Pratte Michael S, Rouder Jeffrey N
Department of Psychological Sciences, 210 McAlester Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2009 Aug;71(6):1276-83. doi: 10.3758/APP.71.6.1276.
Subliminal priming is said to occur when a subliminal prime influences the classification of a subsequent target. Most subliminal-priming claims are based on separate target- and prime-classification tasks. Because primes are intended to be subliminal, the prime-classification task is difficult, and the target-classification task is easy. To assess whether this task-difficulty difference accounts for previous claims of subliminal priming, we manipulated the ease of the prime-classification task by intermixing long-duration (visible) primes with short-duration (near liminal) ones. In Experiment 1, this strategy of intermixing long-duration primes raised classification of the short-duration ones. In Experiments 2 and 3, prime duration was lowered in such a way that prime classification was at chance in intermixed presentations. Under these conditions, we failed to observe any priming effects; hence, previous demonstrations of subliminal priming may simply have reflected a task-difficulty artifact.
当阈下启动刺激影响后续目标的分类时，就被认为发生了阈下启动效应。大多数阈下启动效应的说法是基于单独的目标分类任务和启动刺激分类任务。由于启动刺激旨在是阈下的，启动刺激分类任务很难，而目标分类任务很容易。为了评估这种任务难度差异是否能解释之前关于阈下启动效应的说法，我们通过将长时间（可见）启动刺激与短时间（接近阈限）启动刺激混合，来操纵启动刺激分类任务的难易程度。在实验1中，这种混合长时间启动刺激的策略提高了短时间启动刺激的分类。在实验2和3中，启动刺激的时长被降低，使得在混合呈现中启动刺激的分类是随机的。在这些条件下，我们没有观察到任何启动效应；因此，之前阈下启动效应的证明可能仅仅反映了一种任务难度假象。
