Recruitment of newly acquired category exemplars into unconscious processing systems is rapid and durable.

In a series of 3 unconscious priming experiments, we investigated if newly acquired English language words can become integrated into unconscious processing systems, and what preconditions are required to enable this process. In each experiment participants learned English language names of extremely rare fish and flowers in a single learning session. After a varying interval of time and in some cases a brief session of repeated conscious exposure (relearning), the newly learned words were presented as briefly flashed, visually masked primes in a standard unconscious category priming procedure.

Influence of category size and target set size on unconscious priming by novel words.

In support of their argument that unconscious priming by novel words is critically influenced by target set size, Kiesel, Kunde, Pohl, and Hoffman (2006) report priming from novel words when target sets were large but not when they were small. The present experiment examined the possibility that target set size interacts with category size. (In both experiments in Kiesel et al.

Orthographic overlap and category size in unconscious category priming: comment on experiment 1c of Van den Bussche and Reynvoet (2007).

Van den Bussche and Reynvoet (2007, Experiment 1) report unconscious priming of comparable magnitude from novel words belonging to small and large categories, evidence that they interpret as demonstrating independence from category size of priming that involves semantic analysis. Three experiments raise the possibility that the findings in Experiment 1c of Van den Bussche and Reynvoet reflect subword processing, not semantic analysis. In Experiments 1 and 2, priming was obtained from primes and targets that shared approximately the same degree of subword features as in Experiment 1c of Van den Bussche and Reynvoet, but no priming occurred when sharing of features was minimized.

Unconscious semantic priming in the absence of partial awareness.

In a recent paper in Psychological Science, Kouider and Dupoux reported obtaining unconscious Stroop priming only when subjects had partial awareness of the masked distractor words (i.e., could consciously perceive subword features that enabled reconstruction of whole words).

Priming of semantic classifications by novel subliminal prime words.

Four experiments demonstrate category congruency priming by subliminal prime words that were never seen as targets in a valence-classification task (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and a gender-classification task (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, overlap in terms of word fragments of one or more letters between primes and targets of different valences was larger than between primes and targets of the same valence. In Experiments 2 and 3, the sets of prime words and target words were completely disjoint in terms of used letters.

Unconscious processing of multiple nonadjacent letters in visually masked words.

The claim that visually masked, unidentifiable ("subliminal") words are analyzed at the level of whole word meaning has been challenged by recent findings indicating that instead, analysis occurs mainly at the subword level. The present experiments examined possible limits on subword analysis. Experiment 1 obtained semantic priming from pleasant- and unpleasant-meaning subliminal words in which no individual letter contained diagnostic information about a word's evaluative valence; thus analysis must operate on information more complex than that contained in individual letters.

Long-term semantic memory versus contextual memory in unconscious number processing.

Subjects classified visible 2-digit numbers as larger or smaller than 55. Target numbers were preceded by masked 2-digit primes that were either congruent (same relation to 55) or incongruent. Experiments 1 and 2 showed prime congruency effects for stimuli never included in the set of classified visible targets, indicating subliminal priming based on long-term semantic memory.

Subliminal words activate semantic categories (not automated motor responses).

Semantic priming by visually masked, unidentifiable ("subliminal") words occurs robustly when the words appearing as masked primes have been classified earlier in practice as visible targets. It has been argued (Damian, 2001) that practice enables robust subliminal priming by automatizing learned associations between words and the specific motor responses used to classify them. Two experiments demonstrate that, instead, the associations formed in practice that underlie subliminal priming are between words and semantic categories.