Semantic priming,prime reportability,and retroactive priming are interdependent

In two experiments, semantic analysis of prime words was measured in terms of facilitation in naming a semantically related target word. Targets were degraded but gradually clarified until the subject named them. Subjects reported the prime after naming the target. Experiment 1 used semantic associates as primes at a 50-msec prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). Experiment 2 used both semantic-associate and identity primes at a 1,000-msec prime-target SOA. Reported primes showed facilitation in both experiments, whereas unreported primes did not. It appears that primes that undergo enough analysis to facilitate target processing are also available for conscious report. However, retroactive priming in both experiments showed that target processing also had an impact on prime reportability. The interdependence of priming and prime reportability disallows a straightforward interpretation of the origin of the facilitation.     

Semantic Processing of Foveally and Parafoveally Presented Words in a Lexical Decision Task

Using a lexical decision task in which two primes appeared simultaneously in the visual field for 150 msec followed by a target word, two experiments examined semantic priming from attended and unattended primes as a function of both the separation between the primes in the visual field and the prime-target stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA). In the first experiment significant priming effects were found for both the attended and unattended prime words, though the effect was much greater for the attended words. In addition, and also for both attention conditions, priming showed a tendency to increase with increasing eccentricity (2.3°, 3.3°, and 4.3°) between the prime words in the visual field at the long (550 and 850 msec) but not at the short (250 msec) prime-target SOA. In the second experiment the prime stimuli were either two words (W-W) or one word and five Xs (W-X). We manipulated the degree of eccentricity (2° and 3.6°) between the prime stimuli and used a prime-target SOA of 850 msec. Again significant priming was found for both the attended and unattended words but only the W-W condition showed a decrement in priming as a function of the separation between the primes; this decrement came to produce negative priming for the unattended word at the narrow (2°) separation. These results are discussed in relation to the semantic processing of parafoveal words and the inhibitory effects of focused attention.     

The dependence of semantic relatedness effects upon prime processing

The semantic relationship between a prime and a target word has been shown to affect the speed at which the target word is processed. This series of experiments investigated how the semantic priming effect is influenced by the nature of the task performed on the prime word. Subjects were asked to perform either a naming or a letter-search task on the prime word and either a lexical-decision or color-naming task on the target word. When the primes were named, response times for the target words were facilitated in the lexical-decision task and inhibited in the color-naming task. However, these effects were eliminated or reduced to an insignificant level when the primes were searched for letters. We suggest that in order to produce the usual priming effect, the primes have to be processed for meaning rather than probed for constituents.     

The influence of selection for response on repetition priming of word identification.

Repetition priming of word identification was examined using study tasks that required participants either to search for targets appearing in rapid serial visual presentation of word lists or to read aloud a list of target words. Nontarget words embedded in search lists produced a small amount of repetition priming on a masked word identification test, independent of presentation duration in the search list (200-1,000 ms), but no priming when they appeared as targets in a second search task used at test. For both test tasks, words that were originally encoded in a read-aloud task or served as detected targets during a search task generated more priming than nontarget words from search lists. These results suggest that priming effects are strongest when study tasks require an item to be selected as the basis for an overt response, even though the information on which study and test responses are based may be different.     

Does jugde activate COURT? Transposed-letter similarity effects in masked associative priming

Transposed-letter (TL) nonwords (e.g., jugde) can be easily misperceived as words, a fact that is somewhat inconsistent with the letter-position-coding schemes employed by most current models of visual word recognition. To examine this issue further, we conducted four masked semantic/associative priming experiments, using a lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, the related primes could be words, TL-internal nonwords, or replacement-letter (RL) nonwords (e.g., judge, jugde, or judpe, respectively; the target would be COURT). Relative to an unrelated condition, masked TL-internal primes produced a significant semantic/associative priming effect, an effect that was only slightly smaller than the priming effect for word primes. No effect, however, was observed for RL-nonword primes. In Experiment 2, the TL-nonword primes were created by switching the two final letters of the primes (e.g., judeg). The results again showed a semantic/associative priming effect for word primes, but not for TL-final nonword primes or for RL-nonword primes. Experiment 3 replicated the associative/semantic priming effect for TL-internal nonword primes, with, again, no effect for TL-final nonword primes. Finally, Experiment 4 again failed to yield a priming effect for TL-final nonword primes. The implications of these results for the choice of a letter-position-coding scheme in visual word recognition models are discussed.     

Semantic priming of different affective categories

The authors investigated affective semantic priming using a lexical decision task with 4 affective categories of related word pairs: neutral, happy, fearful, and sad. Results demonstrated a striking and reliable effect of affective category on semantic priming. Neutral and happy prime-targets yielded significant semantic priming. Fearful pairs showed no or modest priming facilitation, and sad primes slowed reactions to sad targets. A further experiment established that affective primes do not have generalized facilitatory-inhibitory effects. The results are interpreted as showing that the associative mechanisms that support semantic priming for neutral words are also shared by happy valence words but not for negative valence words. This may reflect increased vigilance necessary in adverse contexts or suggest that the associative mechanisms that bind negative valence words are distinct.     

Phonological and conceptual activation in speech comprehension

We propose that speech comprehension involves the activation of token representations of the phonological forms of current lexical hypotheses, separately from the ongoing construction of a conceptual interpretation of the current utterance. In a series of cross-modal priming experiments, facilitation of lexical decision responses to visual target words (e.g., time) was found for targets that were semantic associates of auditory prime words (e.g., date) when the primes were isolated words, but not when the same primes appeared in sentence contexts. Identity priming (e.g., faster lexical decisions to visual date after spoken date than after an unrelated prime) appeared, however, both with isolated primes and with primes in prosodically neutral sentences. Associative priming in sentence contexts only emerged when sentence prosody involved contrastive accents, or when sentences were terminated immediately after the prime. Associative priming is therefore not an automatic consequence of speech processing. In no experiment was there associative priming from embedded words (e.g., sedate-time), but there was inhibitory identity priming (e.g., sedate-date) from embedded primes in sentence contexts. Speech comprehension therefore appears to involve separate distinct activation both of token phonological word representations and of conceptual word representations. Furthermore, both of these types of representation are distinct from the long-term memory representations of word form and meaning.     

Identity primes produce facilitation in a colour naming task

Five experiments examined associative or identity priming effects in a colour-naming task with colour-neutral words. In Experiment 1, subjects instructed to read the prime silently showed no associative priming effect but a colour-naming facilitation with identity priming. In Experiment 2, the typical associative priming interference in colour naming was demonstrated in subjects recalling the prime word, but not in subjects reading the prime silently, whereas associative primes facilitated word naming regardless of the prime response requirement. The remaining studies investigated the colour-naming facilitation observed with identity primes. Experiment 3 showed no effects on the facilitation of colour naming from varying the letter case of a silently read prime. Experiment 4 showed facilitation when subjects recalled the prime, and a target frequency effect, with faster colour-naming latencies for high- and medium- than low-frequency targets. In Experiment 5, there was no facilitation for naming the colour of target words paired with non-word primes differing in their initial letter from the target. Taken together, the results suggest that the facilitation of colour naming following identical primes reflects faster target word recognition, whereas the associative priming interference reflects an attentional effect.     

阈下语义启动效应影响因素述评

阈下语义启动效应是指阈下呈现的启动词能够对与之有语义联想关系的目标词的加工产生促进作用.阈下语义启动效应具有不稳定性且容易受到各种因素的影响.影响阈下语义启动效应的因素有外部因素和内部因素两大类,外部因素包括任务类型、实验材料和实验程序等因素,内部因素包括注意、任务设置、目的和期望.本文首先简单回顾阈下语义启动效应的研究历史,并介绍相应的研究范式及觉知状态的测量方法,然后重点对影响因素进行了总结和评述.未来的研究可以从优化研究范式、加强脑机制研究以及发展理论等几个方面进一步拓展.     

Priming of semantic classifications by novel subliminal prime words

Four experiments demonstrate category congruency priming by subliminal prime words that were never seen as targets in a valence-classification task (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and a gender-classification task (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, overlap in terms of word fragments of one or more letters between primes and targets of different valences was larger than between primes and targets of the same valence. In Experiments 2 and 3, the sets of prime words and target words were completely disjoint in terms of used letters. In Experiment 4, pictures served as targets. The observed subliminal priming effects for novel primes cannot be driven by partial analysis of primes at the word-fragment level; they suggest instead that primes were processed semantically as whole words contingent upon prime duration.     

Semantic inhibition of ignored words during a figure classification task

Two experiments investigated inhibitory processes in visual spatial attention. In particular, factors influencing the suppression of ignored visual stimuli were investigated. Subjects responded to geometric shapes while distractors were presented in the periphery. Distractors consisted of a single word, a pair of unrelated words, or a single word paired with a string of non-linguistic symbols. Semantic processing of the ignored words was measured with a subsequent lexical decision task. Test probes presented after the prime displays revealed suppression effects for words semantically related to a previously ignored word, but only for conditions in which two distractor words were presented. Suppression was not observed when the prime consisted of a single word or a single word paired with non-linguistic symbols. In Experiment 2 two different time delays between the onset of the primes and the onset of the test probes were used. At the shorter interval facilitatory priming was observed, while at longer intervals suppression was observed. The facilitation-suppression pattern suggests that ignored items are recognized before being suppressed. In summary, the results suggest the following: (1) that selectively attending does not restrict ignored items from gaining access to their semantic representations, and (2) that inhibition is an important process in determining the focus of attention. These results are discussed within a selective attention framework in which all items in a display gain access to memory representations, and attention to selected items causes competing items to be inhibited.     

Priming word recognition with orthographic neighbors: effects of relative prime-target frequency

Four lexical decision experiments were performed with an orthographic priming paradigm in which test words were preceded by orthographically related or unrelated prime words. When prime words were presented for 350 ms without a mask, it was observed that primes that are lower frequency orthographic neighbors of the target interfered with target processing relative to an unrelated condition. When primes were higher frequency neighbors of the target, no interference or facilitation was observed. On the other hand, with briefly presented masked primes, interference was observed with higher frequency prime words. Finally, facilitatory effects in masked repetition priming were obtained with both high- and low-frequency prime-target pairs. The results are interpreted in terms of activation and selection processes operating in visual word recognition.     

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.     

False memories for script actions in a mugging account

Abstract

A number of cross-language priming experiments are reported that evaluate whether word meanings in the first and second language are represented in common or separate systems. A masked priming procedure was used on the assumption that when prime awareness is limited, any priming effects directly reveal the underlying structure of the semantic system. Primes were presented in the subjects' first language, while targets were in their second language. Priming effects were obtained for word pairs that were semantically highly similar but not translation equivalents, for example fence-haie (= hedge in French), suggesting that words in the two languages share common elements of semantic code. Priming was also obtained between translation equivalents which, in conjunction with the results for semantically similar pairs, is most naturally interpreted in terms of partially shared semantic representations. However, no masked priming effects were obtained between associated pairs of relatively low semantic similarity, for example shoe-pied (= foot in French), whereas such pairs did produce an effect when primes were unmasked. The results are discussed in terms of limitations on the semantic activation produced by masked words, and the role of collocational relationships in priming between associated words in the same language.     

Implicit memory for phonological processes in visual stem completion

Four experiments were conducted investigating the role of phonology in repetition priming. Experiment 1 used a cross-modal priming paradigm in which participants made semantic judgments about spoken words and then performed a visual stem completion task. In Experiments 2–4, both the primes and the test stems were presented visually. The results of the first three experiments revealed that priming transfers across interpretations of a homophone. That is, seeing or hearingweek primes bothweek andweak. The results of Experiment 4 showed that homophone priming cannot be attributed to the orthographic similarity of homophonic words. Together, these results indicate that repetition priming on a visual word completion task includes a phonological component.     

Novel word integration in the mental lexicon: Evidence from unmasked and masked semantic priming

We sought to establish whether novel words can become integrated into existing semantic networks by teaching participants new meaningful words and then using these new words as primes in two semantic priming experiments, in which participants carried out a lexical decision task to familiar words. Importantly, at no point in training did the novel words co-occur with the familiar words that served as targets in the primed lexical decision task, allowing us to evaluate semantic priming in the absence of direct association. We found that familiar words were primed by the newly related novel words, both when the novel word prime was unmasked (Experiment 1) and when it was masked (Experiment 2), suggesting that the new words had been integrated into semantic memory. Furthermore, this integration was strongest after a 1-week delay and was independent of explicit recall of the novel word meanings: Forgetting of meanings did not attenuate priming. We argue that even after brief training, newly learned words become an integrated part of the adult mental lexicon rather than being episodically represented separately from the lexicon.     

Priming for new associations in animacy decision: Evidence for context dependency

In four experiments we investigated the context-dependent nature of semantic memory by looking at priming effects in animacy decision for newly formed associations. The first experiment investigated whether the priming effect depended on the nature of the prior relation between the word pairs. The results showed no such effect, replicating earlier findings. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 investigated the role of context overlap between study and test. In Experiment 2 priming for new associations was found only for word pairs that had been presented in the animacy decision task during study. Experiment 3 showed that in order to obtain priming effects for new associations these associations have to be studied in a study task that is aimed at unitized processing of the word pair at a semantic level. Experiment 4 showed that processing the pairs as separate words at an orthographic level cancelled the priming effect. The results are explained by assuming that priming results from the overlap of features that are activated during both study and test.     

Why do pictures produce priming on the word-fragment completion test? A study of encoding and retrieval factors

Three experiments examined why pictures produce priming on the word-fragment completion test, despite the fact that there is no match between the physical features of the picture and the word fragment. Pictures and words were presented as primes, and performance on the word-fragment completion test was measured; encoding and retrieval conditions were varied. Experi-ments 1 and 2 examined the role of picture labeling by increasing the presentation rate and by introducing a shadowing task during encoding; labeling appears to play a role in priming. In Experiment 3, the word fragments were presented for 500 msec, and subjects were required to provide a solution immediately. Word priming was unaffected, but picture priming was elimi-nated, suggesting that word fragments enable efficient recovery of perceptually similar primes (i.e., words), but slower and less direct recovery of conceptually similar but physically dissimilar     

Boundary conditions for the influence of unfamiliar non-target primes in unconscious evaluative priming: The moderating role of attentional task sets

Evaluative priming by masked emotional stimuli that are not consciously perceived has been taken as evidence that affective stimulus evaluation can also occur unconsciously. However, as masked priming effects were small and frequently observed only for familiar primes that there also presented as visible targets in an evaluative decision task, priming was thought to reflect primarily response activation based on acquired S–R associations and not evaluative semantic stimulus analysis. The present study therefore assessed across three experiments boundary conditions for the emergence of masked evaluative priming effects with unfamiliar primes in an evaluative decision task and investigated the role of the frequency of target repetition on priming with pictorial and verbal stimuli. While familiar primes elicited robust priming effects in all conditions, priming effects by unfamiliar primes were reliably obtained for low repetition (pictures) or unrepeated targets (words), but not for targets repeated at a high frequency. This suggests that unfamiliar masked stimuli only elicit evaluative priming effects when the task set associated with the visible target involves evaluative semantic analysis and is not based on S–R triggered responding as for high repetition targets. The present results therefore converge with the growing body of evidence demonstrating attentional control influences on unconscious processing.