Effects of semantic context and expectancy in a lexical decision and naming task

Abstract

Reported differences in the sensitivity of the lexical decision and naming tasks to postlexical processes was investigated in a single-word priming study. Relatedness probability was manipulated with an “induction set” presented to subjects prior to the onset of the actual test stimuli. In the naming task, exposure to an induction set with a high probability of related word pairs produced both facilitation and inhibition, whereas exposure to an induction set with a high probability of unrelated word pairs resulted in similar response times to all word targets. Significant facilitation was observed in the lexical decision task, regardless of the relatedness probability of the induction set. These data suggest that under certain circumstances the naming task is sensitive to postrecognition contextual effects, and they do not support the use of the lexical decision and naming tasks as methodological tools with which to a priori distinguish pre- and post-contextual effects in word recognition.