Priming
A technique whereby exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention.
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Origin
David E. Meyer and Roger W. Schvaneveldt introduced semantic priming in their seminal 1971 experiment published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. They demonstrated that subjects recognized words faster when preceded by semantically related words (e.g., "nurse" before "doctor") than unrelated ones. Their finding that related word pairs activated shared regions of semantic memory spawned decades of research.
Updated February 22, 2026