People can rapidly form arbitrary associations between stimuli and the responses they make in the presence of those stimuli. Such stimulus–response (S–R) bindings, when retrieved, affect the way that people respond to the same, or related, stimuli. Only recently, however, has the flexibility and ubiquity of these S–R bindings been appreciated, particularly in the context of priming paradigms. This is important for the many cognitive theories that appeal to evidence from priming. It is also important for the control of action generally. An S–R binding is more than a gradually learned association between a specific stimulus and a specific response; instead, it captures the full, context-dependent behavioral potential of a stimulus.
