lecture 5

Question 1

what is Automatic Processing

Answer 1

“Sub-liminal” - below threshold of conscious awareness

Question 2

evidence of psychological impact of such “hidden messages” is how strong

Answer 2

essentially nonexistent, but it raises interesting questions

To what extent are our social perceptions and even social behavior directed by processes involving little or no conscious thought?

Question 3

what are the components of Automatic processing

Answer 3

efficient (e.g., making judgments while distracted)
– unintended (e.g., snap judgments of personality)
– difficult to control (e.g., prejudice)
– outside of awareness – does this happen? Are we
influenced by truly subliminal stimuli? How could we test this properly?

Question 4

what is Subjective Threshold

Answer 4

duration

necessary for subject to be aware of seeing the stimulus

Question 5

what is Objective Threshold:

Answer 5

duration necessary for stimulus to have an effect

Question 6

Subliminal stimuli are what

Answer 6

Subliminal stimuli are hypothesized to fall between these thresholds (i.e., to have an effect even though below the threshold of subjective awareness).

Question 7

lexical decision effects can be found even when…

Answer 7

person has no subjective awareness of the prime

this is the experiment when trying to determine if a work is a real word; People are faster on trials where the prime word
is related to the target word (so makes the target more accessible, through spreading activation)

Question 8

what are the components of Controlled processing

Answer 8

effortful
– intentional
– controllable
– aware

Life satisfaction assessed by phone on sunny or rainy days. • Rainy days – more dissatisfied
with life
• But, if experimenter mentioned weather explicitly, it then had little or no impact on satisfaction