The Affects Of Category Size And Frequency On Subliminal Semantic Activation

Subliminal semantic activation (SSA)has been playing an important role in studies about unconscious perception. The focus of past studies is whether the SSA exists and the research patterns. But now it transfers to the theoretical explanation and processing mechanisms, especially the extent of analysis the masked stimuli received in SSA. There are many debates on this question, and now the important issues are : are the masked stimuli analyzed in its parts or whole? Are the relations that subjects learned in practice automated motor responses or semantic categories?And a new question was raised when studying the SSA: whether the priming effect is generated by practiced masked stimuli instead of unpracticed masked stimuli? Different researchers found different answers, and this article found that frequency and category size both influence SSA. So we discuss the issue in this research.In experiment l,the category size and the frequency are both different, we studied the interaction of practice and category size of frequency based on reaction time and correct frequency. In experiment 2, the category size is equal and the frequency is different, we discussed how the frequency influences the SSA. In experiment 3 the category size is different and the frequency is equal , we discussed how the category size influences the SSA. In experiment 4 the category size and the frequency are both equal, we made this experiment as a basis.The results showed: (1) the finding of SSA showed that SSA actually exists; (2)the frequency can influence the SSA; (3)the category size can influence the SSA too; (4)the effect of frequency is prior to the effect of category size.The study on SSA both enrich the theory of the unconscious mechanism of SSAand provide basis for further research.