What is Priming (psychology)?
'''Priming''' is an [[implicit memory]] effect in which exposure to one [[stimulus]] influences the response to another stimulus.<ref>Gladwell, Malcolm 2005. ''Blink: the power of thinking without thinking''. Little, Brown: New York. Chapter 1. {{ISBN|0-316-05790-8}}</ref> [[Experiment]]s in the early 1970s showed that people were faster recognising a word, when the word followed a related word. For example, NURSE is recognized more quickly following DOCTOR than following BREAD.<ref name=MS71>{{cite journal | first1=D.E. | last1=Meyer | first2=R.W. | last2=Schvaneveldt | year=1971 | title= Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations | url=https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-experimental-psychology_1971-10_90_2/page/227 | journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology | volume=90 | issue=2 | pages=227–234 | doi=10.1037/h0031564| pmid=5134329 }}</ref> Activation spreading among related ideas was the best explanation for this effect.<ref name=SM73>{{Citation| last1 = Schvaneveldt| first1 = R.W.| last2 = Meyer| first2 = D.E.| chapter = Retrieval and comparison processes in semantic memory| year = 1973| editor-last = Kornblum| editor-first = S.| title = Attention and performance IV| place = New York| publisher = Academic Press| pages = 395–409}}</ref><ref name=MSR75>{{Citation| last1 = Meyer| first1 = D.E.| last2 = Schvaneveldt| first2 = R.W.| last3 = Ruddy| first3 = M.G.| chapter = Loci of contextual effects on visual word recognition| year = 1975| editor1-last = Rabbitt| editor1-first = P.| editor2-last = Dornic| editor2-first = S.| title = Attention and performance V| place = London| publisher = Academic Press| pages = 98–118}}</ref> In experiments the same target stimuli can be presented with different primes. This allows the priming effect to be measured. Priming can occur following [[wikt:Perceptual|perceptual]], [[semantic]], or [[wikt:conceptual|conceptual]] stimulus repetition. For example, if a person reads a list of words including the word