Perceptual and Conceptual Priming of Individual Words in Coherent Texts

This study explores implicit memory within the domain of text processing. Three experiments were designed to study priming in word-fragment completion, wordstem completion, and free association tests following presentation of target words in the context of a coherent text. In order to examine the time course of perceptual and conceptual processes we investigated the priming effects by manipulating the perceptual context in which the target words had been read and the time given to the subjects for each test-cue. Three main results emerged. First, we found a significant priming effect in the three implicit tests for words previously studied in a text. Second, the magnitude of the priming effect only varied when the task demands required perceptual and conceptual processing, as was the case with the completion tests. Third, priming effects did not depend on subjects' comprehension of the text read. These results are discussed in the framework of the transfer appropriate processing view proposed by Roediger, Weldon, and Challis (1989).     

Perceptual and conceptual priming of individual words in coherent texts.

This study explores implicit memory within the domain of text processing. Three experiments were designed to study priming in word-fragment completion, word-stem completion, and free association tests following presentation of target words in the context of a coherent text. In order to examine the time course of perceptual and conceptual processes we investigated the priming effects by manipulating the perceptual context in which the target words had been read and the time given to the subjects for each test-cue. Three main results emerged. First, we found a significant priming effect in the three implicit tests for words previously studied in a text. Second, the magnitude of the priming effect only varied when the task demands required perceptual and conceptual processing, as was the case with the completion tests. Third, priming effects did not depend on subjects' comprehension of the text read. These results are discussed in the framework of the transfer-appropriate processing view proposed by Roediger, Weldon, and Challis (1989).     

Conjoint dissociations reveal involuntary "perceptual" priming from generating at study.

Incidental perceptual memory tests reveal priming when words are generated orally from a semantic cue at study, and this priming could reflect contamination by voluntary retrieval. We tested this hypothesis using a generate condition and two read conditions that differed in depth of processing (read-phonemic vs read-semantic). An intentional word-stem completion test showed an advantage for the read-semantic over the generate condition and an advantage for the generate over the read-phonemic condition, and completion times were longer than in a control test, prior to which there was no study phase. An incidental word-stem completion test showed equivalent priming for the read-semantic and read-phonemic study conditions, despite considerable power, and completion times were no longer than control, indicating that retrieval was involuntary, and insensitive to prior conceptual processing. The generate condition produced less priming than the read conditions, but significant priming nonetheless. The results show that priming from generating can be involuntary and suggest that lexical processes are responsible. They are also the first results conjointly showing a crossed double dissociation, a single dissociation, and a parallel effect across memory tests with identical physical retrieval cues.     

Data-driven Processing and Priming Effects in a Word-fragment Completion Task

An experiment was designed to examine the role and importance of data-driven processing in an implicit memory task: Word-fragment completion. We investigated the effects of priming and manipulating the context in which the target words had been read. Three main results emerged. First, replicating MacLeod's experiment (1989), we found that there was a very small priming effect for words previously studied in a text. Second, the magnitude of the priming effect increased with the perceptual difficulty of information intake during reading. Third, these variations in priming for the texts were functionally independent of subjects' recall of the text read. These results suggest that data-driven processing plays a critical role in priming. They are consistent with the transfer-appropriate processing theory recently advocated by Roediger, Weldon, and Challis (1989).     

Implicit memory for textual materials

As a word moves from isolation in a list to being contextually bound in meaningful discourse, its probability of priming in tests of implicit memory decreases. The present experiments explore whether considerable priming effects can be revealed with conceptual tests of implicit memory as compared to perceptual tests. In the study phase, meaningful actions were described within a coherent text. In Experiment 1 subjects elaborated half of the actions by visual imagery. In Experiment 2, subjects elaborated the actions by enacting them symbolically. In both experiments, subjects in a control condition were simply required to read the same activities. In Experiment 2, a further group of subjects had to detect orthographic errors. The results demonstrated reliable effects of implicit memory in terms of associations with verbs repeated from the studied text. This form of repetition priming for textual materials in a conceptual test of implicit memory was enhanced by both types of elaboration. A word-stem completion task for the same targets revealed a less pronounced and inconsistent priming effect, uninfluenced by both types of elaboration. But the latter form of perceptual priming was found to be more pronounced within the error-detection condition. Measures of explicit memory showed similar effects of elaborative encoding conditions but there were some dissimilarities to measures of implicit memory, too. In general and in accordance with a transfer-appropriate processing view, conceptual tests rather than perceptual tests may be more suitable for detecting effects of implicit memory within the domain of text processing.     

联想启动与知觉启动的比较研究

采用快速命名方法探讨不同加工水平对联想启动效应的影响。被试分别在深、浅加工条件下学习一系列颜色词,然后完成颜色命名和再认任务,并设立词命名任务,以比较联想启动和知觉启动的异同。结果表明,在颜色命名任务中,深、浅加工条件下均可形成对颜色词的启动效应,但浅加工条件下的再认成绩明显低于深加工,出现了联想启动和再认的分离现象。词命名表现出与颜色命名相似的结果,但它们在有意识回忆方面仍存在一定的差异,提示知觉表征系统单独并不能支持联想启动,联想启动可能是多个记忆系统共同作用的结果。     

概念内隐记忆中的注意促进效应

Swallow和Jiang (2010)最早发现, 编码时的目标探测会促进同时呈现的背景信息在随后记忆测验中的表现, 并将这一现象称为注意促进效应(Attentional Boost Effect, ABE)。随后研究发现这一现象并不会出现在概念内隐测验中, 由此提出目标探测主要促进的是背景信息的知觉加工, 而非语义加工。本研究通过3个实验, 操纵了对背景信息的编码加工类型(知觉加工或概念加工)。结果发现, 当与目标探测同时进行的是对背景信息的概念加工任务, 则ABE会出现在随后的概念内隐测验中。反之, 当对背景信息进行的是知觉加工任务时, 则ABE会出现在随后的知觉内隐测验而不是概念内隐测验中。这些结果表明, 目标探测既可能促进背景信息的知觉加工, 也可能促进背景信息的语义加工, 但只有在目标探测下背景信息的编码加工与随后内隐测验中所依赖的提取加工具有一致性, 才会产生ABE。     

Feeling the past: The absence of experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on text processing

In two self-paced reading experiments, we investigated the hypothesis that information moves backward in time to influence prior behaviors (Bem Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100:407?C425, 2011a). In two of Bem??s experiments, words were presented after target pictures in a pleasantness judgment task. In a condition in which the words were consistent with the emotional valence of the picture, reaction times to the pictures were significantly shorter , as compared with a condition in which the words were inconsistent with the emotional valence of the picture. Bem Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100:407?C425, (2011a) interpreted these results as showing a ??retroactive priming?? effect resulting from precognition. To test the precognition hypothesis, we adapted a standard repetition priming paradigm from psycholinguistics. In the experiments, participants read a set of texts. In one condition, the participants read the same text twice. In other conditions, participants read two different texts. The precognition hypothesis predicts that readers who encounter the same text twice will experience reductions in processing load during their first encounter with the text. Hence, these readers' average reading times should be shorter than those of readers who encounter the target text only once. Our results indicated that readers processed the target text faster the second time they read it. Also, their reading times decreased as their experience with the self-paced reading procedure increased. However, participants read the target text equally quickly during their initial encounter with the text, whether or not the text was subsequently repeated. Thus, the experiments demonstrated normal repetition priming and practice effects but offered no evidence for retroactive influences on text processing.     

Taking the “text” out of context effects in repetition priming of word identification

Repetition priming of masked word identification is reduced when initial exposure to target words is in a text rather than in a word list. We demonstrate that there is nothing special about the text context that reduces priming. In Experiment 1, target words read in normal text or in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) text--either coherent or scrambled--produced similarly reduced priming, relative to the same words read aloud in a list. In Experiment 2, the delay was decreased between study and test for words presented in text, but they still displayed less priming than did words presented in a study list and tested after an equivalent delay. In Experiment 3, presenting study list words in RSVP to prevent reading each word aloud diminished priming to the same level as that in the text context. We conclude that presenting a target in context prevents it from being encoded and responded to as distinctively as when presented in isolation.     

Aging and the Deletion Function of Inhibition

The present study was adapted from the sentence completion task of Hartman and Hasher (1991). We addressed the question raised by Burke (1997): are the age-related differences in priming effects found in that task better explained by deficits in explicit memory or by inefficient inhibitory mechanisms? In the study phase, older and younger adults read high cloze sentences ending with an expected or an unexpected final word. In the second phase, participants were asked to complete sentence frames with either the final word presented during the study phase (inclusion condition) or with another, new word (exclusion condition). The third phase was an indirect memory test of perceptual identification. Finally, we compared explicit memory for recalled and inhibited words in a recognition test. In perceptual identification by older adults, priming was equivalent for recalled and inhibited words, whereas in younger adults priming was higher for recalled than for inhibited words. In the explicit memory test, recognition scores were lower for inhibited words in both age groups. These results are consistent with the view of Hasher and Zacks (1988), who assume an age-related decline in the ability to suppress no-longer-relevant information     

Direct versus indirect tests of memory: Directed forgetting meets the generation effect

Subjects read 20 words and generated 20 others from definitions during a 40-item study phase. Production of each word was followed by an instruction to remember or to forget that word. In free recall, a direct test of memory, words that had been generated were recalled much better than words that had been read. The remember-forget instructional manipulation affected read words but not generated words. In speeded word reading, an indirect test of memory, all studied words showed priming, but read words showed more priming than generated words. Here, the effect of remember versus forget instructions appeared only for generated words. These dissociations of a direct and an indirect test indicate that two powerful encoding manipulations affect separable processes to which these tests are differentially sensitive.     

提取干扰对知觉和概念启动的影响

通过学习—测验范式,分别以词汇判断、语义分类任务为测验,探讨提取干扰对不同识别式记忆的影响差异。结果发现,实验1验证了识别式知觉内隐记忆的提取干扰效应,实验2发现识别式概念内隐记忆在提取干扰下也明显降低;两个实验启动量联合分析发现,相比无干扰条件,概念启动比知觉启动受到提取干扰的破坏更大。上述结果说明识别式内隐记忆的提取干扰具有普遍性,提取干扰产生了不同识别式内隐记忆之间的分离,识别式概念内隐记忆更容易受到提取干扰的影响。     

Contribution of perceptual fluency to recognition judgments.

Following a shallow (count vowels) or deep (read) study task, old and new words were tested for both fluency of perception and recognition memory. Subjects first identified a test word as it came gradually into view and then judged it as old or new. Old words were identified faster than new words, indicating implicit, perceptual memory for old words. Independently of this effect, words judged old were identified faster than words judged new, especially after shallow study. Eight experiments examined the possible causal relationship between perceptual fluency and recognition judgements. Experiments 1 to 4 showed that fast identifications per se do not promote old judgments. Accelerating the identification of test items by semantically priming them or making them come more quickly into view did not affect recognition judgments. Experiment 5 showed that the usual association of fast identifications with old judgments is not an artifact of item selection because the association disappeared when the identifications and judgements were segregated into different phases of the test task. Experiments 6 and 7 showed tha the likelihood of old judgments increases directly with the pretested perceptibility of test words, but only after shallow study. Experiment 8 showed that the dependency of recognition judgments on perceptual fluency continues to hold when the requirement to identify the words before judging them is eliminated. We conclude that fluency of perception contributes to recognition judgments, but only when the fluency is produced naturally (e.g., through perceptual memory) and explicit memory is minimal.     

The unbearable lightness of priming

Repetition priming from text to isolated words has been difficult to observe. One explanation for this difficulty is that previous attempts to observe this type of priming have utilised conditions that normally reduce priming. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate this hypothesis. Experiment 1 involved participants being presented with words in isolation and in text passages. The words were then presented again in a lexical decision test. Results indicated that priming occurred as a result of exposure to both isolated words and words in text, although priming was greater in the word-word condition. Experiment 2 investigated whether priming occurred in a lexical decision test on words that had been read prior to the test in Milan Kundera's novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." There was some evidence that participants who had read the book recently were faster at lexical decision to words from the book than participants who had not read the book. The two experiments therefore indicate that priming can occur from text to isolated words, although it is smaller in magnitude to that observed from word to word. Reasons for this difference, as suggested by Kirsner and Speelman (J. Exp. Psychol.: Learn. Mem. Cogn. 22 (1996) 563) model of repetition priming, are discussed.     

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.     

Effects of thematic and lexical priming on readers' eye movements

The study was inspired by Ehrlich & Rayner (1981). In the study semantic context effects were investigated during on-line discourse processing. Readers' eye movements were registered to see whether words that were semantically closely related to the global theme of the text were read faster than words that did not have any apparent semantic link to the discourse theme. In addition, lexical priming was examined by presenting an identity prime earlier in the text. The results showed that non-thematic words were regressed to more often than thematic words. Regressions were typically initiated after reaching a clause or sentence boundary. Regressions were thus assumed to be made in order to integrate non-thematic words into the previous context. Modest negative correlations were found between word's fixation time and its relative predictability. No effects of lexical priming were observed. It was concluded that moderately constraining discourse contexts produce negligible effects on word recognition.     

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.     

Equivalent inter- and intramodality long-term priming: Evidence for a common lexicon for words seen and words heard

Weaker inter- than intramodality long-term priming of words has promoted two hypotheses: (1) separate visual and auditory lexicons and (2) modality dependence of implicit memory. In five experiments, we employed manipulations aimed to minimize study-test asymmetries between the two priming conditions. Activities at visual and auditory study were matched, words were phonologically consistent, and study modality was manipulated between subjects. Equal magnitudes of inter- and intramodality priming were found in experiments with visual and auditory stem completion at test, with visual fragment completion at test, and with visual and auditory perceptual identification at test. A within-subjects experiment yielded the conventional intramodality advantage. The results point to a single amodal lexicon and to modality-independent phonological processing as the basis of implicit word memory.     

汉语听觉阈下启动效应：来自听觉掩蔽启动范式的证据

使用汉语双字词为实验材料,采用听觉掩蔽启动范式,通过3个实验考察汉语听觉阈下启动效应。结果发现,真词的听觉阈下重复启动效应显著,并且听觉阈下重复启动效应不受启动、目标发音者性别一致性的影响。但真词的阈下语音、语素和语义启动效应及假词的阈下重复和首字启动效应都不显著。这些结果说明,听觉通道阈下呈现的汉语双字词的词汇水平信息可以得到无意识加工。汉语双字词的听觉阈下启动效应可能是基于启动词整词表征的无意识激活。     

The effect of generation on long-term repetition priming in auditory and visual perceptual identification

Perceptual implicit memory is typically most robust when the perceptual processing at encoding matches the perceptual processing required during retrieval. A consistent exception is the robust priming that semantic generation produces on the perceptual identification test (Masson & MacLeod, 2002), a finding which has been attributed to either (1) conceptual influences in this nominally perceptual task, or (2) covert orthographic processing during generative encoding. The present experiments assess these possibilities using both auditory and visual perceptual identification, tests in which participants identify auditory words in noise or rapidly-presented visual words. During the encoding phase of the experiments, participants generated some words and perceived others in an intermixed study list. The perceptual control condition was visual (reading) or auditory (hearing), and varied across participants. The reading and hearing conditions exhibited the expected modality–specificity, producing robust intra-modal priming and non-significant cross-modal priming. Priming in the generate condition depended on the perceptual control condition. With a read control condition, semantic generation produced robust visual priming but no auditory priming. With a hear control condition, the results were reversed: semantic generation produced robust auditory priming but not visual priming. This set of results is not consistent with a straightforward application of either the conceptual-influence or covert-orthography account, and implies that the nature of encoding in the generate condition is influenced by the broader list context.