Priming of mental operations by masked stimuli.

Motor responses can be affected by visual stimuli that have been made invisible by masking. Can masked visual stimuli also affect nonmotor operations that are necessary to perform the task? Here, the author reports priming effects of masked stimuli on operations that were cued by masking stimuli. Cues informed participants about operations that had to be executed with a forthcoming target stimulus. In five experiments, cues indicated (1) the required response, (2) part of the motor response, (3) the stimulus modality of the target stimulus, or (4) the task to be performed on a multidimensional stimulus. Motor and nonmotor priming effects followed comparable time courses, which differed from those of prime recognition. Experiment 5 demonstrated nonmotor priming without prime awareness. Results suggest that motor and nonmotor operations are similarly affected by masked stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Accession Number: 2003-02910-001. PMID: 12713237 Other Journal Title: Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. Partial author list: First Author & Affiliation: Mattler, Uwe; Technical U Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany. Other Publishers: Springer. Release Date: 20030505. Correction Date: 20110110. Publication Type: Journal (0100), Peer Reviewed Journal (0110). Format Covered: Print. Document Type: Journal Article. Language: English. Conference Information: Conference of Cognitive Neuroscience, Nov, 1999, Bremen, Germany. Conference Note: A preliminary report of this data was given at the aforementioned conference. Major Descriptor: Cognitive Processes; Motor Performance; Priming; Visual Masking; Visual Stimulation. Minor Descriptor: Cues. Classification: Human Experimental Psychology (2300). Population: Human (10); Male (30); Female (40). Location: Germany. Age Group: Adulthood (18 yrs & older) (300); Young Adulthood (18-29 yrs) (320). Methodology: Empirical Study. References Available: Y. Page Count: 21. Issue Publication Date: Feb, 2003.