Subliminal Priming—State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Abstract

The influence of subliminal priming (behavior outside of awareness) in humans is an interesting phenomenon and its understanding is crucial as it can impact behavior, choices, and actions. Given this, research about the impact of priming continues to be an area of investigative interest, and this paper provides a technical overview of research design strengths and issues in subliminal priming research. Efficient experiments and protocols, as well as associated electroencephalographic and eye movement data analyses, are discussed in detail. We highlight the strengths and weaknesses of different priming experiments that have measured affective (emotional) and cognitive responses. Finally, very recent approaches and findings are described to summarize and emphasize state-of-the-art methods and potential future directions in research marketing and other commercial applications.

Keywords

• subliminal priming
• social psychology
• persuasion
• marketing
• advertisement
• event-related brain potentials
• subliminal perception
• affective priming