Reversed Priming Effects May Be Driven by Misperception Rather than Subliminal Processing

Abstract

A new paradigm for investigating whether a cognitive process is independent of perception was recently suggested. In the paradigm, primes are shown at an intermediate signal strength that leads to trial-to-trial and inter-individual variability in prime perception. Here, I used this paradigm and an objective measure of perception to assess the influence of prime identification responses on Stroop priming. I found that sensory states producing correct and incorrect prime identification responses were also associated with qualitatively different priming effects. Incorrect prime identification responses were associated with reversed priming effects but in contrast to previous studies, I interpret this to result from the (mis-)perception of primes rather than from a subliminal process. Furthermore, the intermediate signal strength also produced inter-individual variability in prime perception that strongly influenced priming effects: only participants who on average perceived the primes were Stroop primed. I discuss how this new paradigm, with a wide range of d′ values, is more appropriate when regression analysis on inter-individual identification performance is used to investigate perception-dependent processing. The results of this study, in line with previous results, suggest that drawing conclusions about subliminal processes based on data averaged over individuals may be unwarranted.