In a size judgment task on words denoting concrete objects, subliminally presented stimuli that precede the targets influence response times dependent on whether responses to the prime and the target are congruent or incongruent (Exp. 1). These findings, mirroring Dehaene et al. (1998), imply that primes are unconsciously categorized and processed to the response stage. However, the effect does not generalize to primes that are not in the response set (Exp. 2), and even exposure to primes not

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... the response set in an interleaved naming-size judgment task fails to induce it (Exp. 3). But the effect generalizes from lowercase primes to the same set of uppercase targets (Exp. 4), suggesting an abstract level of operation. The findings suggest that rather than from unconscious prime categorization, the congruity effect results from automatized stimulus-response mappings. Potential differences between the number and the word domain are discussed.