Automatic and attentional priming in young and older adults: Reevaluation of the two-process model.

Three experiments addressed the distinction between automatic and attentional mechanisms underlying semantic priming effects by factorially crossing prime–target relatedness, expectancy, and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) in a task (pronunciation) that minimized postlexical checking processes. Also, possible age-related (young vs older adults) differences in the automatic and attentional mechanisms were addressed. Across all experiments there was evidence of a Relatedness?×?Expectancy?×?SOA interaction, which is inconsistent with the notion of independent automatic and attentional mechanisms in semantic priming and the notion of a self-incapsulated modular lexicon. The results also indicated age-related differences in the build-up of the expectancy effect across SOAs when the prime was visually available for only 200 msec, independently of the prime–target SOA (Exp 1 and 3), but not when the prime was visually available throughout the SOA (Exp 2). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)