| Abstract: | Previous research has indicated that the right hemisphere (RH) exhibits priming for nonassociated category members, but that the left hemisphere (LH) does not (Chiarello et al., 1990; Chiarello & Richards, 1992). Subsequent research has shown that time course is an important factor, but what other variables might influence the priming of nonassociated semantic category members? We hypothesized that repeated stimulation of the same semantic category would produce priming within the LH. Previous studies have used few exemplars from a given semantic category and thus have not tested this idea. Our prediction was that the LH would show priming after an adequate number of category instances had been processed. Based on previous research, we predicted no change in the priming observed in the RH over trial block. Priming was obtained in the RH, but it diminished as category repetition increased. In contrast, priming was not significant in the LH, indicating that category repetition does not induce maintenance of category members within the LH. |
