Pre- and postlexical loci of contextual effects on word recognition

Abstract

The context in which a word occurs could influence either the actual decoding of the word or a postrecognition judgment of the relatedness of word and context. In this research, we investigated the loci of contextual effects that occur in lexical priming, when prime and target words are related along different dimensions. Both lexical decision and naming tasks were used because previous research had suggested that they are differentially sensitive to postlexical processing. Semantic and associative priming occurred with both tasks. Other facilitative contextual effects, due to syntactic relations between words, backward associations, or changes in the proportion of related items, occurred only with the lexical decision task. The results indicate that only associative and semantic priming facilitate the decoding of a target; the other effects are postlexical. The results are related to the different demands of the naming and lexical decision tasks, and to current models of word recognition.A basic question in psycholinguistic research concerns the manner in which contextual information influences lexical processing. Does contextual information enter into the processes by which a word is recognized, or does it influence processes that occur after recognition is achieved? Some models (e.g., Marslen-Wilson & Tyler, 1980;Rumelhart, 1977) emphasize that the bottom-up analysis of a word is supplemented by nonlexical (i.e., syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic) information provided by the context, facilitating recognition. An alternate proposal (Forster, 1979; Gough, Alford, & HolleyWilcox, 1981) is that contextual information does not affect the identification of a word per se; rather, it influences post recognition comprehension processes involved in the integration of words into meaningful representations (e.g., propositions). According to Forster (I979), skilled word recognition is functionally autonomous because the bottom-up decoding of the input allows recognition to occur without contextual support.

The reviewing of object files: Object-specific integration of information

“…The difference between the conditions arose only after the onset of the target field, because the object correspondence between the two fields was only determined at that time. The preview effect observed in the present study was therefore a "backward" effect (Glucksberg et al, 1986;Kahneman & Miller, 1986;Kiger & Glass, 1983;Koriat, 1981;Seidenberg, Waters, Sanders, & Langer, 1984). A characteristic of the second display (in this case the position of the irrelevant letter) controls the selection of the preview item with which the target will interact.…”

An Event-Related Brain Potential Analysis of Visual Word Priming Effects

“…In the relatedness proportion effect, the size of semantic priming effects increases as the proportion of related word pairs relative to unrelated word pairs in the stimulus list increases. This modulation has been reported both with a lexical decision task (e.g., De Groot, 1984;Seidenberg, Waters, Sanders, & Langer, 1984;Shelton & Martin, 1992) and a pronunciation task (Keefe & Neely, 1990). It occurs for long but not short prime-target stimulus-onset asynchronies (e.g., Den Heyer, Briand, & Dannebring, 1983;but see De Groot, 1984).…”

Semantic Priming in Broca's Aphasics at a Short SOA: No Support for an Automatic Access Deficit

“…As I have argued elsewhere (Hagoort, 1993), there is convincing evidence (Balota & Chumbley, 1984;De Groot, 1984;De Groot, Thomassen, & Hudson, 1986;Keefe & Neely, 1990;Neely, 1977Neely, , 1991Neely, Keefe, & Ross, 1989;Seidenberg, Waters, Sanders, & Langer, 1984) that priming effects can be attributed to both automatic and more controlled priming mechanisms.…”