Updating a Cautionary Tale of Masked Priming: Reply to Klapp (2005)

The commentary by S. T. Klapp (2005) on our recent article (A. Lleras & J. T. Enns, 2004) proposes that the empirical finding of negative compatibility in masked priming be attributed to 2 distinct theoretical constructs: (a) perceptual priming through object updating, as described in our article, and (b) nonperceptual priming based on inhibited unconscious response tendencies. The authors argue that this 2nd construct is not supported by either the new data the authors report or the extant literature. Instead, the negative compatibility effect in masked priming is influenced by perceptual interactions among stimuli that appear in the same spatial location, and the authors believe it is this process that deserves further systematic study.