scholarly journals Semantic interpretability does not influence masked priming effects

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (6) ◽  
pp. 856-867
Author(s):  
Hayley Tseng ◽  
Shane Lindsay ◽  
Colin J Davis

Much of the recent masked nonword priming literature demonstrates no difference in priming between affixed and non-affixed nonword primes (e.g., maskity-MASK vs. maskond-MASK). A possible explanation for the absence of a difference is that studies have used affixed primes which were semantically uninterpretable. Therefore, this explanation indicates semantic interpretability plays a fundamental role in masked priming. To test this account, we conducted an experiment using the masked priming paradigm in the lexical decision task. We compared responses with targets which were preceded by one of four primes types: (1) interpretable affixed nonwords (e.g., maskless-MASK), (2) uninterpretable affixed nonwords (e.g., maskity-MASK), (3) non-affixed nonwords (e.g., maskond-MASK), and (4) unrelated words (e.g., tubeful-MASK). Our results follow the trend of finding no difference between affixed and non-affixed primes. Critically, however, we observed no difference in priming between uninterpretable and interpretable affixed primes. Thus, our results suggest that semantic interpretability does not influence masked priming.

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-255
Author(s):  
Seth Goss

Abstract This study explored the organization of the multilingual lexicon in L3 learners of Japanese from an L1 Mandarin Chinese background. Using a masked-priming paradigm, it examined whether native-language translations of Japanese words facilitated the recognition of native-morpheme hiragana words and katakana-script loanwords to a similar degree. Participants performed a lexical decision task on a series of hiragana and katakana words, which were preceded by three prime types: noncognate translations, same-script duplicates, and unrelated words. Results showed an equal magnitude of priming from L1 translations for L3 Japanese targets in both scripts, suggesting that conceptual information is made rapidly available for word recognition via an L1 prime. However, priming in the same-script duplicate condition differed numerically between hiragana and katakana, indicating that lower-familiarity katakana loanwords are not activated as rapidly as words in the more-familiar hiragana script. Findings are discussed in relation to models of the multilingual lexicon.


2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharina Casper ◽  
Klaus Rothermund ◽  
Dirk Wentura

Processes involving an automatic activation of stereotypes in different contexts were investigated using a priming paradigm with the lexical decision task. The names of social categories were combined with background pictures of specific situations to yield a compound prime comprising category and context information. Significant category priming effects for stereotypic attributes (e.g., Bavarians – beer) emerged for fitting contexts (e.g., in combination with a picture of a marquee) but not for nonfitting contexts (e.g., in combination with a picture of a shop). Findings indicate that social stereotypes are organized as specific mental schemas that are triggered by a combination of category and context information.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIKO NAKAYAMA ◽  
STEPHEN J. LUPKER ◽  
YOSHIHIRO ITAGUCHI

The main fact that is currently known about the nature of masked L2-L1 noncognate translation priming effects in the lexical decision task is simply that those effects are significant in some studies but not in others. In an effort to better understand these effects, we examined the data pattern for very proficient Japanese–English bilinguals using RT distributional analyses. We also examined the impacts of prime and target frequency on the priming effect. Significant priming was present even on the fastest trials, becoming larger on slower trials. Nonetheless, priming effects were generally constant across prime and target frequency with the only exception being when very high frequency L2 primes were used. In that situation, priming and target frequency were negatively related, a result that essentially produced the observed pattern of increasing priming on slower trials. Implications of these results and potential reasons for the presence/absence of L2-L1 priming effects are discussed.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 699-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naira Delgado ◽  
Armando Rodríguez-Pérez ◽  
Jeroen Vaes ◽  
Jacques-Philippe Leyens ◽  
Verónica Betancor

Two experiments examine whether exposure to generic violence can display infrahumanization towards out-groups. In Study 1, participants had to solve a lexical decision task after viewing animal or human violent scenes. In Study 2, participants were exposed to either human violent or human suffering pictures before doing a lexical decision task. In both studies, the infrahumanization bias appeared after viewing the human violent pictures but not in the other experimental conditions. These two experiments support the idea of contextual dependency of infrahumanization, and suggest that violence can prime an infrahuman perception of the out-group. Theoretical implications for infrahumanization and potential underlying mechanisms are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Lucia Colombo ◽  
Giacomo Spinelli ◽  
Stephen J Lupker

There are now a number of reports in the literature that transposed letter (TL) priming effects emerge when two consonants are transposed (e.g., caniso-CASINO) but not when two vowels are transposed (e.g., cinaso-CASINO). In the present article, four masked priming lexical decision experiments, two in Italian and two in English, are reported in which TL priming effects involving the transposition of two adjacent consonants (e.g., atnenna-ANTENNA) were contrasted with those involving the transposition of a vowel and an adjacent consonant (e.g., anetnna-ANTENNA), a contrast not directly examined in the previous literature. In none of the experiments was there any indication that the priming effects were different sizes for the two types of transpositions, including Experiment 4 in which a sandwich priming paradigm was used. These results support the assumption of most orthographic coding models that the consonant–vowel status of the letters is not relevant to the nature of the orthographic code. The question of how to reconcile these results with other TL manipulations investigating vowel versus consonant transpositions is discussed.


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