Constraints on semantic priming in reading: A fixation time analysis

In Experiment 1, subjects read sentences containing a category name or a neutral prime that was followed by a target exemplar that varied in typicality. Fixation time on the target exemplar was the measure of processing difficulty. The category name facilitated processing for both high- and low-typicality exemplars. Unexpectedly, high-typicality exemplars were processed more quickly than low-typicality exemplars in both primed and unprimed conditions. Experiment 2 extended the priming effect to primary associates. Most importantly, the priming effect was influenced by the syntactic structure of the stimulus sentence. When both the prime and the associated target word were in the same clause, semantic priming occurred, but when the prime and target were in different clauses, no associative facilitation was observed. These results were interpreted as supporting a clausal processing hypothesis based on an autonomous modular view of the language processing system. Furthermore, the results were consistent with direct control models of eye movements, which claim that fixation duration reflects the timing of processing related to the word currently under fixation.     

Neural activity reveals effects of aging on inhibitory processes during word retrieval

Word retrieval difficulties are one of the most frustrating problems for older adults. Poorer access to phonological representation of the target word has been postulated as the underlying deficit, supported by findings of improved word retrieval after phonological priming. To better understand aging effects in the underlying neurophysiology associated with word retrieval, this study examined electrophysiological correlates of phonological priming and word retrieval in adults. Young, middle-aged, and older adults viewed pictures that were preceded by pseudo-word primes that either shared initial phonemes with or were unrelated to the picture’s name. Participants made phonological judgments regarding the prime and picture prior to naming the picture. Behavioral and event-related potential correlates of phonological priming and word retrieval were recorded. All groups benefitted similarly from phonological priming, evidenced by faster phonological judgment response times and increased ease of word retrieval for primed pictures, indexed by the N400 priming effect. The peak latency of the N2, however, showed an incremental delay with age. High correlation between N2 peak latency and clinical measures of inhibition suggested an age-related delay in the inhibition of primed lexical competitors. Taken together, our results indicated intact activation of phonological representation of the picture’s name but age-related delays in inhibition of primed competitors. Interestingly, our findings revealed that delays in inhibiting lexical competitors may begin as early as middle age, highlighting the importance of including multiple age groups to better represent the aging trajectory.     

Word priming without awareness: A new approach to circumvent explicit memory contamination

A major methodological limitation arising in the experimental study of implicit memory is that tasks that are characterized as implicit memory tests can be seriously contaminated by the use of covert explicit memory strategies. Given the evidence indicating that brief presentation of words (below the awareness threshold of subjects) can produce semantic priming, we wondered whether rapid visual presentation of primed words might provide an avenue to produce word priming without explicit memory contamination. Normal subjects were tested for word priming on a speeded category membership decision task. Explicit or implicit encoding procedures were used in four different experiments. Results demonstrated that brief presentation of words can indeed offer a means of producing word priming in absence of explicit recognition or recall of the primed words presented during the study phase. They also showed that such priming is equivalent in degree to the priming measured when using either a conventional implicit memory design or an explicit encoding procedure prior to the study of the primes.     

Problem Variables that Promote Incubation Effects

Three studies sought to determine whether incubation effects could be reliably generated in a problem‐solving task. Experimental variables manipulated were the duration of the interval between two problem‐solving opportunities and the activity performed by the problem solvers during the interval. A multi‐solution anagram task was used which required problem solvers to generate five‐letter words from the letters in a ten‐letter “starter” word until they could produce no more words. After a break (the incubation period) the problem solvers returned to the anagram task anew. Some participants also engaged in an activity related to the anagram task during the break which was expected to prime potential solutions that would emerge during the second problem‐solving attempt. In all conditions problem solvers were able to generate new responses after the break, thus demonstrating a reliable incubation effect. The optimal incubation period was between 15 and 30 min long. The priming task increased the number of solutions to the anagram task on the second attempt, suggesting that exposure to solution ideas during the incubation period may facilitate an incubation effect during problem solving.     

On the relationship between reading, listening, and speaking: It’s different for people’s names

Two experiments are reported that tested predictions derived from the framework of face, object, and word recognition proposed by Valentine, Brennen, and Brédart (1996). The findings were as follows: (1) Production of a celebrity’s name in response to seeing the celebrity’s face primed a subsequent familiarity decision to the celebrity’s printed name. The degree of repetition priming observed was as great as that observed when a familiarity decision to the printed name was repeated in the prime and test phases of the experiment. (2) Making a familiarity decision to an auditory presentation of a celebrity’s name primed a familiarity decision to the same celebrity’s name presented visually. The magnitude of cross-modality priming was as great as the magnitude of within-modality repetition priming. This result for people’s names contrasted with the effects observed in lexical decision tasks, in which no reliable cross-modality priming was observed. The results cannot be accounted for by previous models of face and name processing. They show a marked contrast between processing people’s names and processing words. The results support the framework proposed by Valentine et al. (1996). The implications for models of speech production, perception, and reading are discussed, together with the potential of the methodology to elucidate our understanding of proper name processing.     

Are covert verbal responses mediating false implicit memory?

In the DRM paradigm, illusory memories of a nonpresented word can be induced by the presentation of strong associates to this word. In two experiments, we explored previous findings of false implicit memory of the nonpresented words (McDermott, 1997; McKone & Murphy, 2000). Experiment 1 extended the finding of false priming to the anagram task. Furthermore, participants attributed this "false" influence on performance to the difficulty of the anagrams and judged them as easier to solve for other students. In Experiment 2, articulatory suppression during the study of the associates resulted in nonsignificant levels of false priming, whereas the normal priming effect was in the same range as that observed in Experiment 1. The study replicates and extends findings of false implicit memory to the anagram task and suggests that future studies should examine the role of covert verbal responses in producing false implicit memory.     

The solution of anagrams: A reexamination of the effects of transition letter probabilities,letter moves,and word frequency on anagram difficulty

Word frequency (WF), number of letter moves, and solution word transition letter probabilities (TP) were related to anagram solution. The solution word TP measure was based on the relative frequencies of correct to incorrect bigrams within the pool of bigrams defined by the letters of the anagram rather than on the absolute frequencies of the correct bigrams. This bigram rank measure, which also took word length and letter position into account, was a powerful predictor of anagram difficulty (p < .001). Likewise, number of letter moves predicted anagram solution strongly (p < .001), but WF was only a marginal predictor (.05 < p < .10). In addition, there were no significant interactions among the three variables, nor wasanagram TP consistently related to anagram difficulty. The results were interpreted in terms of an approach which combined elements of an hypothesis and an S-R mediational theory.     

长时语义记忆对阈下语义启动效应的影响

本文通过检测启动刺激的词频对阈下启动效应的影响,探讨了长时语义记忆在阈下语义启动中的作用。结果表明,对阈下启动刺激的感受性d′上,词频和练习的交互作用显著(p<0.05),高频刺激即使没有练习过的启动刺激也会产生启动效应,而对低频刺激只有练习过的启动刺激才会产生启动效应,说明长时语义记忆是影响阈下启动效应的重要因素之一。     

Levels-of-processing effects on conceptual automatic memory

This study aimed to provide converging evidence for the conceptual processing effect on conceptual priming that involved automatic retrieval. Two experiments examined whether the levels-of-processing manipulation affects the conceptual priming effect in the speeded category-production task and the relation between the magnitude of conceptual priming and the level of participants’ awareness of the study–test relationship. In the implicit category-production task, participants were required to respond to the category name with the first corresponding category member to come to mind, whereas in the explicit category-cue recall task, participants were instructed to use the category name as a cue to recall the studied word. Response speed was emphasised for all participants. The results, based on response times, suggest that the implicit groups did not shift to a conscious retrieval strategy after the practice trial. The magnitude of priming was also not related to participants’ test-awareness. Furthermore, both conceptual implicit and explicit tests were sensitive to the levels-of-processing manipulation after considering the problems of both conscious contamination and diminished lexical processing. Using a purer measure of conceptual implicit memory, this study replicated the previous findings of the levels-of-processing effect on the conceptual implicit test.     

Semantic satiation affects category membership decision time but not lexical priming

Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effects of semantic satiation on category membership decision latency. Subjects overtly repeated the name of a category either 3 or 30 times, and then decided whether or not a target exemplar was a member of the repeated category. Experiment 1 obtained some evidence that member decisions are slower and nonmember decisions are faster following 30 repetitions, but only the interaction was reliable. Experiment 2 confirmed only that member decisions are slower following satiation of the category name. The results support the hypothesis that prolonged repetition of a word reduces the availability of semantic information related to that word. Experiment 3 showed that the magnitude of priming in the lexical decision task is unaffected by satiation of the prime. Several general approaches to understanding semantic satiation are discussed. The most parsimonious account assumes that satiation affects the links or pathways connecting concepts in the satiated category. The net effect is to decrease the rate of search and associative spread of activation in conceptual structures.     

Haven't we met before? The effect of facial familiarity on repetition priming

Within the word recognition literature, word‐frequency and hence familiarity has been shown to affect the degree of repetition priming. The current paper reports two experiments which examine whether familiarity also affects the degree of repetition priming for faces. The results of Experiment 1 confirmed that familiarity did moderate the degree of priming in a face recognition task. Low familiarity faces were primed to a significantly greater degree than high familiarity faces in terms of accuracy, speed, and efficiency of processing. Experiment 2 replicated these results but additionally, demonstrated that familiarity moderates priming for name recognition as well as face recognition. These results can be accommodated within both a structural account of repetition priming ( Burton, Bruce & Johnston, 1990 ) and an Episodic Memory account of repetition priming (see Roediger, 1990 ), and are discussed in terms of a common mechanism for priming, learning and the representation of familiarity.     

Superiority of variable to repeated practice in transfer on anagram solution

Previous research in motor learning shows that practicing variations of a task (variable practice) leads to better transfer than does repeatedly practicing the exact same task (repeated practice). In contrast, research on priming using verbal materials shows that performance on a test improves to the extent that the material at learning and test overlap. We tested whether variability in practice conditions can lead to improved performance with the verbal priming task of anagram solution. Participants practiced solving anagrams, either repeatedly solving the same anagram that was later tested, repeatedly solving a different anagram from the one that was later tested, or solving different variations of the anagram that was later tested. We found that this last condition-variable practice on different versions of an anagram-led to improved test performance in relation to repeated practice, even when the test anagram was the one that had been repeatedly practiced. This finding aligns results from the motor learning literature with a higher level cognitive task: anagram solution. Shea and Kohl's (1991) hypothesis, arguing that varied practice may lead to greater elaborative processing than does repeated practice, provides one account of the results.     

Korean deaf adolescents' recognition of written words for taxonomic categories of different levels

Deaf college students seem to have relatively stronger associations from words for taxonomic categories of basic (e.g., snake) to those of super-ordinate (e.g., reptiles) level than vice versa compared with hearing students in word association (Marschark, Convertino, McEvoy & Masteller, 2004). In deciding whether two sequentially presented words for taxonomic categories of different levels are conceptually related, deaf adolescents might therefore have a poorer performance when they see a category name before than when they see it after one of the corresponding exemplar words. Deaf Korean adolescents were found to recognize words for taxonomic categories of super-ordinate level with lower efficiencies than those of basic level. Their accuracy seemed to reflect a reversed typicality effect when they decided that first-presented words for taxonomic categories of basic level were conceptually related to second-presented words for those of super-ordinate level. It was argued that deaf Korean adolescents went through a temporary stage of having iconic representations of several exemplars of the category aroused in working memory before the abstract semantic representation was fully activated when they saw the word for a taxonomic category of super-ordinate level.     

The Micro-Category account of analogy

Here, we investigate how activation of mental representations of categories during analogical reasoning influences subsequent cognitive processing. Specifically, we present and test the central predictions of the "Micro-Category" account of analogy. This account emphasizes the role of categories in aligning terms for analogical mapping. In a semantic priming paradigm, a four-word analogy task was compared to two other four-word tasks. Stimuli were identical in all tasks; only the instructions given to participants differed. Participants were instructed to identify analogy relations, category relations, or conventionalized semantic relations in the four-word sets. After each four-word set, a single target word appeared and participants named this word aloud. Target words that referred to category relations in the preceding four-word sets were primed as strongly when participants identified analogies as when participants identified categories, suggesting that activation of category concepts plays an important role in analogical thinking. In addition, priming of category-referent words in the analogy and category tasks was significantly greater than priming of these words when participants identified conventionalized semantic relations. Since identical stimuli were used in all conditions, this finding indicates that it is the activation of category relations, distinct from any effect of basic semantic association, that causes analogical reasoning to prime category-referent words. We delineate how the "Micro-Category" account of analogy predicts these phenomena and unifies findings from diverse areas of research concerning analogical reasoning.     

The fate of originally presented surface information following recall errors in sentence memory tasks

Pictures are remembered better than their names. This picture superiority effect in episodic memory has been attributed either to the greater sensory distinctiveness of pictures or to their greater conceptual distinctiveness. Weldon and Coyote (1996) tested the conceptual distinctiveness hypothesis by comparing how well pictures as opposed to words primed in two conceptual implicit memory tasks (category production and word association). They found no picture superiority in priming and concluded that the basis of the picture superiority effect must then be pictures' greater sensory distinctiveness. Using the same logic, we compared how well pictures as opposed to words primed in a perceptual implicit memory task (picture and word fragment identification). The sensory distinctiveness theory would predict that pictures should prime picture fragment identification better than words prime word fragment identification, a result we call the picture superiority in within-form priming. Across three experiments which manipulated the encoding task at study, only one showed picture superiority in within-form priming. In contrast, in all three experiments there was robust picture superiority in recall, and exposure to pictures and words at study and test produced independent effects in which both study and test exposure to pictures was more effective for recall than exposure to words. We consider how these results might be reconciled by differences in retrieval demands between recall and fragment identification.     

Orthographic rime priming

Three experiments are described, each using a partial priming technique in which a target word was briefly preceded by a masked trigram. The relative strength of priming effects was assessed by comparing the difference in target word naming times between unprimed and primed trials in different priming conditions. Experiment 1 replicated previous work in demonstrating stronger priming when the target word was primed by the orthographic rime than when the prime constituted otherwise comparable word-final trigrams that do not constitute orthographic rimes. Experiment 2 compared orthographic, phonological rime, and control primes. Only orthographic rime primes reliably increased target word naming speed, although the priming effect was less selective with longer prime durations. In Experiment 3 priming was observed for both orthographic rime and phonological rime primes shown for 150 msec. However, stronger priming was observed with orthographic rime primes. These experiments demonstrate that orthographic rime priming effects do not simply reflect the activation of an intact subunit of the target word articulation program.     

The Syllable Effect in Anagram Solution: Unrecognised Evidence from Past Studies

Six previous studies of the variables affecting anagram solution are re-examined for the evidence that number of syllables contributes to solution difficulty. It was shown that the number of syllables in a solution word was confounded with imagery for one study and with diagram frequency for another. More importantly it was shown that the number of syllables has a large effect on anagram solution difficulty in the re-analysis of the results from the other four studies. In these studies, the number of syllables was either more important than the principal variable examined in the experiment or the second most important variable. Overall the effect size for the number of syllables was large, d = 1.14. The results are discussed in the light of other research and it is suggested that anagram solution may have more in common with other word identification and reading processes than has been previously thought.     

Priming and aging: evidence of preserved memory function in an anagram solution task.

Priming effects in a test of anagram solution were compared with recognition memory in young and older adults. Age and a levels-of-processing study manipulation had little influence on priming in the anagram solution task, whereas significant effects of both of these variables were obtained in a recognition test. These findings extend those of previous studies which have shown little evidence of age differences in implicit memory tasks compared with those of explicit memory. Furthermore, they provide evidence for classifying anagram solution as an implicit memory test.     

Developmental changes in the internal structure of semantic categories

The present experiment was designed to examine the development of the cognitive representation of semantic categories. Response latencies on a classification task were compared for second, fourth, and sixth graders (8, 10, and 12 years of age, respectively) and college students. On each trial the subjects were presented with two pictures that represented either typical or atypical category exemplars. The two pictures were physically identical, nonidentical pictures from the same category, or pictures from different categories. One half of the trials were primed by presenting a category name in advance of the stimuli. In addition, stimulus degradation was manipulated in order to assess the locus of priming effects. A significant interaction of age × priming × typicality was found for physically identical stimuli. This interaction indicated that the nature of the internal representation of categories changed from the second graders to the adults. It was suggested that the second graders might weigh features inappropriately in generating semantic prototypes. The fact that stimulus degradation and priming did not interact at any age level for any of the match types indicates that priming affected a conceptual encoding stage rather than a perceptual encoding stage.     

Think the thought, walk the walk - social priming reduces the Stroop effect

In the Stroop task, participants name the color of the ink that a color word is written in and ignore the meaning of the word. Naming the color of an incongruent color word (e.g., RED printed in blue) is slower than naming the color of a congruent color word (e.g., RED printed in red). This robust effect is known as the Stroop effect and it suggests that the intentional instruction – “do not read the word” – has limited influence on one’s behavior, as word reading is being executed via an automatic path. Herein is examined the influence of a non-intentional instruction – “do not read the word” – on the Stroop effect. Social concept priming tends to trigger automatic behavior that is in line with the primed concept. Here participants were primed with the social concept “dyslexia” before performing the Stroop task. Because dyslectic people are perceived as having reading difficulties, the Stroop effect was reduced and even failed to reach significance after the dyslectic person priming. A similar effect was replicated in a further experiment, and overall it suggests that the human cognitive system has more success in decreasing the influence of another automatic process via an automatic path rather than via an intentional path.