Analysis Of Cheesman And Merikle ( 1984 ) - 1611 Words

Cheesman and Merikle (1984) introduced the concepts of objective and subjective thresholds, suggesting that subliminal stimuli are the messages that are only able to reach the objective threshold, while the messages that pass through both objective and subjective thresholds would be perceived consciously by the subjects. This idea was challenged by Holender (1986), who argued that subjects may have perceived the quickly flashed images or words that are designed to be subliminal stimuli consciously but failed to recall them at the time of report, thus â€Å"effectively riles the phenomenon of subliminal perception out of existence†. Nevertheless, Holender’s argument were countered by many others in the field, who pointed out that he ignored the aspect of awareness that essentially forms our consciousness, in which consciousness is a â€Å"primary phenomenon, which the experimenter has no right to argue with† (Norretranders, 1998). It is important to note that no fixed subjective threshold has been located or identified and existing evidence suggested that it varies from individual. Thus, based on the above arguments, subliminal stimuli would be defined as the stimuli that doesn’t reach conscious awareness even if attention is paid to them, only reaching the objective threshold. The existence of subliminal perception reveals the enormous processing capacity of the unconscious is enormous – â€Å"†¦if we accept that unconscious perceptual processes have a paramount influence on humanShow MoreRelatedEssay on Figure Ground3979 Words   |  16 Pagessubliminal perception of the prime may also affect the subsequent perception in one way or another. Subliminal priming might be influential enough to affect the subsequent perceptual processes, thus, account for a kind of past experience. Cheesman and Merikle (1984) dealt with the issue of perception without awareness using the Stroop procedure. They found no evidence for the perception of materials presented below threshold. On the other hand, Epstein and Rock (1960) tested the effect of expectancy