Abstract
Abstract Words can be named more rapidly when they occur in a related context than in an unrelated context. This improvement is more pronounced for words that are initially more difficult to recognize. Stanovich and West (1983) attributed both of these semantic priming effects to the process of automatic spreading activation. Experiments 1 and 2 supported this interpretation by demonstrating that an increased semantic priming effect occurred for the more difficult words when the prime was masked below recognition threshold. Experiment 3 replicated this effect with above-threshold primes. The adequacy of the thresholds for the masked primes in Experiments 1 and 2 was tested through a block of posttest forced-choice trials. Analysis of these trials strongly supported the conclusion that the magnitude of the semantic priming effect was not positively related to the ability of the subjects to recognize the masked primes.
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