... decades has been a controversial topic ever since it came into discussion (Thomas and Wilhelmsen 1989). The concept of subliminal perception is of considerable interest because it suggests that people's thoughts, feelings and actions are influenced by stimuli that are perceived without any awareness of perceiving. This research covers both visually as well as auditory presented stimuli, and visual stimuli may either be words or pictures. The dissociation paradigm is the predominant experimental approach used in research on subliminal perception (Merikle and Reingold, 1990). Perception without awareness is demonstrated only when the subject reports no conscious awareness of the stimulus (null sensitivity) but some other significant effect shows that the stimulus was perceived nevertheless. Provided that the terms of the dissociation can be reliably stated, this paradigm provides sound demonstration of subliminal perception (re-visited by Merikle and Joordens, 1997). In the review of Merikle and Reingold (1990), detection versus ...

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