Selective impairment of masked priming in dual-task performance

This study investigated the impact of divided attention on masked priming. In a dual-task setting, two tasks had to be carried out in close temporal succession: a tone discrimination task and a masked priming task. The order of the tasks was varied between experiments, and attention was always allocated to the first task—that is, the first task was prioritized. The priming task was the second (nonprioritized) task in Experiment 1 and the first (prioritized) task in Experiment 2. In both experiments, “novel” prime stimuli associated with semantic processing were essentially ineffective. However, there was intact priming by another type of prime stimuli associated with response priming. Experiment 3 showed that all these prime stimuli can reveal significant priming effects during a task-switching paradigm in which both tasks were performed consecutively. We conclude that dual-task specific interference processes (e.g., the simultaneous coordination of multiple stimulus–response rules) selectively impair priming that is assumed to rely on semantic processing.     

基于位置和基于语义交互作用的无意识启动

采用线索-靶子范式,同时操纵刺激的位置和语义属性,考察了基于位置和基于语义交互作用的无意识启动。实验1和实验2分别要求被试完成定位任务和辨别任务。结果发现,当刺激位置属性与实验任务需求相关时,无论刺激的语义属性是否一致都产生了基于位置的启动效应;当刺激的语义属性与实验任务相关时,出现了基于位置和基于语义交互的无意识启动,即启动项和目标项的位置不同时,语义辨别任务存在启动效应;而启动项与目标项位置相同时,语义辨别任务存在着抑制趋势。研究结果表明,基于位置和基于语义交互作用的无意识启动效应仅存在于辨别任务中,而不存在于定位任务中。     

汉字刺激质量与语义启动间的交互作用

本研究探讨汉字刺激质量与语义启动的相互作用,深入考察汉字识别的内在机制。实验采用真假字判断范式,实验1使用语义相关词对比率较高的实验材料,实验2使用语义相关词对比率较低的实验材料,结果发现：（1）无论语义相关词对比率高还是低,均存在语义启动效应和刺激质量效应,且汉字刺激质量与语义启动之间均存在交互作用;（2）轻度模糊刺激较重度模糊刺激受到的语义启动效应更大。结果表明,即使排除了额外反馈的作用,汉字刺激质量与语义启动之间仍存在交互作用,进一步支持交互激活模型。     

The activation of semantic memory: Effects of prime exposure,prime-target relationship,and task demands

Priming facilitation was examined under conditions of brief incremental prime exposures (28, 43, 71, and 199 msec) under masked conditions for two types of lexical relationships (associative-semantic pairs, such as "wolf-fox," and semantic-feature pairs, such as "whale-dolphin") and in two tasks (primed lexical decision and semantic categorization). The results of eight experiments revealed, first, that priming elicits faster response times for semantic-feature pairs. The associative-semantic pairs produced priming only at the longer prime exposures. Second, priming was observed earlier for semantic categorization than for the lexical decision task, in which priming was observed only at the longer stimulus onset asynchronies. Finally, our results allowed us to discredit the congruency hypothesis, according to which priming is due to a common categorical response for the prime and target words. The implications of these results for current theories of semantic priming are discussed.     

The structure of semantic person memory: evidence from semantic priming in person recognition

This paper reviews research on the structure of semantic person memory as examined with semantic priming. In this experimental paradigm, a familiarity decision on a target face or written name is usually faster when it is preceded by a related as compared to an unrelated prime. This effect has been shown to be relatively short lived and susceptible to interfering items. Moreover, semantic priming can cross stimulus domains, such that a written name can prime a target face and vice versa. However, it remains controversial whether representations of people are stored in associative networks based on co-occurrence, or in more abstract semantic categories. In line with prominent cognitive models of face recognition, which explain semantic priming by shared semantic information between prime and target, recent research demonstrated that priming could be obtained from purely categorically related, non-associated prime/target pairs. Although strategic processes, such as expectancy and retrospective matching likely contribute, there is also evidence for a non-strategic contribution to priming, presumably related to spreading activation. Finally, a semantic priming effect has been demonstrated in the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, which may reflect facilitated access to semantic information. It is concluded that categorical relatedness is one organizing principle of semantic person memory.     

维-汉-英三语者三种语言语义通达模型的实验研究

以维吾尔族大学生为研究对象,采用跨语言启动条件下的真假词汇判断任务,变换启动词与目标词的关系类型和语言种类,考察了L2—L1、L3—L1、L3—L2等三种语言词汇之间的语义通达模式。结果发现,维-汉-英三语者的三种语言词汇之间的联结模式为熟练的第二语言词汇是直接通达语义;而非熟练的第三语言词汇既借助母语词汇又借助汉语词汇来通达语义。除此之外,被试的外语熟练水平和语言间的相似性是影响外语词汇通达语义的主要原因。     

Attention constraints of semantic activation during visual word recognition

The reduction of semantic priming following letter search of the prime suggests that semantic activation can be blocked if attention is allocated to the letter level during word processing. Is this true even for the very fast-acting component of semantic activation? To test this, the authors explored semantic priming of lexical decision at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of either 200 or 1,000 ms. Following semantic prime processing, priming occurred at both SOAs. In contrast, no priming occurred at the long SOA following letter-level processing. Of greatest interest, at the short SOA there was priming following the less demanding consonant/vowel task but not following the more attention-demanding letter search task. Hence, semantic activation can occur even when attention is directed to the letter level, provided there are sufficient resources to support this activation. The authors conclude that the default setting during word recognition is for fast-acting activation of the semantic system.     

False memories and lexical decision: even twelve primes do not cause long-term semantic priming

Semantic priming effects are usually obtained only if the prime is presented shortly before the target stimulus. Recent evidence obtained with the so-called false memory paradigm suggests, however, that in both explicit and implicit memory tasks semantic relations between words can result in long-lasting effects when multiple 'primes' are presented. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether these effects would generalize to lexical decision. In four experiments we showed that even as many as 12 primes do not cause long-term semantic priming. In all experiments, however, a repetition priming effect was obtained. The present results are consistent with a number of other results showing that semantic information plays a minimal role in long-term priming in visual word recognition.     

The effect of asymmetrical association on positive and negative semantic priming

One's actively ignoring a stimulus can impair subsequent responding to that stimulus. This negative priming effect has been argued to generalize to semantically related items as well, but the evidence for this is still somewhat weak. This article presents a new experiment in which participants made lexical decisions to asymmetrically associated prime-target pairs presented in either the forward (e.g., stork-baby) or backward (e.g., baby-stork) direction. The critical new finding was that both attended positive and ignored negative semantic priming occurred only for prime-target pairs presented in the forward direction. The results support either (1) a spreading inhibition model in which items associated with an ignored distractor are inhibited during prime selection or (2) a version of episodic retrieval theory in which the prime distractor and items associated with it are tagged as "to-be-ignored" during prime selection.     

Retrieval of event files can be conceptually mediated

Distractor-based retrieval of event files was assessed with a sequential priming experiment using a four-choice identification task. Pictures or sounds of four different animals (frog, chicken, lamb, singing bird) had to be categorized by pressing one of four keys. On each trial, a target and a distractor stimulus were presented simultaneously in different modalities. The relevant modality switched randomly between trials. Distractor repetition effects were modulated by the response relation between the prime and probe: Repeating the prime distractor in the probe produced facilitation if the response repeated, but not if a different response had to be given in the prime and probe. Repeating the prime distractor in the probe led to an automatic retrieval of the prime response. Importantly, this distractor-based response retrieval effect also emerged for those sequences in which the modality of the repeated distractor was switched between the prime and probe. This cross-modal priming effect indicates that distractors were integrated into event files on a conceptual level and that response retrieval processes were mediated by conceptual codes of the distractor stimuli.     

Connection between the evaluation of positive or negative valence and verbal responses to a lexical decision making task]

Evaluation of the positive or negative valence of a stimulus is an activity that is part of any emotional experience that has been mostly studied using the affective priming paradigm. When the prime and the target have the same valence (e.g. positive prime and positive target), the target response is facilitated as a function of opposing valence conditions (e.g. negative prime and positive target). These studies show that this evaluation is automatic but depends on the nature of the task's implied response because the priming effects are only observed for positive responses, not for negative responses. This result was explained in automatic judgmental tendency model put forth by Abelson and Rosenberg (1958) and Klauer and Stern (1992). In this model, affective priming assumes there is an overlap between both responses, the first response taking precedence as a function of the prime-target valence, and the second response one that is required by the task. We are assuming that another type of response was not foreseen under this model. In fact, upon activating the valence for each of the prime-target elements, two preliminary responses would be activated before the response on the prime-target valence relationship. These responses are directly linked to the prime and target evaluation independently of the prime-target relationship. This hypothesis can be linked to the larger hypothesis whereby the evaluative process is related to two distinct motivational systems corresponding to approach and avoidance behaviour responses (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990; Neuman & Strack, 2000; Cacciopo, Piester & Bernston, 1993). In this study, we use the hypothesis that when a word leads to a positive valence evaluation, this favours a positive verbal response and inversely, a negative valence word favours a negative response. We are testing this hypothesis outside the affective priming paradigm to study to what extent evaluating a word, even when it is not primed, activates both motivational systems and consequently, positive verbal responses for approach and negative responses for avoidance. To validate this hypothesis, we are re-using both versions of the lexical decision task proposed by Wentura (2000). The classic version leads participants to a positive response for words, and the modified version leads to a no response. This experiment, carried out with thirty-two participants, measures the influence on response time of two experimental factors, the intrasubject valence of words (positive and negative) and the inter-subject factor (yes and no responses to words). Results show an interaction between the type of response and word valence. It is temporally more onerous to give a no response to positive words than to negative words. This result confirms that there is a direct relation between the evaluation of a valence stimulus and the response to this stimulus, a relation that had up to now been essentially observed with motor behaviours, and more rarely with verbal responses. We propose integrating the existence of this link between evaluation and verbal response (yes and no) in interpreting the effects of affective priming.     

Subliminal or not? Comparing null-hypothesis and Bayesian methods for testing subliminal priming

A difficulty for reports of subliminal priming is demonstrating that participants who actually perceived the prime are not driving the priming effects. There are two conventional methods for testing this. One is to test whether a direct measure of stimulus perception is not significantly above chance on a group level. The other is to use regression to test if an indirect measure of stimulus processing is significantly above zero when the direct measure is at chance. Here we simulated samples in which we assumed that only participants who perceived the primes were primed by it. Conventional analyses applied to these samples had a very large error rate of falsely supporting subliminal priming. Calculating a Bayes factor for the samples very seldom falsely supported subliminal priming. We conclude that conventional tests are not reliable diagnostics of subliminal priming. Instead, we recommend that experimenters calculate a Bayes factor when investigating subliminal priming.     

Automatic semantic activation is no myth: semantic context effects on the N400 in the letter-search task in the absence of response time effects

The claim that semantic activation is an automatic process was recently called a myth, on the basis of the finding that if letter search is performed on a prime word, semantic priming effects on response time are eliminated, whereas repetition effects are preserved. The absence of semantic activation, however, cannot be validly inferred from the lack of response time effects, and converging evidence is needed. To this end, we examined the event-related potential correlate of priming, the N400 amplitude modulation, in a letter-search priming paradigm. Our experiment replicated the response time effects and demonstrated that the N400 amplitude successfully differentiates cross-case repetition priming, semantic priming, and neutral conditions. The results clearly indicate that the meaning of the prime word was processed and that semantic activation indeed was present in the letter-search task. The notion that semantic activation is an automatic process should not be abandoned prematurely.     

Levels and speed of processing effects on word analysis

Previous work on semantic priming effects has suggested that priming is contingent upon semantic analysis of the prime stimulus. In the present series of experiments, subjects in Grade 3, Grade 6, and college performed variants of a priming task in which semantic (lexical decision) as well as fast (case judgment) and slow (letter search) nonsemantic levels of processing were required for both prime and target stimuli. Contrary to a levels of processing hypothesis, context effects were not simple functions of the level at which the prime was processed. Priming effects were found with a slow nonsemantic prime task (letter search), but generally not with a fast nonsemantic analysis of the prime (case judgment). The form of the priming effect when the prime was processed semantically by a lexical decision depended on the relationship between prime and target processing: a switch from semantic prime processing to nonsemantic target processing produced Stroop-like interference, with other combinations of prime and target processing producing facilitation. By using a series of discrimination, focusing, and classification tasks in a Garner (1978) paradigm, it was possible to determine how subjects were processing the semantic and nonsemantic dimensions, and these perceptual strategies were compared across educational levels to account for the priming effects. Our results suggest that context effects need to be understood in terms of the speeds of processing of different codes of information inherent in words.     

Inverse target- and cue-priming effects of masked stimuli

The processing of a visual target that follows a briefly presented prime stimulus can be facilitated if prime and target stimuli are similar. In contrast to these positive priming effects, inverse priming effects (or negative compatibility effects) have been found when a mask follows prime stimuli before the target stimulus is presented: Responses are facilitated after dissimilar primes. Previous studies on inverse priming effects examined target-priming effects, which arise when the prime and the target stimuli share features that are critical for the response decision. In contrast, 3 experiments of the present study demonstrate inverse priming effects in a nonmotor cue-priming paradigm. Inverse cue-priming effects exhibited time courses comparable to inverse target-priming effects. Results suggest that inverse priming effects do not arise from specific processes of the response system but follow from operations that are more general.     

Comparison of affective and semantic priming in different SOA

Researchers have been at odds on whether affective or semantic priming is faster or stronger. The present study selects a series of facial expression photos and words, which have definite emotional meaning or gender meaning, to set up experiment including both affective and semantic priming. The intensity of emotion and gender information in the prime as well as the strength of emotional or semantic (in gender) relationship between the prime and the target is matched. Three groups of participants are employed separately in our experiment varied with stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) as 50, 250 or 500 ms. The results show that the difference between two types of priming effect is revealed when the SOA is at 50 ms, in which the affective priming effect is presented when the prime has negative emotion. It indicates that SOA can affect the comparison between the affective and semantic priming, and the former takes the priority in the automatic processing level.     

With great expectations, can two "wrongs" prime a "right"?

The proportion of related prime-target pairs (relatedness proportion, RP) and prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was varied to determine the involvement of strategic priming mechanisms in the reduction in semantic priming that occurs when a target follows an unmasked prime that itself receives immediate repetition priming from a masked prime. At 300-ms and 1,200-ms SOAs, (a) strategic semantic priming was operating, in that priming from a nonrepeated prime increased as RP increased from .25 to .75, and (b) for both RPs, prime repetition reduced semantic priming. At a 167-ms SOA, (a) priming from a nonrepeated prime was unaffected by RP, suggesting that strategic priming was not operating, and (b) for both RPs, prime repetition did not reduce semantic priming. Because prime repetition did not reduce priming at the 167-ms SOA (when only spreading activation should have been mediating semantic priming), the reduction in semantic priming produced by prime repetition is not evidence against spreading activation automaticity. Possible mechanisms through which prime repetition reduces semantic priming are discussed.     

Evidence of vocal and manual event files in auditory negative priming

Negative priming with auditory as well as with visual stimuli has been shown to involve the retrieval of prime response information as evidenced by an increase of prime response errors to the probes of ignored repetition trials compared to control trials. We investigated whether prime response retrieval processes were also present for response modalities other than manual responding. In an auditory four alternative forced choice task participants either vocally or manually identified a target sound while ignoring a distractor sound. Negative priming was of equal size in both response modalities. What is more, for both response modalities, there was evidence of increased prime response errors in ignored repetition trials compared to control trials. The findings suggest that retrieval of event files of the prime episode including prime response information is a general mechanism underlying the negative priming phenomenon irrespective of stimulus or response modality.     

不同控制水平下的汉字语义加工

字词语义的加工是否受其它加工过程或操纵手段的控制一直是自动化研究的热点,以往针对英文字词的研究结果不尽一致。本研究以在该类研究中比英文单词更具优越性的汉字为材料,采用部件搜索任务,通过操纵控制水平的强弱探讨汉字的语义加工是否受控制这一问题。实验一考察汉字的语义是否受浅水平加工和无意识操纵的控制（低控制水平）;实验二探讨增强了的控制水平是否能够控制语义的加工。结果在实验一中发现了语义负启动效应;实验二出现了正启动和负启动效应。该结果表明,控制机制并不能阻止汉字语义加工本身的发生,仅能对已经产生激活的语义进行调控,提示汉字的语义加工是不可控的。     

The relationship between the objective identification threshold and priming effects does not provide a definitive boundary between conscious and unconscious perceptual processes

The Objective Threshold/Strategic Model (OT/S) proposes that strong, qualitative inferences of unconscious perception can be made if the relationship between perceptual sensitivity (typically priming effects) and stimulus visibility is nonlinear and nonmonotonic. The model proposes a nadir in priming effects at the objective identification threshold (identification d′ = 0). These predictions were tested with masked semantic priming and repetition priming of a lexical decision task. The visibility of the prime stimuli was systematically varied above and below the objective identification threshold. The obtained relationship between prime visibility and priming facilitation was nonlinear, but the results failed to confirm a nadir in priming effects at the objective identification threshold. We conclude that the objective identification threshold does not necessarily indicate the point where presumably unconscious priming effects might be inhibited by conscious cognitive processes.