Abrams R L, Greenwald A G
Psychology Department, University of Washington, Box 351525, Seattle, WA 98195-1525, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2000 Mar;11(2):118-24. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00226.
In unconscious semantic priming, an unidentifiable visually masked word (the prime) facilitates semantic classification of a following visible related word (the target). Three experiments reported here provide evidence that masked primes are analyzed mainly at the level of word parts, not whole-word meaning. In Experiment 1, masked nonword primes composed of subword fragments of earlier-viewed targets functioned as effective evaluative primes. (For example, after repeated classification of the targets angel and warm, the nonword anrm acted as an evaluatively positive masked prime.) Experiment 2 showed that this part-word processing was potent enough to oppose analysis at the whole-word level. Thus, smile functioned as an evaluatively negative (!) masked prime after repeated classification of smut and bile. Experiment 3 found no priming when masked word primes contained no parts of earlier targets. These results suggest that robust unconscious priming (a) is driven by analysis of part-word information and (b) requires previous classification of visible targets that contain the fragments later serving as primes. Contrary to a widely held view, analysis of subliminal primes appears not to function at the level of analysis of complete words.
在无意识语义启动效应中，一个无法辨认的视觉掩蔽词（启动词）会促进对随后出现的可见相关词（目标词）的语义分类。本文报告的三个实验提供了证据，表明掩蔽启动词主要在词的部分层面进行分析，而非整个词的意义层面。在实验1中，由先前看到的目标词的子词片段组成的掩蔽非词启动词起到了有效的评价性启动词的作用。（例如，在对目标词“天使”和“温暖”进行多次分类后，非词“anrm”作为一个评价性积极的掩蔽启动词起作用。）实验2表明，这种词的部分处理强大到足以对抗在整个词层面的分析。因此，在对“淫秽内容”和“胆汁”进行多次分类后，“微笑”作为一个评价性消极（！）的掩蔽启动词起作用。实验3发现，当掩蔽词启动词不包含先前目标词的任何部分时，不存在启动效应。这些结果表明，强大的无意识启动效应（a）是由词的部分信息分析驱动的，并且（b）需要先前对包含后来用作启动词片段的可见目标词进行分类。与一种广泛持有的观点相反，阈下启动词的分析似乎并非在完整词的分析层面起作用。
