The effect of illumination on the outcome of subliminal psychodynamic activation experiments is discussed and the bleaching hypothesis Silverman, Ross, Adler, and Lustig in 1978 used to explain negative results under certain illumination conditions is critically evaluated. Illumination levels suggested by Silverman for this research do not completely agree with values used in most successful experiments prior to 1980. The sequence of tachistoscopic events usually presented in a typical experiment and information-processing considerations suggest that, contrary to Silverman's earlier suggestions, stimulus-field illumination should be higher than blank-field illumination. Aspects of the bleaching hypothesis are questionable, and it seems to be of minimal value because the specifics of how bleaching is thought to interfere with the effects were not documented by reference to the literature in photochemistry. Further empirical investigation of the effect of illumination could be combined with attempts to understand how this variable affects stimulus processing during subliminal psychodynamic activation.
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