Abstract
The purpose of the study was to investigate unconscious priming effects in a problem solving context. The influence of unconscious priming on solution rates of Remote Associate Test problems (RAT) was investigated in a series of four experiments. In the first two experiments primes were either positive, negative, or no-prime was presented. It was predicted that the positive primes would show the best performance followed by the no-prime and negative prime conditions respectively. Positive primes were the actual RAT solutions. Negative primes were inappropriate solutions forming a phrase with only two of the three RAT items. In Experiment 2 priming trials were preceded by an incidental learning task involving supraliminal processing of the negative primes. The learning task was intended to accentuate the effect of the negative primes. Although no effect was found for the positive primes, a significant blocking effect of the negative primes was obtained when the no-prime and negative prime conditions were contrasted. The hypothesis that any word used as a prime might be causing the poor performance was considered in Experiments 3 and 4 by replacing the positive primes with unrelated primes. The incidental learning task was not used in Experiment 3. Although effects were not significant in Experiment 3, mean solution rates for the neutral primes closely matched those of the no-prime condition and were greater than those in the negative prime condition. The incidental learning task was implemented in Experiment 4 again in an attempt to accentuate the effects of the negative primes. It was predicted that solution rate performance in the negative prime condition would fall significantly below the unrelated and no-prime condition. No significant effects were obtained for either accurate response latency scores or for the priming conditions in Experiments 3 and 4. There was clearly no facilitation provided by the positive primes, howeve some evidence was provided for a blocking effect of the negative primes. It was concluded that any activation produced by the priming manipulation was too weak to influence the processes involved in solving the RAT problems by themselves.
Schumacher, Jay Scott (1994). The influence of nonreportable primes on problem solving. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1994 -THESIS -S392.