Associative processes in repetition priming.

Three experiments that investigated alternative accounts of repetition priming are reported. All 3 experiments used semantic comparison tasks and included trials in which each of the 2 words being compared had previously occurred on separate trials. In the re-pair match condition, the response required matched that on the 2 previous trials in which the words had occurred. In the re-pair mismatch condition, the response required was opposite to that on the previous trials containing the words forming the critical pair. In all 3 experiments, responses were faster and more accurate in the re-pair match condition than in the re-pair mismatch condition. Possible accounts of this effect within the frameworks of instance theory and of transfer appropriate processing are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The activation of phonological representations by bilinguals while reading silently: Evidence from interlingual homophones.

These experiments investigated whether bilinguals activate phonological representations from both of their languages when reading silently in one. The critical stimuli were interlingual homophones (e.g., sank in English and cinq in French). French-English and English-French bilinguals completed an English lexical decision task. Decisions made by French-English bilinguals were significantly faster and more accurate for interlingual homophones than for matched English control words. In subsequent experiments, the homophone facilitation effect in the latency data disappeared when distractors were changed to pseudohomophones, when cognates and interlingual homographs were added to the experiment, and when the proportion of critical stimuli was decreased. However, the homophone effect in the error data remained. In contrast, English-French bilinguals revealed little evidence of an interlingual homophone effect. Several attempts were made to increase the saliency of the nontarget language, however these manipulations produced only a small effect in the error data. These results indicate that the activation of phonological representations can appear to be both language-specific and nonspecific depending on the proficiency of the bilinguals and whether they are reading in their weaker or stronger language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Evidence from masked phonological priming.

Bilingual written language representation was investigated with the masked phonological priming paradigm. Pseudohomophonic and control primes of French target words were used to show that Dutch–French bilinguals exhibit the same pattern of phonological and orthographic priming as native French speakers, which suggests that the same processes underlie first- and second-language processing. It was also found that for bilinguals, but not monolinguals, it is possible to prime a target word of the second language with a homophonic stimulus (either word or nonword) of the first language. This interlingual phonological priming effect was of the same size as the intralingual priming effect. Implications for theories of bilingual written language representation and for the interpretation of the masked phonological priming paradigm are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Priming effects in schizophrenia: Associative interference and facilitation as a function of visual context.

Irrelevant stimuli that flank a fixated target may cause either facilitation or interference with target classification. 20 schizophrenic patients, 20 depressed control patients, and 20 normal control Ss were compared on a flanker priming task that involved the linear display of a target surrounded by 2 flanking letters or digits. Choice reaction time (RT) between letter and digit targets was examined as a function of flanker condition and onset asynchrony between flankers and target. Facilitative priming occurred only with prior exposure of flankers compatible with the response required and was greater in degree with schizophrenic and depressed than with normal Ss. Interference from flankers incompatible with the response required occurred less among schizophrenics than among other groups. Several different processes may be involved in the inhibition of irrelevant information by schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theories of priming: I. Associative distance and lag.

Automatic associative priming occurs in a large number of memory retrieval tasks, including semantic categorization, lexical decisions, item recognition, naming, and judgments of spatial location. Priming has been commonly attributed to one or the other of 2 alternative mechanisms: spreading activation or construction of compound retrieval cues. This article reports the results of 3 experiments that were designed to test spreading-activation and non-spreading-activation models of priming. The findings were consistent with the spreading-activation models, but inconsistent with the non-spreading-activation models. These results suggest that a rejection of spreading-activation mechanisms is premature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Within- and between-language priming differ: Evidence from repetition of pictures in Spanish-English bilinguals.

In the current study, the authors used an immediate repetition paradigm with pictures to observe whether repetition enhances word production in bilinguals. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to name pictures that were named previously in the same language (Spanish-Spanish or English-English) or in the opposite language (Spanish-English or English-Spanish). Results revealed a repetition effect both within languages and between languages. Furthermore, there was an asymmetry within language, with repetition priming being larger in Spanish than in English. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that lag interacted with language for both within- and between-language priming. However, lag resulted in a decrease in the asymmetry for within- but not between-language priming. The results are consistent with the view that within- and between-language repetition priming are mediated by different mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing across the language boundary: A cross-modal priming study of Spanish-English bilinguals.

A cross-modal naming paradigm was used to assess within- and between-language sentential priming in Spanish-English bilinguals. The paradigm used single-language auditory texts with visual target words under normal, visually degraded, speeded, and delayed naming conditions. Cross-language priming was always observed when the target language was predictable (in the blocked condition), even under speeded conditions. When the target language was unpredictable (in the mixed condition), cross-language priming was observed only when response was delayed (delayed naming) and under a subset of conditions when word recognition was delayed (visual degradation). Results are compatible with the idea that cross-language priming in a sentence context is more likely to involve the use of expectations, strategic processes, or both that allow bilinguals to tune themselves to external conditions. There are enough exceptions to the general rule, however, to warrant a reconsideration of the lexical-postlexical dichotomy. Implications for modular versus interactive models of lexical access are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contextual facilitation of lexical processing in Alzheimer's disease: intralexical priming or sentence-level priming?

Studies of semantic priming (facilitation of lexical processing by a prior semantic context) suggest that semantic-memory structure remains intact in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recently, however, it has been claimed that the priming produced by single-word primes reflects merely the facilitation of preexisting lexical associations (intralexical priming) and thus reveals nothing about semantic memory in AD. Other studies showing normal priming in AD have used sentences as primes. However, intralexical priming originating from individual words within the sentence might also account for this type of contextual priming. This possibility was examined by reanalyzing previous sentence-priming results using data only from those trials where there was little likelihood of intralexical priming. This did not change the previous pattern of priming facilitation, suggesting that the normal sentence priming found in AD patients derives from the message conveyed by the sentence as a whole, rather than from simple intralexical associations.     

Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Phonological priming from the second to the first language.

In this study, the authors show that cross-lingual phonological priming is possible not only from the 1st language (L1) to the 2nd language (L2), but also from L2 to L1. In addition, both priming effects were found to have the same magnitude and to not be related to differences in word naming latencies between L1 and L2. The findings are further evidence against language-selective access models of bilingual word processing and are more in line with strong phonological models of visual word recognition than with the traditional dual-route models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New limits to automaticity: Context modulates semantic priming.

It is widely assumed that semantic priming in visual word recognition is automatic when the task requires word-level analysis. The present experiments show that this conclusion is too strong. Whether brief-duration primes facilitated the processing of related targets in lexical decision depended on the context in which the primes were seen. Semantic priming occurred if Ss saw only brief primes (blocked condition) but was minimal if longer primes were presented as well (mixed condition). Converging operations indicate that this modulation of semantic priming reflects operations beyond the lexical level rather than early encoding deficits. Rather than being automatic, semantic priming depends on the context in which a word is read. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repetition priming reveals sustained facilitation and transient inhibition in reaction time.

Reaction time (RT) in a detection or a location discrimination task increases when a target is repeatedly presented at the same location (inhibition), whereas RT decreases in feature (color or orientation) discrimination tasks (facilitation; Y. Tanaka & S. Shimojo, 1996a). Here, the time course of inhibition and facilitation was examined, using a repetition priming paradigm. Results indicate that inhibition occurred only in the immediately successive trial, whereas facilitation accumulated over several trials with location repetition. Moreover, inhibition and facilitation occurred in a task-relevant manner: Detection–location discrimination tasks produced transient RT increase, whereas feature discrimination tasks produced cumulative RT decrease. These results suggest a functional dissociation between spatial orienting and feature analysis, as well as top-down modulations by tasks leading to different types of visual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

List-context effects in evaluative priming.

Evaluative priming effects are often found in the evaluative decision task, in which persons judge the affective connotation (positive vs. negative) of a target word. The present experiments examined list-context effects to test whether evaluative and semantic priming follow the same laws. In Experiment 1, evaluative priming was found at prime-target stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 0 ms and 100 ms, but not at SOAs of -100, 200, 600, and 1,200 ms. Experiment 2 manipulated SOA (0, 200, and 1,200 ms) and the proportion (25%, 50%, and 75%) of the prime-target pairs that were evaluatively related. Contrary to the typical finding that increases in the proportion of related prime-target pairs lead to increased priming at long but not short SOAs, an effect of consistency proportion was found at SOAs of 0 ms (for reaction times) and 200 ms (in the accuracy data), but not at the 1,200-ms SOA. The pattern of results is discussed in relation to possible explanatory mechanisms of evaluative priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative interference effects in recognition and recall.

The results of 3 studies testing whether associative interference occurs in recognition as it does in recall are reported. Associative interference was found as expected in cued recall, but it did not occur in recognition. Rather, in recognition, both the hit rate and the false alarm rate increased under interference conditions so that there was no net change in discrimination. The design of the recognition studies enabled the rejection of displaced backward rehearsals and variance differences in the matching strengths of interference and noninterference pairs as artifactual explanations of the results. The presence of associative interference in recall, but not in recognition, supports the distinction put forward by the global matching models of recognition that there is a fundamental difference between the memory access processes underlying recognition and recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Level-of-processing effects in word-completion priming: A neuropsychological study.

Recent reviews (A. S. Brown & D. B. Mitchell, see record 82:16176; B. Challis & D. R. Brodbeck, see record 79:30007) concluded that level-of-processing (LOP) manipulations affect priming in perceptual tasks, contrary to earlier suggestions that such tasks are insensitive to LOP. In 3 experiments with amnesic patients and control Ss, the authors examined the effect of LOP manipulations on priming in word-stem and word-fragment completion and on recognition memory. Amnesic patients exhibited reduced or near-zero LOP effects in word-completion priming compared with controls. LOP affected recognition memory for both amnesic patients and control Ss, confirming that the LOP manipulation affected explicit memory. When the effect of explicit retrieval on control performance was reduced by using a low-level encoding task, priming was the same for amnesic patients and controls. The authors suggest that LOP effects in word-completion priming tasks reflect the influence of explicit retrieval, which can be used usefully by control Ss but much less so by amnesic patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related priming effects in social judgments.

Two experiments investigated adult age differences in the impact of previously activated (and thus easily accessible) trait-related information on judgments about people. The authors hypothesized that age-related declines in the efficiency of controlled processing mechanisms during adulthood would be associated with increased susceptibility to judgment biases associated with such information. In each study, different-aged adults made impression judgments about a target, and assimilation of these judgments to trait constructs activated in a previous, unrelated task were examined. Consistent with the authors' hypotheses, older adults were likely to form impressions that were biased toward the primed trait constructs. In contrast, younger adults exhibited greater awareness of the primed information and were more likely to correct for its perceived influence, especially when distinctive contextual cues regarding the source of the primes were available. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nature of priming effects in semantic matching.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 12(4) of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (see record 2008-10970-001). The Appendix table was constructed incorrectly. The correct table appears in the erratum.] Studied priming effects in a semantic matching task that distinguished visually based matching processes from nominally and semantically based matching processes, using 24 undergraduates. Ss judged semantic matches for 3 types of word pairs: identical (e.g., robin–robin), same category (e.g., robin–sparrow), and different category (e.g., robin–truck). Visual matching was isolated by comparing performance between physical identity (e.g., robin–robin) and nominal identity (e.g., robin–ROBIN) pairs. Physical identity pairs, which allowed visually based matching, exhibited an interaction between priming and the typicality of category exemplars that was absent in nominal identity and same-category pairs. Priming had no effect on nominal identity pairs. For same-category pairs, which required semantically based matching, priming produced facilitation at all levels of typicality. The results bring the semantic matching paradigm into agreement with other procedures that show that priming facilitates processing for all related targets. Categories and exemplars used as stimulus materials are appended. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tolerance to morphine in the rat: Associative and nonassociative effects.

Two experiments were conducted to examine the impact of dose level and interdose interval (IDI) on the development of tolerance to the analgesic effect of morphine. In Exp I, rats were administered a series of low- (5 mg/kg) or high- (30 mg/kg) dose injections of morphine either explicitly paired or unpaired with a distinctive context at a 48-hr IDI. The development of tolerance following this regimen was assessed by shifts in dose-response curves to the right when animals were tested on a tail-flick device in the distinctive context. Only animals that had received morphine paired with the distinctive context were tolerant to morphine; the magnitude of this associative tolerance was a positive function of the level of the conditioning dose. In Exp II, rats were exposed to a high dose of morphine (30 mg/kg) either paired or unpaired with a distinctive context at one of two IDIs (24 or 96 hr). Tolerance testing revealed that at the long IDI, only associative tolerance was evident, whereas at the short IDI, tolerance in the unpaired condition was more pronounced with a corresponding decline in the development of associative tolerance. The relevance of these findings for psychological theories of drug tolerance are discussed. Results are consistent with the predictions of an habituation model of drug tolerance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative priming in word fragment completion: a dissociation between explicit and implicit retrieval processes

Three experiments investigated associative priming in word fragment completion. In associative priming, the study word that acts as a prime is semantically related in some way to the response word that the subject must produce or respond to at test. For example, a prime might be semantically related to the solution to its paired word fragment (e.g. study "VANILLA", solve fragment "-H-C--A-E" at test, solution is "CHOCOLATE"). Associative priming therefore differs from both repetition and conceptual priming, in which the studied primes are themselves the words that must be produced or responded to at test. In Experiment 1, associative primes were found to influence word fragment completion performance on an explicit test, but not on an implicit test. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the effects of associative primes on explicitly instructed fragment completion cannot be attributed to the specific information about cue-prime relationships that is included in the explicit instructions. Experiment 3 demonstrated that a manipulation of modality, a variable known to disrupt implicit retrieval processes, disrupts repetition priming on an explicit test, but not associative priming. The results of these three experiments suggest that whereas repetition primes are retrieved from memory by both explicit and implicit retrieval processes, associative primes are retrieved by only explicit processes. These data suggest that implicit retrieval processes are cue-dependent processes which automatically retrieve memory information that provides a good match to retrieval cues. Explicit retrieval processes are cue-independent, functioning as an intentional retrieval set to access particular categories or types of memory information.     

Generation and priming effects in word-fragment completion.

Priming effects in word-fragment completion were enhanced when at study subjects generated rather than read the words. This generation effect occurred when the same fragments used at test were also used in generating the words at study. When different fragments were used at study and at test, generate and read conditions gave rise to similiar priming effects, but these same study conditions led to typical generation effects in recognition memory. These findings of a generation effect in an implicit as opposed to an explicit memory test support the view that generating a study item may enhance data-driven as well as conceptually driven processing, and they provide further evidence of the usefulness of this process distinction in relating implicit to explicit memory performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)