Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:41:49.514Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dismissing subliminal perception because of its famous problems is classic “baby with the bathwater”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2014

Matthew Finkbeiner  and
Max Coltheart
Matthew Finkbeiner
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Science and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. matthew.finkbeiner@mq.edu.auwww.maccs.mq.edu.au/~mfinkbeimax.coltheart@mq.edu.auwww.maccs.mq.edu.au/~max/
Max Coltheart
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Science and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. matthew.finkbeiner@mq.edu.auwww.maccs.mq.edu.au/~mfinkbeimax.coltheart@mq.edu.auwww.maccs.mq.edu.au/~max/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Newell & Shanks (N&S) appeal to well-known problems in establishing subliminality to argue that there is little convincing evidence that subliminally presented stimuli can affect decision making. We discuss how recent studies have successfully addressed these well-known problems and, in turn, have revealed clear evidence that subliminally presented stimuli can affect decision making.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 27
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Dell'Acqua, R. & Grainger, J. (1999) Unconscious semantic priming from pictures. Cognition 73(1):1–15.Google Scholar
Finkbeiner, M. (2011) Subliminal priming with nearly perfect performance in the prime-classification task. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics 73(4):1255–65.Google Scholar
Finkbeiner, M. & Caramazza, A. (2008) Modulating the masked congruence priming effect with the hands and the mouth. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 34:894–18.Google Scholar
Finkbeiner, M., Forster, K. I., Nicol, J. & Nakamura, K. (2004) The role of polysemy in masked semantic and translation priming. Journal of Memory and Language 51 1–22.Google Scholar
Finkbeiner, M. & Palermo, R. (2009) The role of spatial attention in nonconscious processing a comparison of face and nonface stimuli. Psychological Science 20(1):42–51.Google Scholar
Grainger, J., Diependaele, K., Spinelli, E., Ferrand, L. & Farioli, F. (2003) Masked repetition and phonological priming within and across modalities. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 29:1256–69.Google ScholarPubMed
Green, D. M. & Swets, J. A. (1966) Signal detection theory and psychophysics, vol. 1974. Wiley.Google Scholar
Hassin, R. R., Ferguson, M. J., Shidlovski, D. & Gross, T. (2007) Subliminal exposure to national flags affects political thought and behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(50): 19757–61.Google Scholar
Macmillan, N. A. & Creelman, C. D. (2004) Detection theory: A user's guide. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Morey, R. D., Rouder, J. N. & Speckman, P. L. (2008) A statistical model for discriminating between subliminal and near-liminal performance. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 52:21–36.Google Scholar
Morey, R. D., Rouder, J. N. & Speckman, P. L. (2009) A truncated-probit item response model for estimating psychophysical thresholds. Psychometrika 74:603–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naccache, L. & Dehaene, S. (2001) Unconscious semantic priming extends to novel unseen stimuli. Cognition 80:215–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pratte, M. S. & Rouder, J. N. (2009) A task-difficulty artifact in subliminal priming. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics 71(6):1276–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rouder, J. N., Morey, R. D., Speckman, P. L. & Pratte, M. S. (2007) Detecting chance: A solution to the null sensitivity problem in subliminal priming. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14:597–605.Google Scholar