Two experiments are described in which reaction times for understanding target sentences or phrases in terms of a preceding context were measured. In Experiment 1, the target sentences followed either short or long contexts which induced either literal interpretations or metaphorical ones. Results indicated that only in the short context condition did subjects take significantly longer to understand metaphorical than literal targets. This interaction is explained in terms of the availability of appropriate schemata for interpreting the target. In Experiment 2, targets were phrases that could be given either an idiomatic or a literal interpretation. It was found

A cost/benefit and a speed/accuracy analysis of semantic priming in a lexical decision task provided information relevant to the automatic/conscious distinction as well as to the operation of discriminability, criterion bias, and response bias in the facilitation. In both studies half the cues were neutral and half were words, of which 80% were valid and 20% invalid. In Experiment 1 cue time, a between-groups factor, was either 200, 300, 400, 500, or 700 msec. Valid cues produced facilitation in reaction time (RT) at cue times as short as 400 msec. Invalid cues produced inhibition at cue times as short as 200 msec. Experiment 2 used a response-signal technique to collect information about the speed/accuracy trade-off in a lexical decision task. Cues were always presented for 800 msec; targets were variably presented within subject for either 100, 200, 300, 450, or 600 msec. Taken together the experiments indicate that discriminability, criterion bias, and response bias seem to be integrated in producing facilitation, but simple applications of criterion bias or response bias alone do not adequately explain the facilitation effect.

We describe an experiment that was designed to replicate an unpredicted and puzzling asymmetry found in the data of surprise recognition tests given in several earlier, unpublished experiments. In the present experiment, which used foils that were affective transformations of presented sentences, the affectively negative foils consistently produced a significantly higher rate of correct rejections than did the positive foils. This effect occurred in the absence of a difference in hit rates between positive and negative sentences. We consider various possible explanations but argue that the results cannot be accounted for in terms of factors (such as sentence integratedness or congruence) that effect memorability. We propose an explanation in terms of differential changes in the strength of affective responses to positive and negative sentences as a possible way of accommodating the data.

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