENERAL, NOT CASE BY CASE: the problem with this logic is that QUALITATIVE DISSOCIATIONS NEED NOT REFLECT A DISSOCIATION BETWEEN CONSCIOUS AND SUBLIMINAL PROCESSING. What is denied is not a result but the licence to read results of that shape in that way— “However, as outlined by Holender (1986) , the problem with this logic is that qualitative dissociations need not reflect a dissociation between conscious and subliminal processing.”mechanisms[7]
mechanismAND AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION OF THE SAME DATA IS OFFERED IN TERMS OF RESOURCES RATHER THAN CONSCIOUSNESS: rather than being due to visibility, these qualitative dissociations COULD BE DUE TO DIFFERENCES IN THE TIME OR RESOURCES NEEDED TO STRATEGICALLY PROCESS THE PRIME. The contrast that was taken to mark a boundary between two kinds of mind is re-described as a difference of degree— “Thus, rather than being due to visibility, these qualitative dissociations could be due to differences in the time or resources needed to strategically process the prime.”mechanisms[8]
mechanismA TERM IS GIVEN A NUMERIC CRITERION, WITH THE WORD `GENUINELY` DOING THE DEFINITIONAL WORK: Kouider and Dupoux assessed prime awareness across several prime durations and showed that a prime CAN BE CONSIDERED AS GENUINELY INVISIBLE ONLY IF ITS DURATION IS BELOW 50 MS. Membership in the category is decided by a measured quantity crossing a stated value— “Kouider & Dupoux (2001) assessed prime awareness in this method across several prime durations and showed that a prime can be considered as genuinely invisible only if its duration is below 50 ms.”mechanisms[9]
mechanismA QUANTITY IS ESTIMATED AT A POINT THAT WAS NEVER OBSERVED, BY EXTRAPOLATION, AND THE PROCEDURE IS DESCRIBED PLAINLY: instead of demonstrating chance performance for all subjects, they proposed a REGRESSION METHOD THAT USES THE VISIBILITY MEASURE AS A PREDICTOR OF THE PRIMING EFFECT - and THE INTERCEPT OF THE REGRESSION WAS THEN USED TO EVALUATE THE AMOUNT OF PRIMING FOR NULL PERFORMANCE ON PRIME VISIBILITY. The effect at zero visibility is computed rather than measured, because zero visibility was never achieved— “Instead of demonstrating chance performance on objective measures of awareness for all subjects, they proposed to use a regression method that uses the visibility measure as a predictor of the priming effect. The intercept of the regression was then used to evaluate the amount of priming for null performance on prime visibility”mechanisms[10]
mechanismTHE PARADIGM'S WHOLE LOGIC RESTS ON A NULL RESULT, AND THE REVIEW SAYS SO IN ITS OWN TERMS: a DIRECT MEASURE such as identification, discrimination or detection IS USED TO SHOW NULL SENSITIVITY on the masked stimulus. The evidence that the stimulus was not seen is the failure of a test, which is what makes every later dispute about the test's power rather than about the phenomenon— “A direct measure such as identification, discrimination or detection is used to show null sensitivity on the masked stimulus.”mechanisms[11]
mechanismTWO FAMILIES OF MEASURE FOR ONE CONSTRUCT ARE NAMED, AND A PREFERENCE BETWEEN THEM IS RECORDED AS A HISTORICAL FACT: while all the above studies used OBJECTIVE MEASURES OF AWARENESS, in accord with Eriksen's criticism, Cheesman and Merikle PRIVILEGED SUBJECTIVE MEASURES, as in the earliest research on subliminal perception. The same word is measured two incompatible ways, and which way is used is a school rather than a finding— “While all the above studies used objective measures of awareness, in accord with Eriksen's (1960) criticism, Cheesman & Merikle (1986) privileged subjective measures, as in the earliest research on subliminal perception.”mechanisms[12]
mechanismAN ASSUMPTION IS NAMED AND TRACED TO THE HYPOTHESIS THAT LICENSES IT: this assumption is based on the DIRECT MOTOR SPECIFICATION HYPOTHESIS, according to which an adequate response is UNCONSCIOUSLY ASSOCIATED WITH A STIMULUS WITHOUT HAVING TO BE MEDIATED BY THE SEMANTIC LEVEL. The assumption is not defended here; it is given a name and a citation, which is how a premise becomes inheritable— “This assumption is based on the direct motor specification hypothesis according to which an adequate response is unconsciously associated with a stimulus without having to be mediated by the semantic level”mechanisms[13]
mechanismAND THE FIELD'S PRESENT STATE IS SPLIT INTO A SETTLED PART AND A DISPUTED PART, IN ONE SENTENCE: although the EXISTENCE OF SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION IS LARGELY ACKNOWLEDGED TODAY, some researchers STILL DEBATE THE SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION of these experiments. What is agreed is that something happens; what is disputed is what to call the level at which it happens— “although the existence of subliminal perception is largely acknowledged today, some researchers still debate the semantic interpretation of these experiments.”mechanisms[14]
builds-on the tripartite subliminal/preconscious/conscious distinction of Dehaene et al. (2006)— “In this concluding section, we would like to argue that those results fit with the tripartite distinction of subliminal, preconscious and conscious processing that one of us has recently proposed ( Dehaene et al . 2006 ).”claim_relations[0]
extends Baars' (1988) cognitive theory of consciousness— “In the global neuronal workspace framework ( Dehaene & Naccache 2001 ; Dehaene & Changeux 2004 ), which extends Baars' (1988) cognitive theory of consciousness, the human brain is viewed as a collection of specialized processors that mostly operate non-consciously, but whose content can be consciously accessed whenever they are…claim_relations[1]
senseTHE TWO-FACTOR ACCOUNT, and the whole taxonomy falls out of it: to reach consciousness a stimulus needs ENOUGH STRENGTH (preventable by masking) AND TOP-DOWN ATTENTION (preventable by pointing attention elsewhere). Two requirements means two ways to fail, and the paper names each failure separately instead of calling both `unconscious`— “We conclude by arguing that for a stimulus to reach consciousness, two factors are jointly needed: (i) the input stimulus must have enough strength (which can be prevented by masking) and (ii) it must receive top-down attention (which can be prevented by drawing attention to another stimulus or task)”senses[0]
senseSUBLIMINAL versus PRECONSCIOUS - a distinction between two states that can look identical in a behavioural report and differ in WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. Subliminal information `cannot be brought into consciousness, in spite of all efforts of focused attention`; preconscious information `potentially carries enough activation for conscious access` and is merely buffered for want of attention. A counterfactual criterion, which this corpus has very few of - the two are told apart by what a different allocation of attention would have done— “On the other hand, preconscious processing occurs when processing is limited by top-down access rather than bottom-up strength. According to the theory, preconscious processes potentially carry enough activation for conscious access, but are temporarily buffered in a non-conscious store”senses[1]
senseAND THE REVIEW GUARDS ITS OWN DISTINCTION AGAINST THE EASY READING: `This does not mean, of course, that subliminal processing is independent of the subject's attention and strategies ... whichever task and attentional sets are prepared consciously can orient and amplify the processing of a subliminal stimulus, even if its bottom-up strength remains insufficient.` Subliminal does not mean beyond attention's reach - it means beyond attention's reach INTO CONSCIOUSNESS. The taxonomy would be tidier without this sentence and less true— “This does not mean, of course, that subliminal processing is independent of the subject's attention and strategies. As we have seen, whichever task and attentional sets are prepared consciously can orient and amplify the processing of a subliminal stimulus, even if its bottom-up strength remains insufficient for global conscious…senses[2]
senseTHE NEGATIVE THAT MAKES THE SECOND FACTOR NECESSARY: subliminal activation is usually attenuated relative to conscious conditions, BUT `there are sufficiently many exceptions, in paradigms such as the attentional blink, to indicate that HIGH ACTIVATION, PER SE, IS NOT A SUFFICIENT CONDITION for conscious access to occur`. The obvious neural correlate - more activation means consciousness - is ruled out by the review that reports the activation data— “This activation is often attenuated under subliminal presentation conditions compared to consciously reportable conditions, but there are sufficiently many exceptions, in paradigms such as the attentional blink, to indicate that high activation, per se , is not a sufficient condition for conscious access to occur”senses[3]
controlorthographic and phonological priming compared within one semantic decision task while the prime duration was held constant — held — rules out a difference between the two priming types that is really a difference in how long the prime was available— “Moreover, we compared orthographic and phonological priming in a semantic decision task while the prime duration was kept constant (i.e. 43 ms).”controls[0]
differs insubliminal —distinct-from→ preconscious — WHICH OF THE TWO REQUIREMENTS FAILED - subliminal is a failure of bottom-up strength and cannot be rescued by attention; preconscious is a failure of top-down attention on information that already carries enough activation. The states can produce the same behavioural report and differ in what attention WOULD have done— “This view leads to a distinction between two types of non-conscious processes, which we call subliminal and preconscious. According to us, maintaining this distinction is essential in order to make sense of the growing neuroimaging data on the neural correlates of consciousness.”— “two types of non-conscious processes, which we call subliminal and preconscious.”concept_edges[0]
notesubliminal —distinct-from→ preconscious — THE PAPER'S CENTRAL DISTINCTION and its stated reason for insisting on it: 'maintaining this distinction is essential in order to make…'. Confidence 0.95 - the taxonomy is the review's own, following Dehaene et al. 2006.— “This view leads to a distinction between two types of non-conscious processes, which we call subliminal and preconscious. According to us, maintaining this distinction is essential in order to make sense of the growing neuroimaging data on the neural correlates of consciousness.”concept_edges[0]
weightsubliminal —distinct-from→ preconscious — 0.95— “This view leads to a distinction between two types of non-conscious processes, which we call subliminal and preconscious. According to us, maintaining this distinction is essential in order to make sense of the growing neuroimaging data on the neural correlates of consciousness.”concept_edges[0]
auditmasking —causes→ subliminal — Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but the span says stimuli are made subliminal by brief presentation and masking; causes[increases] is loose.— “Stimuli are usually made subliminal by the joint use of brief presentations and masking techniques. A direct measure such as identification, discrimination or detection is used to show null sensitivity on the masked stimulus. An indirect measure is used to show that, nevertheless, this stimulus influences behaviour”concept_edges[1]
effect directionmasking —causes→ subliminal — increases— “Stimuli are usually made subliminal by the joint use of brief presentations and masking techniques. A direct measure such as identification, discrimination or detection is used to show null sensitivity on the masked stimulus. An indirect measure is used to show that, nevertheless, this stimulus influences behaviour”— “made subliminal by the joint use of brief presentations and masking”concept_edges[1]
notemasking —causes→ subliminal — The operational link between a technique and a state: masking is what makes the bottom-up strength insufficient, which is what makes the resulting non-conscious perception SUBLIMINAL rather than preconscious. It is why almost every masked-priming record in this corpus is about the subliminal half of the taxonomy.— “Stimuli are usually made subliminal by the joint use of brief presentations and masking techniques. A direct measure such as identification, discrimination or detection is used to show null sensitivity on the masked stimulus. An indirect measure is used to show that, nevertheless, this stimulus influences behaviour”concept_edges[1]
weightmasking —causes→ subliminal — 0.9— “Stimuli are usually made subliminal by the joint use of brief presentations and masking techniques. A direct measure such as identification, discrimination or detection is used to show null sensitivity on the masked stimulus. An indirect measure is used to show that, nevertheless…concept_edges[1]
outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation)control — heldcontrols[0]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.mechanisms[0]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.mechanisms[1]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.mechanisms[2]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.mechanisms[3]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[4]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[5]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[6]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[7]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[8]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[9]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[10]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[11]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[12]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[13]
evidence status notemechanism — PROVENANCE: this record belongs to the priming sub-corpus, which is the other terminal's lane, and these mechanisms were written by the project. No two hands were on the record - it carried no mechanisms before these, and the project confirmed on 2026-08-17 that the project is auditing rather than tagging. Kept rather than retracted on his instruction (17:22): retracting verified work over a bookkeeping flag would leave a retraction reason that misdescribes the row. Recorded here so a reader learns it from the corpus. AND A SEPARATE, MORE IMPORTANT PROVENANCE POINT: this quote is cut from the Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B review, which is the staged text. The record's 'idno' names an OUP BOOK CHAPTER (doi 10.1093/oso/9780199230617.003.0009) and its 'venue' is the book - the chapter has no open copy and the titles are word-for-word identical, so the journal review was staged deliberately. The record also states 'fulltext_status: reference-only', which cannot be right alongside 24 live anchors: either the status or the anchors are wrong. Use this quote as evidence from the JOURNAL REVIEW, not from the chapter the identifier names.
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.
mechanisms[14]
replicationcontested
limitationThe review's primary scope is masking paradigms; inattention paradigms are treated only by comparison.
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.
limitations[0]
limitationThe review cannot resolve why ERP studies disagree over whether the N400 is modulated by genuinely subliminal semantic priming.
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.
limitations[1]
limitationWhether attention modulates subliminal priming at the lowest sensory levels is left unresolved.
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.
limitations[2]
limitationThe workspace model's central prediction about which processes are exclusive to consciousness remains untested.
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.
limitations[3]
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 — not defined in this paper's own words; one of the two non-conscious states, and it is defined by an IMPOSSIBILITY: the bottom-up activation is too weak, so the information cannot be brought into consciousness however hard attention is applied
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]
conceptpreconscious — not defined in this paper's own words; the other, and the mirror image: activation is SUFFICIENT and attention is missing, so the information sits 'temporarily buffered in a non-conscious store' and could have reached consciousness had attention gone there
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]
conceptconscious access — not defined in this paper's own words; the thing requiring BOTH factors - and the review's negative is about it: high activation on its own does not deliver it
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[2]
concepttop-down attention — not defined in this paper's own words; the second requirement, and the one whose absence defines preconscious - preventable simply by pointing attention at another stimulus or task
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[3]
conceptmasking — not defined in this paper's own words; the first requirement's off-switch: it is named in the two-factor sentence as the way to prevent a stimulus having enough strength, which is what makes masked priming the subliminal case rather than the preconscious one
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[4]
conceptattentional blink — not defined in this paper's own words; the paradigm that supplies the exceptions - stimuli with high activation that still do not reach consciousness, which is what rules out activation strength as sufficient
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[5]

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.

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