Correction to "does affective processing require awareness? On the use of the perceptual awareness scale in response priming research" by wentura et al. (2025).

Published in

Journal of experimental psychology. General. Volume 155. Issue 9. Pages 2198.

Abstract

Reports an error in "Does affective processing require awareness? On the use of the Perceptual Awareness Scale in response priming research" by Dirk Wentura, Michaela Rohr and Markus Kiefer (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2025[Jan], Vol 154[1], 128-151; see record 2025-42197-001). follow up analysis of the data showed the original was incorrect. The data has been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2025-42197-001.) Masked priming paradigms are frequently used to shine light on the processes of nonconscious cognition. Introducing a new method to this field, Lähteenmäki et al. (2015) claimed that affective priming requires awareness. Specifically, they administered a subjective rating task after the priming task in each trial to directly assess awareness of the prime. Their main result was a lack of priming for subjectively unaware primes. In four experiments, we compared their method with the traditional paradigm, that is, a single-task priming phase followed by a direct test of prime recognition. We used faces with anger versus sadness expressions as primes and targets; emotion categorization was the task. In contrast to Lähteenmäki et al., primes and targets were drawn from different sets, such that priming effects can be unequivocally attributed to the processing of evaluative features. In Experiments 1a, b, we followed their approach of using different prime durations to produce variance in awareness ratings. With a duration of 40 ms, significant priming effects for subjectively unaware primes were found. This duration was also associated with priming effects in the traditional paradigm with near-zero objective prime categorization, suggesting that priming does not require awareness. In Experiment 2a, employing a constant 40-ms duration, we replicated the traditional effect. However, the parallel Experiment 2b with subjective awareness ratings produced a null result at a sharply increased response time level. We conclude that the claim that affective processing requires awareness is not justified. Subjective trial-by-trial visibility ratings can severely alter processing strategies in response priming paradigms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

PMID:
42658605
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 28 Aug 2026.

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