Semantic priming is a concept in psychology where a response to a stimulus (target) is faster when it is preceded by a semantically related stimulus (prime). For example, the word "dog" might be recognized more quickly following the word "cat" than following the word "car"².

This happens because the prime partially activates related words or concepts, facilitating their later processing or recognition². Although this process is often automatic, priming can also be guided by the use of specific strategies to achieve a particular task goal².

Semantic priming is a type of priming and priming is the idea that exposure to one stimulus may influence a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention¹. Priming can be perceptual, associative, repetitive, positive, negative, affective, semantic, or conceptual¹.