Rhyme priming of pictures and words: A lexical activation account.

Abstract

Orthographically/phonologically related primes have typically been found to facilitate processing of target words. This phenomenon is usually explained in terms of spreading activation between nodes for orthographically/phonologically similar words in lexical memory. The phenomenon was explored in a series of studies involving the manipulations of prime and target type (word or picture) and prime and target task (naming or categorization). Generally, the results support the lexical activation explanation. Named primes, which activate lexical memory, facilitate processing in all target tasks involving lexical access (word and picture naming and word categorization), independent of prime type. Categorized primes show the expected Prime Type x Relatedness interaction with word primes, which activate lexical memory, producing much more facilitation than picture primes. Finally, unlike in semantic priming studies, increased depth of processing of a word prime decreased the size of the priming effects. Apparently, initial activation levels in lexical memory are not maintained when semantic processing of the prime is required. One of the major issues being addressed by cognitive psychologists is how context affects the processing of new information. Especially fruitful in this regard has been the priming paradigm first reported by Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971). In a typical priming task, two stimuli are presented sequentially. The first, or prime, stimulus establishes a particular context. Empirically, the question is whether this context affects processing of the second, or target, stimulus.