Facilitatory Priming Research Articles

Auditory morphological processing: Evidence from phonological priming

Using an auditory lexical decision task, we find evidence of a facilitatory priming effect for morphologically complex targets (e.g., snow-ed) preceded by primes which rhyme with the target’s stem (e.g., dough). By using rhyme priming, we are able to probe for morphological processing in a way that avoids confounds arising from semantic relatedness that are inherent to morphological priming (snow/snow-ed). Phonological control conditions (e.g., targets code and grove for prime dough) are used to rule out alternative interpretations of the effect that are based on partial rhyme or phonological embedding of the stem. The findings provide novel evidence for an independent morphological component in lexical processing and demonstrate the utility of rhyme priming in probing morphological representation.

Is the L2 lexicon different from the L1 lexicon? Evidence from novel word lexicalization

Studies on the representation of newly learned words in the native language show that after repeated sessions of learning, novel words produce less form priming than nonwords when they are used as primes in a masked priming experiment. This suggests that the newly learned words have established lexical representations, and therefore start to behave more like real words than nonwords (Qiao & Forster, 2013). Since adult language learning normally happens in a foreign language context rather than in the native language context, it is important to see whether similar results could be obtained if bilingual subjects were taught novel words in their second language (L2) rather than their first language (L1). The current experiment explores this issue using the same procedure and materials as used in the L1 experiment. Results show that in contrast to the nonsignificant priming observed with the L1 speakers, L2 speakers show enhanced facilitatory priming after the same training process. In addition, a significant facilitatory priming effect is also obtained with real words as primes, suggesting that the L1 and L2 lexicons might work in rather different ways. One possibility is that the L2 lexicon is not represented in the same type of memory system as the L1 lexicon, rather it is represented in a system where competitive effects are not observed.

Bilingual and Monolingual Idiom Processing Is Cut from the Same Cloth: The Role of the L1 in Literal and Figurative Meaning Activation.

The present study examines non-native (L2) and native (L1) listeners' access to figurative idiomatic meaning and literal constituent meaning in two cross-modal priming experiments. Proficient German learners of English (L2) and native speakers of American English (L1) responded to English target words preceded by English idioms embedded in non-biasing prime sentences in a lexical decision task. English idioms differed in levels of translatability: Lexical level idioms had word-for-word translation equivalents in German, while post-lexical level idioms had matching idiomatic concepts in German but could not be translated word for word. Target words either related to the figurative meaning of the idiom or related to the literal meaning of the final constituent word of the idiom (e.g., to pull someone's leg, literal target: walk, figurative target: joke). Both L1 and L2 listeners showed facilitatory priming for literally- and figuratively-related target words compared to unrelated control target words, with only marginal differences between the listener groups. No effect of translatability was found; that is, the existence of word-for-word translation equivalents in German neither facilitated nor hindered meaning activation for German L2 listeners. The results are interpreted in the context of L1 and L2 models of idiom processing as well as further relevant translation studies.

Attention and implicit memory: priming-induced benefits and costs have distinct attentional requirements.

Attention at encoding plays a critical and ubiquitous role in explicit memory performance, but its role in implicit memory performance (i.e., priming) is more variable: some, but not all, priming effects are reduced by division of attention at encoding. A wealth of empirical and theoretical work has aimed to define the critical features of priming effects that do or do not require attention at encoding. This work, however, has focused exclusively on priming effects that are beneficial in nature (wherein performance is enhanced by prior exposure to task stimuli), and has overlooked priming effects that are costly in nature (wherein performance is harmed by prior exposure to task stimuli). The present study takes up this question by examining the effect of divided attention on priming-induced costs and benefits in a speeded picture-naming task. Experiment 1 shows that the costs, but not the benefits, are eliminated by division of attention at encoding. Experiment 2 shows that the costs (as well as the benefits) in this task are intact in amnesic participants, demonstrating that the elimination of the cost in the divided attention condition in Experiment 1 was not an artifact of the reduced availability of explicit memory in that condition. We suggest that the differential role of attention in priming-induced performance costs and benefits is linked to differences in response competition associated with these effects. This interpretation situates the present findings within a theoretical framework that has been applied to a broad range of facilitatory priming effects.

Phonological and orthographic overlap effects in fast and masked priming.

We investigated how orthographic and phonological information is activated during reading, using a fast priming task, and during single-word recognition, using masked priming. Specifically, different types of overlap between prime and target were contrasted: high orthographic and high phonological overlap (track-crack), high orthographic and low phonological overlap (bear-gear), or low orthographic and high phonological overlap (fruit-chute). In addition, we examined whether (orthographic) beginning overlap (swoop-swoon) yielded the same priming pattern as end (rhyme) overlap (track-crack). Prime durations were 32 and 50 ms in the fast priming version and 50 ms in the masked priming version, and mode of presentation (prime and target in lower case) was identical. The fast priming experiment showed facilitatory priming effects when both orthography and phonology overlapped, with no apparent differences between beginning and end overlap pairs. Facilitation was also found when prime and target only overlapped orthographically. In contrast, the masked priming experiment showed inhibition for both types of end overlap pairs (with and without phonological overlap) and no difference for begin overlap items. When prime and target only shared principally phonological information, facilitation was only found with a long prime duration in the fast priming experiment, while no differences were found in the masked priming version. These contrasting results suggest that fast priming and masked priming do not necessarily tap into the same type of processing.

Automaticity and Stability of Adaptation to a Foreign-Accented Speaker.

In three cross-modal priming experiments we asked whether adaptation to a foreign-accented speaker is automatic, and whether adaptation can be seen after a long delay between initial exposure and test. Dutch listeners were exposed to a Hebrew-accented Dutch speaker with two types of Dutch words: those that contained [I] (globally accented words), and those in which the Dutch [i] was shortened to [I] (specific accent marker words). Experiment 1, which served as a baseline, showed that native Dutch participants showed facilitatory priming for globally accented, but not specific accent, words. In experiment 2, participants performed a 3.5-minute phoneme monitoring task, and were tested on their comprehension of the accented speaker 24 hours later using the same cross-modal priming task as in experiment 1. During the phoneme monitoring task, listeners were asked to detect a consonant that was not strongly accented. In experiment 3, the delay between exposure and test was extended to 1 week. Listeners in experiments 2 and 3 showed facilitatory priming for both globally accented and specific accent marker words. Together, these results show that adaptation to a foreign-accented speaker can be rapid and automatic, and can be observed after a prolonged delay in testing.

Positional priming of pop-out is nested in visuospatial context

The present study investigated facilitatory and inhibitory positional priming using a variant of Maljkovic and Nakayama's (1996) priming of pop-out task. Here, the singleton target and the distractors could be presented in different visuospatial contexts—but identical screen locations—across trials, permitting positional priming based on individual locations to be disentangled from priming based on interitem configural relations. The results revealed both significant facilitatory priming, i.e., faster reaction times (RTs) to target presented at previous target relative to previously empty locations, and inhibitory priming, i.e., slower RTs to target at previous distractor relative to previously empty locations. However, both effects were contingent on repetitions versus changes of stimulus arrangement: While facilitation of target locations was dependent on the repetition of the exact item configuration (e.g., T-type followed by T-type stimulus arrangement), the inhibitory effect was more “tolerant,” being influenced by repetitions versus changes of the item's visuospatial category (T-type followed by Z-type pattern; cf. Garner & Clement, 1963). The results suggest that facilitatory and inhibitory priming are distinct phenomena (Finke et al., 2009) and that both effects are sensitive to subtle information about the arrangement of the display items (Geyer, Zehetleitner, & Muller, 2010). The results are discussed with respect to the stage(s) of visual pop-out search that are influenced by positional priming.

Positional priming of pop-out is nested in visuospatial context

The present study investigated facilitatory and inhibitory positional priming using a variant of Maljkovic and Nakayama's (1996) priming of pop-out task. Here, the singleton target and the distractors could be presented in different visuospatial contexts-but identical screen locations-across trials, permitting positional priming based on individual locations to be disentangled from priming based on interitem configural relations. The results revealed both significant facilitatory priming, i.e., faster reaction times (RTs) to target presented at previous target relative to previously empty locations, and inhibitory priming, i.e., slower RTs to target at previous distractor relative to previously empty locations. However, both effects were contingent on repetitions versus changes of stimulus arrangement: While facilitation of target locations was dependent on the repetition of the exact item configuration (e.g., T-type followed by T-type stimulus arrangement), the inhibitory effect was more "tolerant," being influenced by repetitions versus changes of the item's visuospatial category (T-type followed by Z-type pattern; cf. Garner & Clement, 1963). The results suggest that facilitatory and inhibitory priming are distinct phenomena (Finke et al., 2009) and that both effects are sensitive to subtle information about the arrangement of the display items (Geyer, Zehetleitner, & Müller, 2010). The results are discussed with respect to the stage(s) of visual pop-out search that are influenced by positional priming.

Tolerance for inconsistency in foreign-accented speech

Are listeners able to adapt to a foreign-accented speaker who has, as is often the case, an inconsistent accent? Two groups of native Dutch listeners participated in a cross-modal priming experiment, either in a consistent-accent condition (German-accented items only) or in an inconsistent-accent condition (German-accented and nativelike pronunciations intermixed). The experimental words were identical for both groups (words with vowel substitutions characteristic of German-accented speech); additional contextual words differed in accentedness (German-accented or nativelike words). All items were spoken by the same speaker: a German native who could produce the accented forms but could also pass for a Dutch native speaker. Listeners in the consistent-accent group were able to adapt quickly to the speaker (i.e., showed facilitatory priming for words with vocalic substitutions). Listeners in the inconsistent-accent condition showed adaptation to words with vocalic substitutions only in the second half of the experiment. These results indicate that adaptation to foreign-accented speech is rapid. Accent inconsistency slows listeners down initially, but a short period of additional exposure is enough for them to adapt to the speaker. Listeners can therefore tolerate inconsistency in foreign-accented speech.

Unconscious congruency priming from unpracticed words is modulated by prime–target semantic relatedness.

Participants performed a 2-choice categorization task on visible word targets that were preceded by novel (unpracticed) prime words. The prime words were presented for 33 ms and followed either immediately (Experiments 1-3) or after a variable delay (Experiments 1 and 4) by a pattern mask. Both subjective and objective measures of prime visibility were used in all experiments. On 80% of the trials the primes and targets belonged to different categories (incongruent trials), whereas in the remaining 20% (congruent trials) they could be either strong or weak semantically related category members. Positive congruency effects (reaction times faster on congruent than on incongruent trials) were consistently found, but only when the mask immediately followed the primes, and participants reported being unaware of the identity of the primes. Primes followed by a delayed mask (such that participants reported being aware of their identity) produced either nonreliable facilitation or reliable reversed priming (strategic), depending on whether the prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony was either short (200 ms; Experiments 1 and 4) or long (1,000 ms; Experiment 4). Facilitatory priming with immediate mask was found strong (a) even for participants who performed at chance in prime visibility tests; and (b) for high but not for weakly semantically related category coordinates, irrespective of category size (animals, body parts). These findings provide evidence that unconscious congruency priming by unpracticed words from large stimulus sets critically depends on associative strength and/or semantic similarity between category coexemplars.

HMPG’s long-time torch bearers sally forth

Two academic stalwarts who have led the transformation of SAMA’s general medical journals (SAMJ and CME) and its 10 specialist medical journals, last month left the helm of their sturdy purpose-crafted business ship, the Health and Medical Publishing Group (HMPG). Professor Dan Ncayiyana, an obstetrician/gynaecologist, thus becomes the second-longest serving SAMJ Editor (20 years and the first black editor), after its founder Dr W Darley-Hartley (1884 - 1889 and 1903 - 1926). His deputy, Professor JP van Niekerk, a radiologist and the prime facilitator in setting up the HMPG – an independent, arm’s-length business entity run on behalf of SAMA – was Managing Editor for 11 years.

Facilitatory priming of scene layout depends on experience with the scene

Facilitatory scene priming is the positive effect of a scene prime on the immediately subsequent spatial processing of a related target, relative to control primes. In the present experiments, a large set of scenes were presented, each several times. The accuracy of a relational spatial-layout judgment was the main measure (which of two probes in a scene was closer?). The effect of scene primes on sensitivity was near zero for the first presentation of a scene; advantages for scene primes occurred only after two or three presentations. In addition, a bias effect emerged in reaction times for novel scenes. These results imply that facilitatory scene priming requires learning and is top-down in nature. Scene priming may require the consolidation of interscene relations in a memory representation.

Sub-lexical phonological and semantic processing of semantic radicals: a primed naming study

Most sinograms (i.e., Chinese characters) are phonograms (phonetic compounds). A phonogram is composed of a semantic radical and a phonetic radical, with the former usually implying the meaning of the phonogram, and the latter providing cues to its pronunciation. This study focused on the sub-lexical processing of semantic radicals which are themselves free standing sinograms. Two primed naming experiments were carried out to examine whether the meanings and pronunciations of the semantic radicals embedded in phonograms were activated or not during sinogram recognition. In Experiment 1, semantically opaque phonograms were used as primes. We observed facilitatory priming effects for targets which were semantically related to the semantic radicals embedded in primes, but not to the primes themselves. These effects were present for low-frequency primes, but not for high-frequency primes. Experiment 2 used only low-frequency phonograms as primes. We observed facilitatory priming effects for targets which were homophones of the semantic radicals embedded in primes, but not of the primes themselves. These results suggest that sub-lexical semantic and phonological information of semantic radicals are activated, and that the activation processes are modulated by the lexical frequency of the host phonograms. Our study shows that sub-lexical processing of semantic radicals is similar to that of phonetic radicals, indicating no fundamental difference between sub-lexical processing of semantic and phonetic radicals, supporting the view that a radical has a unique representation irrespective of its function in the orthographic system of Taft’s model.

Influence of spatial attention on conscious and unconscious word priming

We used a qualitative dissociation procedure to assess semantic priming from spatially attended and unattended masked words. Participants categorized target words that were preceded by parafoveal prime words belonging to either the same (20%) or the opposite (80%) category as the target. Using this paradigm, only non-strategic use of the prime would result in facilitation of the target responses in related trials. Primes were immediately masked or masked with a delay, while spatial attention was allocated to the primes' location or away from the primes' location. Immediate masked, strongly related primes facilitated target responses irrespective of the spatial attention. Delayed masked, related primes led to reversed (strategic) or facilitatory priming depending on whether they were cued or uncued. These findings demonstrate that perceiving a stimulus with or without awareness depends on both stimulus quality and attention orienting and that non-strategic priming can be observed from clear visible but spatially unattended words.

Listening to a novel foreign accent, with long lasting effects

In conversation, listeners frequently encounter speakers with foreign accents. Previous research on foreign-accented speech has primarily examined the short-term effects of exposure and the relative ease that listeners have with adapting to an accent. The present study examines the stability of this adaptation, with seven full days between testing sessions. On both days, subjects performed a cross-modal priming task in which they heard several minutes of an unfamiliar accent of their native language: a form of Hebrew-accented Dutch in which long /i:/ was shortened to /I/. During this task on Day 1, recognition of accented forms was not facilitated, compared to that of canonical forms. A week later, when tested on new words, facilitatory priming occurred, comparable to that seen for canonically produced items tested in both sessions. These results suggest that accented forms can be learned from brief exposure and the stable effects of this can be seen a week later.

The relationship between the objective identification threshold and priming effects does not provide a definitive boundary between conscious and unconscious perceptual processes

The Objective Threshold/Strategic Model (OT/S) proposes that strong, qualitative inferences of unconscious perception can be made if the relationship between perceptual sensitivity (typically priming effects) and stimulus visibility is nonlinear and nonmonotonic. The model proposes a nadir in priming effects at the objective identification threshold (identification d'=0). These predictions were tested with masked semantic priming and repetition priming of a lexical decision task. The visibility of the prime stimuli was systematically varied above and below the objective identification threshold. The obtained relationship between prime visibility and priming facilitation was nonlinear, but the results failed to confirm a nadir in priming effects at the objective identification threshold. We conclude that the objective identification threshold does not necessarily indicate the point where presumably unconscious priming effects might be inhibited by conscious cognitive processes.

Lexical precision in skilled readers: Individual differences in masked neighbor priming.

Two experiments investigated the relationship between masked form priming and individual differences in reading and spelling proficiency among university students. Experiment 1 assessed neighbor priming for 4-letter word targets from high- and low-density neighborhoods in 97 university students. The overall results replicated previous evidence of facilitatory neighborhood priming only for low-neighborhood words. However, analyses including measures of reading and spelling proficiency as covariates revealed that better spellers showed inhibitory priming for high-neighborhood words, while poorer spellers showed facilitatory priming. Experiment 2, with 123 participants, replicated the finding of stronger inhibitory neighbor priming in better spellers using 5-letter words and distinguished facilitatory and inhibitory components of priming by comparing neighbor primes with ambiguous and unambiguous partial-word primes (e.g., crow#, cr#wd, crown CROWD). The results indicate that spelling ability is selectively associated with inhibitory effects of lexical competition. The implications for theories of visual word recognition and the lexical quality hypothesis of reading skill are discussed.

Effects of Syntactic Complexity and Sentence-Structure Priming on Speech Initiation Time in Adults Who Stutter

To test the hypotheses that adults who stutter will be slower in producing syntactically complex sentences than fluent adults and will benefit more from sentence-structure priming than will fluent adults. Adults who stutter (n = 15) and fluent adults (n = 15) participated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, adults in both groups were administered a task that required memorization and production of sentences that varied in syntactic complexity. The same individuals who participated in Experiment 1 also participated in Experiment 2. The second experiment required all participants to create and produce sentences under primed and unprimed sentence-structure conditions. Relative to adults who do not stutter, the speech initiation time of fluent utterances of adults who stutter became increasingly slower as syntactic complexity increased, and they exhibited greater facilitative effects of sentence-structure priming. In addition, adults who stutter showed a significant correlation between syntactic complexity and priming facilitation. Data from these experiments confirmed both hypotheses and provided evidence that a subgroup of adults who stutter have grammatical encoding differences when compared with adults who do not stutter.

Competition Effects in Phonological Priming: The Role of Mismatch Position between Primes and Targets

In three experiments, we examined lexical competition effects using the phonological priming paradigm in a shadowing task. Experiments 1A and 1B showed that an inhibitory priming effect occurred when the primes mismatched the targets on the last phoneme (/bagar/-/bagaj/). In contrast, a facilitatory priming effect was observed when the primes mismatched the targets on the medial phoneme (/viraj/-/vilaj/). Experiment 2 replicated these findings with primes presented visually rather than auditorily. The data thus indicate that the position of the mismatching phoneme is a critical factor in determining the competition effect between prime and target words.

Inhibitory and facilitatory location priming in patients with left-sided visual hemi-neglect

In visual search for pop-out targets, reaction times are facilitated when the target on the current trial appears at a previous target location, and inhibited when it appears at a previous distractor location, relative to when it appears at a previously empty (neutral) location (Maljkovic and Nakayama, Perception and Psychophysics 58:977-991, 1996). However, while normal subjects are able to positively/negatively tag selected target/rejected distractor locations to guide search on the next trial, patients with visual hemi-neglect may have a (uni- or bilateral) deficit in these functions that may contribute to their disturbed visual scanning behavior. To examine this, using a pop-out search task, the present study assessed cross-trial facilitatory and inhibitory priming in 14 patients with left-sided visual hemi-neglect and in 14 age-, education-, and IQ-matched control subjects. The group of neglect patients did show significant facilitatory and inhibitory priming. However, while control subjects exhibited balanced effects of facilitation and inhibition, inhibition was relatively reduced in magnitude in neglect patients. In particular, inhibition was virtually absent in two patients with lesions affecting superior regions of the frontal cortex, putatively encroaching on the frontal eye field of the right hemisphere. These findings provide neuropsychological evidence that facilitatory and inhibitory priming effects are based on dissociable mechanisms, consistent with Geyer et al. (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 33:788-797, 2007).