Memory processes underlying long-term semantic priming

Abstract

Two decades of research in semantic priming has provided substantial evidence for a distinction between short-and long-term semantic priming effects. Early models of cognition suggested a single mechanism to explain priming at short and long lags. Later models refuted this explanation and proposed that different mechanisms are necessary to account for different durations of priming effects. Two alternative explanations of long-term semantic priming effects have been proposed in the extant literature. The first explanation is that long-term semantic priming effects rely upon the incremental strengthening of abstract semantic memory representations. The second explanation is that long-term priming is the result of memory for prior cognitive operations. In two experiments, we used different semantic contentword meaning versus category membershipto investigate the mechanisms accountable for long-term semantic priming. Evidence from the two experiments suggests that long-term semantic priming effects are due to different memory processes for different semantic content. Long-term semantic priming of word meanings was dependent on strengthening abstract semantic memory representations and persistent priming of category membership was dependent on memory for prior cognitive operations.

Priming and persistence in bilinguals: What codeswitching tells us about lexical priming in sentential contexts*

“…Nonetheless, recent literature has demonstrated that priming effects can persist beyond this brief period. For example, Was, Woltz, and Hirsch (2019, p. 321) found that “a form of semantic priming…persisted over an average of seven unrelated, intervening trials”. Rodd, Curtin, Kirsch, Millar, and Davis (2013, p. 190) found that “a single encounter with a particular meaning of an ambiguous word in context is sufficient to bias a listener's interpretation of that word after a delay of up to 20 min[utes]”.…”

The Role of Synaptic Tagging and Capture for Memory Dynamics in Spiking Neural Networks

“…In addition to single memories, consolidation on timescales of STC seems to exert substantial influence on many neuropsychological effects that involve multiple memories, while biologically realistic explanations for these effects remain elusive. Such phenomena that occur, inter alia, on timescales of minutes to hours are given by serial-position effects as observed in free recall experiments (Greene, 1986;Brown et al, 2007;de Almeida Valverde Zanini et al, 2012;Recanatesi et al, 2015), interference and enhancement for similar memories (Anderson, 1981;Anderson and Neely, 1996;Preston and Eichenbaum, 2013;Ghosh and Gilboa, 2014), or priming (Mongillo et al, 2008;Janiszewski and Wyer, 2014;Elgendi et al, 2018;Was et al, 2019). There are apparently no studies on the functional role of STC in these phenomena, while this role should clearly be investigated to collect further evidence for the hypothesis that STC is indeed the mechanism that describes synaptic consolidation.…”

“…for an overview of definitions). While this facilitating influence is usually considered temporary, priming phenomena have been shown to occur on a large variety of timescales from seconds to years (Janiszewski and Wyer, 2014;Was et al, 2019).…”

“…As opposed to this, for instance, indirect semantic priming would refer to the enhanced accessibility of a concept by the pre-activation of another (e.g., in the way that the word "chicken" would prime the word "duck"; Herrmann et al, 1993;Becker et al, 1997;Lerner and Shriki, 2014;Bermeitinger, 2015). Note that other literature considers semantic priming generally as indirect and thus distinct from direct (or "repetition") priming in a narrow sense, which would rely on perception without the need for semantic processing (Schacter, 1992;Was et al, 2019). Bermeitinger (2015) emphasizes that there are different levels of priming, ranging from the most concise experimental priming protocols up to "macro" phenomena such as altered way of thinking.…”

“…For all mentioned paradigms, there also exists the inverse, negative priming, which leads to the attenuation of an outcome instead of facilitating it (Tipper, 1985;Bermeitinger, 2015). Although there are many models for the different forms of priming (Janiszewski and Wyer, 2014;Bermeitinger, 2015;Was et al, 2019), the host of priming phenomena remain unexplained in terms of biologically realistic models. Particularly for negative priming, issues are being faced to find a conclusive model (Mayr and Buchner, 2007;Ihrke et al, 2011;Elgendi et al, 2018).…”