The Historical Origins of Priming as the Preparation of Behavioral Responses: Unconscious Carryover and Contextual Influences of Real-World Importance

Abstract

Contrary to the recent assertions of skeptics of behavioral priming effects, the concept of priming was not introduced by the Meyer and Schvaneveldt (M-S, 1971) study of brief semantic spreading activation effects (perceptual-interpretation priming); it was originally introduced by Karl Lashley (1951) as a mechanism to increase the probability of a behavioral response (behavioral priming). The priming of the response was Lashley's solution to the problem of smooth behavioral response sequencing. Moreover, the initial priming demonstrations in experimental psychology, which predated M-S by many years, were of carryover effects from one experimental task to another—the same priming paradigm commonly employed in social psychology since the pioneering study of Higgins, Rholes, and Jones (1977). These priming effects were thus of considerably longer duration than the fleeting spreading activation effects obtained by M-S in the lexical decision task. Priming and accessibility effects of which the individual is ...