Unconscious preparation: Effects of prime visibility on semantic generalization of task priming

Studies found that subliminal primes can be associated with specific tasks to facilitate task performance, and such learning is highly adaptive and generalizable. Meanwhile, conditioning studies suggest that aversive/reward learning and generalization actually occur at the semantic level. The current study shows that prime–task associations can also be generalized to novel word/neighbour primes from the same semantic category, and this occurs without contingency awareness. Previous studies have counterintuitively suggested that both the learning of task priming and the semantic priming of word neighbours depend on the lack of visibility. Here, we show that semantic generalization indeed depends on reduced visibility, but cannot occur subliminally. The current study shows for the first time that semantic learning and generalization can occur without any emotional or motivational factors, and that semantic priming can occur for arbitrary-linked stimuli in a context completely devoid of semantics.     

Divided attention modulates semantic activation: Evidence from a nonletter-level prime task

Research has recently shown that semantic activation is modulated in proportion to the amount of attention required for letter-level processing of the prime (the attention modulation hypothesis; Smith, Bentin, & Spalek, 2001). In this study, we examined this hypothesis with an auditory divided-attention task. Participants were asked to decide whether the pitch of a probe tone presented with the prime word was higher or lower than the basic tone presented with the fixation cross. Their target task was lexical decision to the target word. Experiment 1 showed that semantic priming was modulated by the amount of attentional resources. Moreover, in Experiment 2, this modulation was also found in a situation that eliminated the possibility of participants' response strategies. Yet, Experiment 3 showed repetition priming to be unaffected. These results support an amended attention modulation hypothesis in which modulation is not limited to letter-level processing.     

Negative priming between pictures and words in a selective attention task: Evidence for semantic processing of ignored stimuli

This study examined the processing of ignored pictures and words when attention was directed to a different picture or word. Previous work by Tipper (1985) demonstrated that the priming effect of an ignored picture on a subsequent categorically related picture is inhibitory. This effect was termednegative priming. Tipper concluded that ignored pictures achieved abstract categorical levels of internal representation, and that these representations were inhibited during selection of a simultaneously presented picture. This conclusion, however, was premature. Observation of the figures used by Tipper suggests that objects within a category have greater structural similarity than do objects in different categories. The negative priming effect could therefore be at a structural level of representation. The present study examined priming across symbolic domains (pictures and words) where there was no structural relationship between objects. Negative priming was again observed and was equivalent to the negative priming observed within symbolic domain. These data suggest that ignored drawings and words do achieve abstract categorical levels of representation, and that the mechanisms underlying negative priming operate at, or beyond, this level.     

Associative priming in a masked perceptual identification task: Evidence for automatic processes

Two experiments investigated the influence of automatic and strategic processes on associative priming effects in a perceptual identification task in which prime-target pairs are briefly presented and masked. In this paradigm, priming is defined as a higher percentage of correctly identified targets for related pairs than for unrelated pairs. In Experiment 1, priming was obtained for mediated word pairs. This mediated priming effect was affected neither by the presence of direct associations nor by the presentation time of the primes, indicating that automatic priming effects play a role in perceptual identification. Experiment 2 showed that the priming effect was not affected by the proportion (.90 vs. .10) of related pairs if primes were presented briefly to prevent their identification. However, a large proportion effect was found when primes were presented for 1000 ms so that they were clearly visible. These results indicate that priming in a masked perceptual identification task is the result of automatic processes and is not affected by strategies. The present paradigm provides a valuable alternative to more commonly used tasks such as lexical decision.     

Semantic access in second-language visual word processing: Evidence from the semantic Simon paradigm

The present study investigated whether visually presented second-language words activate their meaning during low-level word processing, just as native-language words do. Using the semantic Simon paradigm (De Houwer, 1998) with a letter-case judgment task, Dutch-English bilingual participants were instructed to classify targets’ letter case using verbal labels (e.g., by saying “animal” to uppercase targets or “occupation” to lowercase targets). Results showed that both native-language and second-language targets yielded faster responses if the verbal response corresponded to the targets’ semantic category (e.g., the response “animal” to the target LEEUW or LION) than when it did not (e.g., LAWYER), even though the meaning of target words was irrelevant for the task. These results show that second-language word forms may quickly and automatically activate their meaning through strong form-to-meaning mappings, which is consistent with theories of bilingual lexicosemantic organization, such as that of Duyck and Brysbaert (2004).     

Semantic processing in aphasia: Evidence from an auditory lexical decision task

W. Milberg and S. E. Blumstein (1981, Brain and Language 14, 371–385) demonstrated semantic facilitation effects in a visual lexical decision task administered to Wernicke and other aphasics with severe comprehension deficits. In an attempt to explore the generalizability of these findings in a task where the acoustic-phonetic system could not be bypassed to access meaning, Wernicke's, Global, Broca's, and Conduction aphasics were administered a lexical decision task in the auditory modality. The patients were also given a simple semantic judgment task using the word pairs from the lexical decision task. The aphasic patients showed evidence of semantic facilitation whether they were categorized by diagnostic group or comprehension level. Performance of the semantic judgment task correlated with the severity of auditory comprehension deficits, whereas the consistency of the semantic facilitation effect did not. Even patients with severe comprehension deficits showed semantic facilitation. These results decrease the likelihood that auditory comprehension deficits are due to semantic organization per se and increase the likelihood that the deficits lie in one of the many processes involved in access to that information.     

Interaction of task readiness and automatic retrieval in task switching: Negative priming and competitor priming

When subjects switch between tasks, performance is slower after a task switch than after a task repetition, even when preparation time is long. We report two experiments that support the idea that a large part of these residual task shift costs can be due to stimulus-cued retrieval of previous task episodes. We demonstrate that there are two different factors at work: (1) facilitation of response to the current distractor stimulus, appropriate to the previously relevant, competing task (competitor priming), and (2) impaired processing of previously suppressed responses (negative priming). Negative priming was contingent on the size of the stimulus set, suggesting that distractor suppression comes into effect only if the distractors are highly activated. Importantly, both types of interference interacted with task readiness: Whereas in the nondominant task (picture naming), switch and nonswitch trials were equally affected, the dominant task (word reading) showed priming effects on switch trials only. Thus, the retrieval of previous processing episodes has a selective impact on situations in which task competition is high.     

Capacity demands of automatic processes in semantic priming

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel In three experiments, we examined the effects of prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and the proportion of related primes and targets (relatedness proportion, or RP) on semantic priming when the prime was either named or was searched for a specific letter. In Experiment 1, with an RP of. 50, priming occurred at SOAs of 240 and 840 msec when the prime was named, but no priming was found at either SOA when the prime was searched for a letter. In Experiment 2 the RP was either. 20 or. 80, and the SOA was set at 1, 700 msec; priming again was found in both conditions when the prime was named, but only in the RP.80 condition when a letter search task was performed on the prime. In Experiment 3, both the proportion of related trials and SOA were varied; as in the previous experiments, no priming effects were found with the letter search task for either SOA in the RP.20 condition, but the priming effect was reinstated in the RP.80 condition. These results are discussed with respect to how limited capacity resources are allocated and how they influence semantic priming effects.     

Retroactive semantic priming in a lexical decision task

The present study reports two experiments that required subjects to name target items preceded by a masked prime. Additionally, and subsequent to the naming task, subjects were required to indicate whether or not the prime was a word, along with a confidence rating of their lexical decision. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the processing of masked primes is facilitated by related targets when such targets are presented either 100 or 200 msec after the onset of the prime. Experiment 2 extends the finding of “retroactive” priming to a 1000=msec separation in prime-target presentation (SOA). The extent of retroactive priming is not dependent on SOA between prime and target, nor is it affected by the prime-mask SOA, which varied from 10 to 180 msec. Priming of targets was also independent of prime-target and prime-mask SOA, providing that primes had been classified as words. For word primes classified as non-words there was no semantic priming on target naming reaction time. Implications of these findings with respect to the nature of retroactive priming and the current controversy concerning subliminal priming effects were discussed.     

Robust affective priming effects in a conditional pronunciation task: Evidence for the semantic representation of evaluative information

Based on the hypothesis that information about the valence of words is encoded in a semantic system, we predicted that the match between the valence of a prime and the valence of a target word will influence the pronunciation of the target only if and to the extent that pronunciation is semantically mediated. In line with this prediction, we found affective priming effects (faster pronunciation when prime and target had the same valence than when they had a different valence) only when participants were instructed to read words but not nonwords (Experiment 1) or words that were not names of occupations (Experiment 2). Priming was not significant when participants were asked to read white but not red words (Experiment 1) or words that did not have a frame around them (Experiment 2).     

Alexithymia and the automatic processing of affective information: Evidence from the affective priming paradigm

In Study 1, we examined the moderating impact of alexithymia (i.e., a difficulty identifying and describing feelings to other people and an externally oriented cognitive style) on the automatic processing of affective information. The affective priming paradigm was used, and lower priming effects for high alexithymia scorers were observed when congruent (incongruent) pairs involving nonverbal primes (angry face) and verbal target were presented. The results held after controlling for participants' negative affectivity. The same effects were replicated in Studies 2 and 3, with trait anxiety and depression entered as additional covariates. In Study 3, no moderating impact of alexithymia was found for verbal-facial pairs suggesting that the results cannot be merely explained in terms of transcoding limitations for high alexithymia scorers. Overall, the present results suggest that alexithymia could be related to a difficulty in processing and automatically using high arousal emotional information to respond to concomittant behavioural demands.     

Perceptual and conceptual priming in a semantic reprocessing task

Two experiments are reported that addressed the relative involvement and nature of perceptual and conceptual priming in a semantically complex task. Both experiments investigated facilitation from repeated semantic comparison trials in which subjects decided whether two words had the same meaning (e.g.,moist damp). The first experiment compared the magnitude and persistence of perceptual and conceptual priming components. Perceptual priming effects were modest, and contrary to some previous evidence, they did not appear to be more persistent than nonperceptual priming effects. The second experiment investigated the memory processes involved when perceptual priming was eliminated through a modality change between prime and target trials. Evidence suggested that conceptual priming primarily involved memory for the meaning comparison processes rather than better access to existing memory for the stimulus words.     

Repetition priming mediated by task similarity in semantic classification

In the present study, the specificity of repetition priming between semantic classification tasks was examined using Osgood's (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957) semantic space as a heuristic for determining the similarity between classifications. The classification tasks involved judging the meaning of words on semantic scales, such as pleasant/unpleasant. The amount of priming across classifications was hypothesized to decrease with increasing distance (decreasing similarity) between semantic scales in connotative semantic space. The results showed maximum repetition priming when the study and the test classifications were the same, intermediate degrees of priming when the study and the test classification scales shared loadings on semantic factors, and little priming when the study and the test classification scales loaded primarily on orthogonal semantic factors--that is, when the distance between scales was maximized. Consistent with the transfer-appropriate processing framework, repetition priming in semantic classifications was highly task specific, decreasing with increasing distance between classification scales.     

Measuring automatic retrieval in a conceptual priming task

The speeded response technique has demonstrated that priming in perceptual memory tasks can occur through automatic retrieval that is uncontaminated by conscious retrieval (pure automatic retrieval). This work assesses whether priming in a conceptual task (category exemplar generation) can occur through pure automatic retrieval using the same technique. Automatic retrieval estimates obtained using the speeded response technique were compared to those obtained using more traditional measures (implicit memory and process dissociation procedure [PDP]). Similar estimates of automatic retrieval were obtained for speeded, implicit, and PDP groups following shallow processing. However, higher estimates of automatic retrieval were obtained following deep processing in the speeded and implicit conditions compared to the PDP condition. Advantages for using the speeded response technique to index automatic memory are discussed.     

Semantic priming in the pronunciation task: The role of prospective prime-generated expectancies

In the relatedness proportion effect, semantic priming increases with an increase in the probability that a word prime will be followed by a semantically related word target. This effect has frequently been obtained in the lexical decision task but not in a pronunciation task. In the present experiment, relatedness proportion was manipulated in two pronunciation tasks, one with and one without nonword targets, using category names as primes. In both tasks, a relatedness proportion effect occurred for high-dominance category exemplars but not for low-dominance category exemplars. These results converge with recent lexical decision results in suggesting that semantic priming in pronunciation is affected by a prospective prime-generated expectancy that is modulated by the relatedness proportion.     

Negative priming in a gender decision task and in a semantic categorization task

In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that negative priming (NP) can occur without prime or target selection, when conflicting properties are associated with the prime and the target, and when the experimental conditions allow the encoding of the target as a separate episode from the prime. These predictions were confirmed in Experiment 1, using a gender decision task. Responses were slower when prime and target had the same gender than when they had different genders, with an inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of 600 ms but not with an ISI of 25 ms. Experiment 2 eliminated a possible explanation of the NP obtained in Experiment 1, in terms of response inhibition during the prime processing. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrated the replicability and the generality of our NP, in a semantic categorization task. Empirical and theoretical consequences of our results for studies using the priming paradigm are discussed.     

Influence of prime-probe stimulus onset asynchrony and prime precuing manipulations on semantic priming effects with words in a lexical-decision task

The present research examines semantic priming from attended and unattended parafoveal words. Participants made a lexical decision in response to a single central target. The target was preceded by two parafoveal prime words, with one of them (the attended prime) being precued by a peripheral cue. The main variables manipulated across experiments were cue informativeness (valid vs. neutral cues) and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between prime and probe (200, 300, 600, or 1,000 ms). The results showed (a) reliable semantic priming from both attended and ignored prime words and (b) that the ignored priming effects were either negative or positive, depending on both the prime-probe SOA and cue informativeness. The present findings are discussed in relation to inhibitory versus episodic retrieval models of negative priming.     

In search of perceptual priming in a semantic classification task

Four experiments tested for perceptual priming for written words in a semantic categorization task. Repetition priming was obtained for low-frequency words when unrelated categorizations were performed at study and test (Experiment 1), but it was not orthographically mediated given that written-to-written and spoken-to-written word priming was equivalent (Experiments 2 and 3). Furthermore, no priming was obtained between pictures and words (Experiment 4), suggesting that the nonorthographic priming was largely phonological rather than semantic. These results pose a challenge to standard perceptual theories of priming that should expect orthographic priming when words are presented in a visual format at study and test.     

Processing syntactically ambiguous sentences: Evidence from semantic priming

In this paper, we report the results of a study which investigates the processing of syntactically ambiguous sentences. We examined the processing of sentences in which an embedded clause is interpretable as either a complement clause or as a relative clause, as in, for example,The receptionist informed the doctor that the journalist had phoned about the events. The embedded clause in such sentences is typically analyzed as a complement to the verbinformed, rather than as a relative clause modifyingthe doctor. A number of models parsing predict this is the only analysis ever considered, while others predict that both interpretations are computed in parallel. Using a cross-model semantic priming technique, we probed for activation ofdoctor just after the embedded verb. Since only the relative clause analysis contains a connection betweenthe doctor and the embedded verb, we expected reactivation ofdoctor at that point only if the relative clause analysis were a viable option. Our results suggest that this is the case: Compared to priming in an ambiguous control sentence, a significant reactivation effect was obtained. These results are argued to support a model of parsing in which attachment of a clause may be delayed.The research reported here was supported in part by a grant from the McDonnell-Pew Cognitive Neurosciences Program, in part by grant DC-01409 (a research and training grant funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders), and in part by a SERC postdoctoral fellowship B/90/ITF/293. We are grateful to Andrew Barss, Paul Bloom, Merrill Garrett, David Swinney, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Paul Gorrell for extremely useful discussion of parsing issues. We thank Suzanne Delaney for giving voice to our stimulus sentences. The results of this study were presented at the Fifth Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference, New York, March 1992.Order of authors is alphabetical.     

Phonological and semantic priming: Evidence for task-independent effects

The questions asked in the present experiments concern the generality of semantic and phonological priming effects: Do these effects arise automatically regardless of target task, or are these effects restricted to target tasks that specifically require the retrieval of the primed information? In Experiment 1, subjects produced faster color matching times on targets preceded by a masked rhyming prime than on targets preceded by an orthographic control or an unrelated prime. This result suggests that automatic priming effects on the basis of phonological similarity can be obtained even when the target task does not make use of phonological information. This claim was reinforced in Experiment 2 in which a rhyme priming effect and a semantic priming effect were found in a semantic categorization task. In Experiment 3, the target task was phonological (rhyme detection), and, again, both phonological and semantic priming effects were observed. Finally, in Experiments 4 and 5, in a replication and an extension of Experiment 1, phonological and semantic priming effects were found in a color matching task, a task involving neither phonological nor semantic processing. These results are most straightforwardly interpreted by assuming that both semantic and phonological priming effects are, at least in part, due to automatic activation of memorial representations.