| Abstract: | Six experiments addressed the combinatorial influence of multiple related primes in naming, lexical decision, and relatedness judgment performance. Primes either converged on a single semantic representation (e.g., LION-STRIPES-TIGER) or diverged onto distinct semantic representations (e.g., KIDNEY-PIANO-ORGAN). The facilitatory influence of 2 related primes was well predicted by the sum of the influences from the single-related-prime conditions (1) for both convergent and divergent primes, (2) in lexical-decision and naming, (3) across varying prime-target stimulus onset asynchronies, and (4) under target-degradation conditions that increased the priming effects. The relatedness-judgment task yielded an additive pattern of priming for convergent prime conditions; however, an underadditive pattern of priming was found for divergent prime conditions. Discussion focuses on the role of attentional systems that modulate the type of information used to perform a given task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
