Semantic priming in the pronunciation task: The role of prospective prime-generated expectancies

Abstract

In the relatedness proportion effect, semantic priming increases with an increase in the probability that a word prime will be followed by a semantically related word target. This effect has frequently been obtained in the lexical decision task but not in a pronunciation task. In the present experiment, relatedness proportion was manipulated in two pronunciation tasks, one with and one without nonword targets, using category names as primes. In both tasks, a relatedness proportion effect occurred for high-dominance category exemplars but not for low-dominance category exemplars. These results converge with recent lexical decision results in suggesting that semantic priming in pronunciation is affected by a prospective prime-generated expectancy that is modulated by the relatedness proportion.In the semantic priming effect, responses are faster and/or more accurate when a target word is preceded or accompanied by a semantically related prime rather than an unrelated prime (e.g., see Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971;Neely, 1976; see also Neely, in press, for a review). In the lexical decision task (LDT), in which subjects make word/nonword decisions about the target, semantic priming effects increase in size as the proportion of related word-prime/word-target trials (the relatedness proportion) increases (e.g., see de Groot, 1984;den Heyer, 1985;den Heyer, Briand, & Dannenbring, 1983;Neely, Keefe, & Ross, 1989;Seidenberg, Waters, Sanders, & Langer, 1984;Tweedy, Lapinski, & Schvaneveldt, 1977). In the present research, we test Neely and and Neely et al. 's (1989) theoretical analysis of the two mechanisms responsible for this relatedness proportion effect (hereafter RPE) in the LDT.Portions of this research were presented at the 1984 and 1988 meetings of the Midwestern Psychological Society in Chicago and were conducted by Dennis E. Keefe in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MS degree at Purdue University, under the direction of James H. Neely. We thank Henry L. Roediger III and Richard Schweickert, who also served on the MS committee. We also thank Gordon Logan and David Balota for their helpful comments. Finally, we thank Kim Brady and Kent Ross for testing some of the subjects.

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).…”

“…It should be noted here that these task characteristics are probably not specific to lexical decision, since relatedness proportion RT effects have also been reported when using the pronunciation task (cf. Keefe & Neely, 1990). In other words, the presence of a binary decision component in the lexical decision task is insufficient explanation for the occurrence of expectancy-induced effects.…”

“…On the basis of an analysis of relatedness proportion effects in both lexical decision and pronunciation, Keefe and Neely (1990) conclude that the relatedness proportion effect ''. .…”

Accessing different types of lexical semantic information: Evidence from priming.

“…Although it is often argued that a naming task reflects automatic priming to a greater extent than lexical decision (Balota & Chumbley, 1985;Seidenberg et al, 1984), recent studies have suggested that it may be susceptible to some of the same strategic influences (Keefe & Neely, 1990). Instead, we decided to stick with the lexical-decision task, although we used a single-word presentation procedure, rather than the standard method, in which each prime and target is presented as a distinct pair.…”

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.…”