Premium
The effect of subliminal priming on sleep duration
Author(s) -
Shimizu Mitsuru,
Sperry Jesse J.,
Pelham Brett W.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/jasp.12123
Subject(s) - nap , priming (agriculture) , psychology , sleep (system call) , subliminal stimuli , audiology , developmental psychology , social psychology , medicine , botany , germination , computer science , biology , operating system
Two experiments primed college students with either sleep‐related or neutral words and then assessed sleep during a 25 minute nap period. Both experiments showed that participants primed with sleep‐related words reported having slept longer than did those primed with neutral words. Furthermore, both experiments showed that sleep‐primed participants exhibited lower heart rate. Experiment 2 also revealed that the effect of the priming manipulation was especially strong among participants who had trouble sleeping. This suggests that priming might be a cost‐effective treatment for inducing sleep among people with sleep problems.