Members in the Media
From: Pacific Standard

Replicate This

Pacific Standard:

There are few psychological effects better known—or more widely accepted—in academic halls than what is called semantic priming. Show a person a simple stimulus, something as unremarkable as a photograph of a cat. Let some time pass, then ask that same person to list as many words as possible that start with the letter c. This person is more likely not only to come up with the word cat, but to mention catlike animals such as cougars and cheetahs, because he was initially primed with that one little kitty cat.

And yet, many of the classic studies that led us to our current understanding of priming have never been replicated. In fact, the few attempts to reproduce the results that we have taken at face value for so long have failed. In late 2012, that led Daniel Kahneman, noted Princeton University psychologist and author of the best-selling book Thinking Fast and Slow, to write an open e-mail to the entire priming-research community.

Read the whole story: Pacific Standard

See Daniel Kahneman, Brian Nosek, and Eric Eich at the 25th APS Annual Convention.

More of our Members in the Media >


APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.

Please login with your APS account to comment.