Figure 1.

Experimental procedures. (A) The timeline of a trial for each condition and group. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: supraliminal or subliminal. Each group participated in two (control and experimental) conditions, with a break of at least 15 min between each. Both supraliminal and subliminal groups completed the control condition first, followed by supraliminal or subliminal condition, respectively. (B) Priming procedure. In the subliminal condition, the subliminal exertion primes were always paired with supraliminal positive words. The supraliminal condition was identical, except that the initial presentations of exertion verbs and random letters were fully visible (supraliminal). Thus, the subliminal and supraliminal exertion primes were always paired with positive words. In the control condition, only random letter strings were used as primes, and these were paired with positive or neutral words. Thus, exertion primes were never displayed. The order of possible stimulus pairs was randomized within each condition. Exertion, positive, and neutral words were Japanese. Each trial in each condition began with a 1000-ms presentation of a random eight letter string (e.g., DZXLTOTM) as a forward mask. This was followed by the prime (33-ms duration in the subliminal condition and 150-ms duration in the supraliminal condition). A random letter string was again displayed for 100 ms as a backward mask, after which a consciously visible word was presented for 150 ms. Occasionally, a dot was presented for 33 ms (it was visible because of the absence of a backward mask), either above or below the neutral or positive word.