Williams L J, Evans J R
Percept Mot Skills. 1980 Feb;50(1):195-8. doi: 10.2466/pms.1980.50.1.195.
In a tachistoscopic experiment employing a lexical-decision task, it was demonstrated that emotional ("taboo") words are not responded to as quickly or as accurately as non-emotional ("neutral") words by 32 college students. The results suggest evidence for "perceptual defense" uncontaminated by response bias.