The Relationship of Attention and Semantic Priming: Semantic Priming Is Conditionally Automatic

Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationship of attention and semantic priming. A debate exists in the semantic priming literature over whether automatic semantic priming does or does not require attention. This debate is limited by the view that automatic processes necessarily exclude the involvement of attention. The current experiments test the conditional automaticity hypothesis that automatic semantic priming is conditional upon attention, that subjects show semantic priming for attended primes, but not for unattended primes. Three experiments using a focused attention paradigm find support for this hypothesis, both at long (500 ms) and short (250 ms) stimulus onset asynchronies.