Reading “glasses” will prime “vision,” but reading a pair of “glasses” will not

Abstract

In a lexical decision task with two primes and a target, the target was preceded 300 msec by the second prime (P2) which in turn was preceded by a brief forward and backward masked first prime (PI). When PI and P2 were unrelated, reaction times were faster when the target was related to P2 (e.g., wave SALT ... pepper) than when the target was unrelated to P2 (and PI-e.g., wave LOAN ... pepper). However, this semantic priming effect was reduced to statistically nonsignificant levels when PI and P2 were repetitions of the same word. That is, priming did not occur for salt SALT . . . pepper relative to loan LOAN ... pepper. This reduction in priming was observed whether P2 and the target were strongly or weakly related. These findings raise problems for current accounts of semantic priming.Since Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) reported their seminal research, a large body ofwork has focused on delineating the mechanisms that underlie the semantic priming effect (see Neely, 1991, for a review). In the currently most popular version of this paradigm originated by Neely (1976), a person first silently reads a single prime word and then makes a speeded response to a target that appears after a brief delay. Semantic priming refers to the consistent finding that reaction times (RTs) to a target word are faster when it is preceded by a semantically related prime rather than an unrelated prime. ' The present research explores how semantic priming is affected by the prime itself being primed. The study most relevant to this issue was recently reported by BaIota and Paul (1996). They examined priming when two primes (1) were both related to the target and each other (e.g., copper bronze . . . METAL) or (2) were both related to the target but unrelated to each other (e.g., kidney piano ... ORGAN). In both cases, priming was enhanced, and to the same degree, relative to when only the second prime (P2) was related to the target and the two primes were unrelated to each other (e.g., order bronze . . . METAL or wagon piano . . . ORGAN).

The Effect of Target Repetition on Semantic Priming in a Three-Target RSVP Task

“…These results were inconsistent with previous studies demonstrating a loss of meaning of repeated words (e.g., Smith, 1984;Smith & Klein, 1990;Wertheimer & Gillis, 1958) and the elimination of semantic priming effects due to extensive prime repetition (e.g., Neely et al, 1998;Pitzer & Dagenbach, 2001). While these results indicate that priming is unaffected by target repetition at response, further research is required to examine the impact of target repetition during the actual RSVP task.…”

“…However, studies have demonstrated that the repeated presentation of primes actually eliminates semantic priming effects in lexical decision tasks (Neely et al, 1998;Pitzer & Dagenbach, 2001). A study investigating prime repetition and semantic priming presented participants with a series of letter strings that consisted of two prime words, followed by the presentation of a target word (Pitzer & Dagenbach, 2001).…”

Semantic processing of highly repeated concepts presented in single-word trials: Electrophysiological and behavioral correlates

“…As a consequence, immediately repeated stimuli would not require re-accessing semantic memory (Bentin and McCarthy, 1994). Accordingly, a few studies have shown that only one immediate repetition of prime words could suppress semantic priming effects (Neely et al, 1998;Pitzer and Dagenbach, 2001).…”

Toward a Lifespan Metric of Reading Fluency

“…For example, a key-press response in a simple reading task, to indicate that the word pepper is indeed a word (with respect to English spelling) will be about 48 msec faster (on average) if pepper is preceded by the word salt (compared to a control condition that precedes pepper by an unrelated word such as loan [Neely et al, 1998]). This is a large effect, given that a single word is easily read within about 200 msec from first sight.…”

“…This is a large effect, given that a single word is easily read within about 200 msec from first sight. However, if salt is presented twice in succession, in the same task, just before pepper appears, the large facilitation effect vanishes [Balota & Paul, 1996;Neely et al, 1998]. If this was merely an isolated oddball finding then it might be of little consequence, but all simple reading tasks reveal such complicated nonlinear patterns of interaction among the factors that reading scientists study (see [Bargh, 2006;Pickering & Ferreira, 2008], for reviews and discussions).…”