Fisk, G.D., & Haase, S.J. (2007). Exclusion failure does not demonstrate unconscious perception. American Journal of Psychology, 120(2), 173-204.
Systematic failure to perform exclusion tasks (making a response that opposes the participant’s natural inclinations) for briefly displayed, masked words has been interpreted as evidence of unconscious perception. The present study required participants to make a forced-choice exclusion response after viewing masked word targets. The forced-choice exclusion task was properly performed in all experiments. This result was completely contrary to previous studies that utilized stem-completion tasks. The exclusion failure effects interpreted as unconscious perception in earlier studies appear to be the product of the response task rather than unconscious perception.