On visual access to letter case and lexical/semantic information

Four experiments were designed to investigate automatic processing of letter case and lexical/ semantic information under forward and backward masking conditions that disallowed a visible image. Stimulus displays were letter string pairs; the letter case for each pair matched or mismatched, and the relationship between the two strings within pairs varied. Experiment I required direct Same-Different responses to stimulus pairs, and the results indicate that tasks requiring direct responses to stimulus inputs cannot distinguish between conscious response biases and unconscious use of information. Experiments 2 and 3 employed an indirect index of automatic prerecognition analyses of verbal-linguistic parameters and showed that, with 30-msec pre- and postmasked presentations, letter case, orthographic regularity, and lexical/semantic information are all analyzed in unconscious operations. Experiment 4 demonstrated that, under the viewing conditions of Experiments 2 and 3, subjects had no awareness of the stimulus input.