title: Unconscious semantic activation depends on feature-specific attention allocation.
abstract: We examined whether semantic activation by subliminally presented stimuli is dependent upon the extent to which participants assign attention to specific semantic stimulus features and stimulus dimensions. Participants pronounced visible target words that were preceded by briefly presented, masked prime words. Both affective and non-affective semantic congruence of the prime-target pairs were manipulated under conditions that either promoted selective attention for affective stimulus information or selective attention for non-affective semantic stimulus information. In line with our predictions, results showed that affective congruence had a clear impact on word pronunciation latencies only if participants were encouraged to assign attention to the affective stimulus dimension. In contrast, non-affective semantic relatedness of the prime-target pairs produced no priming at all. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that unconscious activation of (affective) semantic information is modulated by feature-specific attention allocation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium. Adriaan.Spruyt@UGent.be
authors.forename: Adriaan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spruyt
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: De Houwer
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Everaert
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hermans
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011932:Reading; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013060:Speech; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult