Priming (psychology)

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Priming in psychology refers to activating parts of particular representations or associations in memory just before carrying out an action or task. In a neurological view priming can be seen as the activation of clusters of neurons (which can be seen as little stores of particular information). An interconnected cluster is surrounded by other clusters that are more or less connected with each other. When a cluster is activated, for example by the input of sensory neurons, surrounding clusters that are more interconnected (due to similar information, for example: both clusters represent a kind of flower) become more activated and are therefore more likely to come into consciousness. So when the cluster that represents the concept of "flower" is activated, particular clusters will be more activated than others (i.e. kinds of flowers). These associations are often regarded as unconscious, but can be conscious as well.

Priming is also an experimental technique by which a stimulus is used to sensitize the nervous system to a later presentation of the same or similar stimulus. For example, when a subject reads a list of words including the word table, and is later asked to complete a word that starts with tab, the list "primes" the subject to answer table.
A property of priming is that the remembered item is remembered best in the form in which it was originally encountered. If a priming list is given in an auditory mode, than an auditory cue produces better performance than a visual cue.

Priming can also be demonstrated in the following way. Subjects are shown an incomplete sketch and asked what it is. If they fail to identify the sketch, they are shown another sketch that is slightly more complete. This process continues until they eventually recognize the picture. When subjects are shown the same sketch at a later date, they will identify the sketch at an earlier stage than was possible for them the first time.

An important feature of a priming task is that amnesic subjects perform as well on it as control subjects do, indicating through their performance that they, too, remember what was on the previous study list, even though they report no conscious recollection of ever having seen the list. However, priming is dependent on the activation of existing memory, and therefore won’t work with words that were unknown to the amnesic subject prior to the injury. This is taken as one kind of evidence that implicit and explicit memory are different.^[1]