ABSTRACT
There is probably no more controversial issue in the semantic priming literature than “subliminal” or “unconscious” priming. The question is, can semantic priming occur even when the prime is presented under conditions in which it cannot be identified or its presence cannot be detected? This question is a species of the genus “Can perception occur without awareness?” That question may not be as old as the hills, but it is certainly as old as the science of psychology, some of the earliest experiments having been published in the 19th century (cited in Adams, 1957). Although a negative answer to the perception question would probably entail a negative answer to the priming question, the inverse is not true. For instance, accessing the meaning of a word may not require awareness but semantic priming may. For this reason and because this book is about semantic priming, not about perception and consciousness, I will focus my attention on the narrower question of whether or not semantic priming requires awareness of the prime.
