Semantic Priming Effects Research Articles

The N400 Event-Related Brain Potential as an Index of Social Functional Outcome in Patients at Clinical High Risk for Schizophrenia

The N400 event-related brain potential (ERP) response to meaningful stimuli is reduced for stimuli that are related versus unrelated to a preceding prime stimulus. This N400 semantic priming effect is thought to reflect greater activation of more related concepts in long-term semantic memory. This effect has been found to be attenuated in patients at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. We tested the hypothesis that N400 semantic priming reductions would predict symptomatic and functional outcomes after one year in CHR patients.

All roads lead to Rome: Semantic priming between language and arithmetic

This study evaluated the existence of universal principles of cognition, common to language and arithmetic. Specifically, we analysed cross-domain semantic priming between affirmative sentences and additions, and between negative sentences and subtractions. To this end, we developed and tested a new priming procedure composed of prime sentences and target arithmetic operations. On each trial, participants had to read an affirmative or negative sentence (e.g., “The circle is red”, “The square is not yellow”) and select, between two images, the one that matched the meaning of the sentence. Afterwards, participants had to solve a one-digit addition or subtraction (e.g., 7 + 4, 6 – 3), either by selecting the correct result between two possible alternatives (Experiment 1), or by verbalizing the result of the operation (Experiment 2). We manipulated the task difficulty of both the sentences and the operations by varying the similarity between the response options for the sentence (Experiment 1 and 2), and the numerical distance between the possible results for the operation (Experiment 1). We found semantic priming for subtractions, so that participants solved subtractions faster after negative versus affirmative sentences, and this effect was modulated by the difficulty of the operation. This is the first study reporting semantic priming effects between language and arithmetic. The outcomes of this work seem to suggest a shared semantic system between both cognitive domains.

The Graded Priming Effect of Semantic Radical on Chinese Character Recognition.

This study used priming paradigm with lexical decision task to examine the effects of different levels of semantic relatedness on the identification of Chinese phonetic–semantic compound characters. Unlike previous studies that simply classify Chinese compound characters as semantically transparent or opaque, we categorize the semantic relatedness between semantic radicals (i.e., prime) and the target characters containing them into five levels: highly related (i.e., high condition; e.g., prime ± vs. target 地), moderately related (i.e., moderate condition; e.g., prime ± vs. target 场), minimally related (i.e., minimal condition; e.g., prime ± vs. target 塔), unrelated but sharing the semantic radical (i.e., form-only condition; e.g., prime ± vs. target 坏), and unrelated without sharing the semantic radical (i.e., control condition; e.g., prime ± vs. target 涌). Moreover, three stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA)s (i.e., 57, 140, and 243 ms) were used in this study to dissociate the radical- and character-level semantic priming effects. Results revealed a graded priming effect of the semantic radical on character recognition in Chinese readers for all SOAs. More specifically, the facilitative effect of the semantic radical on character processing was most evident for the high condition, followed by the minimal, form-only, and control conditions. This suggests a graded priming effect of the semantic radical on character identification.

A longitudinal study of the role of vocabulary size in priming effects in early childhood

Studies on lexical development in young children often suggest that the organization of the early lexicon may vary with age and increasing vocabulary size. In the current study, we explicitly examined this suggestion in further detail using a longitudinal study of the development of phonological and semantic priming effects in the same group of toddlers at three different ages. In particular, our longitudinal design allows us to disentangle effects of increasing age and vocabulary size on priming and the extent to which vocabulary size may predict later priming effects. We tested phonological and semantic priming effects in monolingual German infants at 18, 21, and 24 months of age. We used the intermodal preferential looking paradigm combined with eye tracking to measure the influence of phonologically and semantic related/unrelated primes on target recognition. We found that phonological priming effects were predicted by participants’ current vocabulary size even after controlling for participants’ age and participants’ early vocabulary size. Semantic priming effects were, in contrast, not predicted by vocabulary size. Finally, we also found a relationship between early phonological priming effects and later semantic priming effects as well as between early semantic priming effects and later phonological priming effects, potentially suggesting (limited) consistency in lexical structure across development. Taken together, these results highlight the important role of vocabulary size in the development of priming effects in early childhood.

What masked priming effects with abbreviations can tell us about abstract letter identities.

Models of visual word recognition share the assumption that lexical access is based on abstract letter identities. The present study re-examined the assumption that this is because information about the visual form of the letter is lost early in the course of activating the abstract letter identities. The main support for this assumption has come from the case-independent masked priming effects. Experiment 1 used common English words presented in lowercase as targets in lexical decision, and replicated the oft-reported case-independent identity priming effect (e.g., edge-edge = EDGE-edge). In contrast, Experiment 2 using abbreviations (e.g., DNA, CIA) produced a robust case-dependent identity priming effect (e.g., DNA-DNA < dna-DNA). Experiment 3 used the same abbreviation stimuli as primes in a semantic priming lexical decision experiment. Here the prime case effect was absent, but so was the semantic priming effect (e.g., dna-GENETICS = DNA-GENETICS = LSD-GENETICS). The results question the view that information about the visual form of the letter is lost early. We offer an alternative perspective that the abstract nature of priming for common words stems from how these words are represented in the reader's lexicon. The implication of these findings for letter and word recognition is discussed. (197 words).

Morphological processing in heritage speakers: A masked priming study on the Turkish aorist

AbstractPrevious research has shown that heritage speakers struggle with inflectional morphology. ‘Limitations of online resources’ for processing a non-dominant language has been claimed as one possible reason for these difficulties. To date, however, there is very little experimental evidence on real-time language processing in heritage speakers. Here we report results from a masked priming experiment with 97 bilingual (Turkish/German) heritage speakers and a control group of 40 non-heritage speakers of Turkish examining regular and irregular forms of the Turkish aorist. We found that, for the regular aorist, heritage speakers use the same morphological decomposition mechanism (‘affix stripping’) as control speakers, whereas for processing irregularly inflected forms they exhibited more variability (i.e., less homogeneous performance) than the control group. Heritage speakers also demonstrated semantic priming effects. At a more general level, these results indicate that heritage speakers draw on multiple sources of information for recognizing morphologically complex words.

Semantic priming and reading skills among Spanish-speaking dual language learners

ABSTRACT Substantial research among bilingual adults indicates that exposure to words primes other semantically related words within and across languages, as well as the direct translation equivalents [e.g. Chen and Ng 1989. “Semantic Facilitation and Translation Priming Effects in Chinese-English Bilinguals.” Memory & Cognition 17: 454–462]. However, there is less research on semantic and translation priming among bilingual children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate semantic priming effects as an indicator of underlying lexical quality among Spanish-speaking dual language learners (DLLs) in the U.S., including examination of whether semantic and translation priming effects were related to children’s reading-related skills. Ninety-five Spanish-speaking DLLs in second and fourth grade completed an eye-tracking semantic priming task along with measures of English and Spanish reading-related skills. Results indicated that there were consistent translation priming effects, with observed translation priming stronger from English to Spanish than from Spanish to English. Additionally, there were consistent within-English semantic priming effects. Results suggested that semantic priming effects were stronger for children with higher levels of English vocabulary and reading comprehension than they were for children with lower levels of English vocabulary and reading comprehension. Findings are discussed in the context of theoretical models of bilingual language processing, as well as the lexical quality hypothesis [e.g. Perfetti 2007. “Reading Ability: Lexical Quality to Comprehension.” Scientific Studies of Reading 11: 357–383].

Semantic Priming Effects on the Lexical Switching Task in Children with and without Speech Sound Disorders

ë°°ê²½ 및 ëª©ì  본 연구의 ëª©ì ì€ ë§ì†Œë¦¬ìž¥ì• ë° ì–¸ì–´ìž¥ì• ë™ë°˜ 여부에 따라 달라질 것이라 예상되는 ì˜ë¯¸ì í™” 효과의 양상을 비교하여 ë¹„ì¸ì ‘ë‹¨ê³„ì˜ 상호작용효과를 확인하는 것이다. 방법 4-5세의 ìˆœìˆ˜ë§ì†Œë¦¬ìž¥ì• (pure SSD) 아동 15ëª ê³¼ ì–¸ì–´ìž¥ì• ë¥¼ 동반한 ë§ì†Œë¦¬ìž¥ì• (pure SSD+LD) 아동 10ëª , 일반(TD) 아동 15ëª ì„ 대상으로 ì–´íœ˜ì „í™˜ê³¼ì œë¥¼ 실시하였다. ì–´íœ˜ì „í™˜ê³¼ì œëŠ” ë¹ ë¥´ê²Œ ì „í™˜ë˜ëŠ” 두 개의 그림을 ëª ëª í•˜ëŠ” ê³¼ì œë¡œ, ì˜ë¯¸ê´€ë ¨ 여부에 따라 ì˜ë¯¸ê´€ë ¨ ì¡°ê±´ê³¼ ì˜ë¯¸ë¹„ê´€ë ¨ 조건으로 구분되었다. 이때의 ìˆ˜í–‰ë ¥ì€ 반응에 대한 속도와 ì •í™•ë„ë¡œ ì¸¡ì •í•˜ì˜€ìœ¼ë©°, 오반응에 대한 ì˜¤ë¥˜ìœ í˜•ì„ 분석하였다. ê²°ê³¼ 첫째, 반응속도는 ì˜ë¯¸ê´€ë ¨ì¡°ê±´ì— 한해 pure SSD 집단과 TD 집단 간 차이가 ìœ ì˜í•˜ì§€ 않았다. 둘째, ë°˜ì‘ì •í™•ë„ëŠ” pure SSD 집단과 TD 집단 간 차이가 ìœ ì˜í•˜ì˜€ìœ¼ë©°, SSD+LD 집단의 경우 집단 내 ì˜ë¯¸ê´€ë ¨ 여부에 따른 차이가 ìœ ì˜í•˜ì§€ 않았다. ì ‹ì§¸, pure SSD 집단과 SSD+LD 집단 간 ì˜¤ë¥˜ìœ í˜•ì„ 비교한 ê²°ê³¼, pure SSD 집단은 비 ê´€ë ¨ì˜¤ë¥˜ê°€, SSD+LD 집단은 형태오류가 ìœ ì˜í•˜ê²Œ 많이 발생하였다. ë ¼ì˜ 및 ê²°ë¡ ê° 단계의 양방향 간 상호작용이 ì •ì ì í™” 효과의 ê°ì‡ ë¥¼ 초래함을 ì¦ëª í•˜ì˜€ê³ , 이는 íŠ¹ì • 영역에 결함이 있는 ì˜ì‚¬ì†Œí†µìž¥ì• ì— 관한 연구가 보다 광범위한 영역에서 실현되어야 함을 시사한다. Keywords: ë§ì†Œë¦¬ìž¥ì• , ì˜ë¯¸ì í™”, ë¹„ì¸ì ‘ë‹¨ê³„ì˜ 상호작용 효과

Influence of semantic priming and word frequency on homograph processing

Semantic priming and word frequency effects have been actively researched to provide insights into the cognitive process, attention, memory, and applications in computational models for translation. This paper investigated the influence of semantic priming and word frequency on visual word recognition by native speakers of English. Three experiments were conducted to throw light on the mechanism of meaning activation based on how the homographs were processed in isolation and in contexts with semantic priming. The homographs used in the present study were ones with the same spellings, but with different pronunciation and meanings. Thus, the reading of the words would give clues to which meaning was activated. The findings suggest that the word frequency and personal familiarity have more influence on the choice of meaning activation of homographs than semantic priming.

Do visible semantic primes preactivate lexical representations?

Considerable research effort has been devoted to investigating semantic priming effects, particularly, the locus of those effects. Semantically related primes might activate their target's lexical representation (through automatic spreading activation at short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), or through generation of words expected to follow the prime at longer SOAs). Alternately, semantically related primes might aid responding after target identification (i.e., postlexically). In contrast, masked orthographic priming effects appear to be lexical and automatic. Lexical processing of targets is facilitated by orthographically similar nonword primes and often inhibited by orthographically similar word primes (Davis & Lupker, 2006). Using the lexical-decision task (LDT), we found additivity between the facilitative effects of visible semantic primes and the facilitative effects of masked orthographically similar nonword primes at long and short SOAs, consistent with a postlexical locus of the semantic priming effects. Also consistent with this conclusion, semantic primes affected the skew of the distribution (larger effects on longer latency trials), whereas masked orthographic primes did not. In a final experiment, visible primes that were semantically related to the masked orthographic word primes did not make those primes more effective lexical inhibitors of orthographically similar targets (independent of SOA). Taken together, our findings suggest that the impact of a semantic prime is not to increase the lexical activation of related concepts. Rather, they suggest that the locus of semantic priming effects in LDTs is postlexical, in that discovering the existence of a relationship between the prime and target biases participants to make a "word" response. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The automaticity of semantic processing revisited: Auditory distraction by a categorical deviation.

Automatic information processing has been and still is a debated topic. Traditionally, automatic processes are deemed to take place autonomously and independently of top-down cognitive control. For decades, the literature on reading has brought to the fore empirical phenomena such as Stroop and semantic priming effects that provide support for the assumption that semantic information can be accessed automatically. More recently, there has been growing evidence that semantic processing is in fact susceptible to higher-level cognitive influences, suggesting that this form of processing is instead conditionally automatic. The purpose of the present study was to revisit this debate using a novel approach: The automatic access to the meaning of irrelevant auditory stimuli was tested through the assessment of their distractive power. More specifically, we aimed to examine whether a categorical change in the content of to-be-ignored auditory sequences composed of speech items that are personally nonsignificant to participants (e.g., a digit among letters) can disrupt an unrelated visual focal task. In seven experiments, we assessed this categorical deviation effect and its functional properties. We established that distraction by categorical deviation is noncontingent on the activated task set and appears resistant to top-down control manipulations. By suggesting not only that the semantic content of the irrelevant sound can be extracted preattentively, but also that such semantic activation is ineluctable during auditory distraction, these findings shed new light on the automatic nature of semantic processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Semantic Priming in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Healthy Subjects: Effect of Different Time of Presentation of Word-Pairs.

Introduction: Semantic memory is impaired in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Two main hypotheses about this finding are debated and refer to the degradation of stored knowledge versus the impairment of semantic access mechanisms. The aim of our study is to evaluate semantic impairment in MCI versus healthy subjects (HS) by an experiment evaluating semantic priming. Methods: We enrolled 27 MCI and 20 HS. MCI group were divided, according to follow up, into converters-MCI and non converters-MCI. The semantic task consisted of 108 pairs of words, 54 of which were semantically associated. Stimuli were presented 250 or 900 ms later the appearance of the target in a randomized manner. Data were analyzed using factorial ANOVA. Results: Both HS and MCI answered more quickly for word than for non-word at both stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) intervals. At 250 ms, both MCI and HS experienced a shorter time of response for related-word than for unrelated words (priming effect), while only the converters-MCI subgroup lost the priming effect. Further, we observed a rather larger Cohen’s d effect size in non converters-MCI than in converters-MCI. Conclusion: Our data, and in particular the absence of a semantic priming effect in converters-MCI, could reflect the impairment of semantic knowledge rather than the accessibility of semantic stores in MCI individuals that progress to dementia.

Consistency measures individuate dissociating semantic modulations in priming paradigms: A new look on semantics in the processing of (complex) words.

In human language the mapping between form and meaning is arbitrary, as there is no direct connection between words and the objects that they represent. However, within a given language, it is possible to recognise systematic associations that support productivity and comprehension. In this work, we focus on the consistency between orthographic forms and meaning, and we investigate how the cognitive system may exploit it to process words. We take morphology as our case study, since it arguably represents one of the most notable examples of systematicity in form-meaning mapping. In a series of three experiments, we investigate the impact of form-meaning mapping in word processing by testing new consistency metrics as predictors of priming magnitude in primed lexical decision. In Experiment 1, we re-analyse data from five masked morphological priming studies and show that orthography-semantics-consistency explains independent variance in priming magnitude, suggesting that word semantics is accessed already at early stages of word processing and that crucially semantic access is constrained by word orthography. In Experiments 2 and 3, we investigate whether this pattern is replicated when looking at semantic priming. In Experiment 2, we show that orthography-semantics-consistency is not a viable predictor of priming magnitude with longer stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). However, in Experiment 3, we develop a new semantic consistency measure based on the semantic density of target neighbourhoods. This measure is shown to significantly predict independent variance in semantic priming effect. Overall, our results indicate that consistency measures provide crucial information for the understanding of word processing. Specifically, the dissociation between measures and priming paradigms shows that different priming conditions are associated with the activation of different semantic cohorts.

Effects of spacing on contextual vocabulary learning: Spacing facilitates the acquisition of explicit, but not tacit, vocabulary knowledge

Studies examining decontextualized associative vocabulary learning have shown that long spacing between encounters with an item facilitates learning more than short or no spacing, a phenomenon known as distributed practice effect. However, the effect of spacing on learning words in context is less researched and the results, so far, are inconsistent. In this study, we compared the effect of massed and spaced distributions on second language vocabulary learning from reading. Japanese speakers of English encountered 48 novel vocabulary items embedded in informative English sentences, inferred their meanings from contexts, and received feedback in the form of English synonyms and Japanese translation equivalents. To test the hypothesis that the effects of spacing might differentially affect the development of explicit or tacit word knowledge, spacing effects were measured using semantic priming as well as a meaning recall and a meaning–form matching posttest. Results showed an advantage of spaced over massed learning on the meaning recall and meaning–form matching posttests. However, a similar semantic priming effect was observed irrespective of whether an item was encountered in the massed or spaced distribution. These results suggest that the spacing effect holds in contextual word learning for the development of explicit vocabulary knowledge, but massing appears to be as effective as spacing for the acquisition of tacit semantic knowledge.

Direct and indirect effects of semantic priming in motor planning and control.

Semantic priming is known to affect actions. For example, the word SMALL or LARGE appearing on an object to be grasped affects grip aperture. We presented the words LONG or SHORT shortly before, during, or after the brief presentation of a line segment and measured whether this semantic prime affected the extent of a movement to the line's end point. Priming was observed with only early presentation of the word. A 2nd experiment demonstrated that little priming was observed when the apparent line length was not relevant to the required movements. Finally, a 3rd experiment found that substantial priming was found under comparable presentation conditions when participants merely made perceptual length judgments. These results suggest that semantic priming primarily affects the representation of the line length, not the planning or control of the movement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Impairments in Probabilistic Prediction and Bayesian Learning Can Explain Reduced Neural Semantic Priming in Schizophrenia.

It has been proposed that abnormalities in probabilistic prediction and dynamic belief updating explain the multiple features of schizophrenia. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to ask whether these abnormalities can account for the well-established reduction in semantic priming observed in schizophrenia under nonautomatic conditions. We isolated predictive contributions to the neural semantic priming effect by manipulating the prime's predictive validity and minimizing retroactive semantic matching mechanisms. We additionally examined the link between prediction and learning using a Bayesian model that probed dynamic belief updating as participants adapted to the increase in predictive validity. We found that patients were less likely than healthy controls to use the prime to predictively facilitate semantic processing on the target, resulting in a reduced N400 effect. Moreover, the trial-by-trial output of our Bayesian computational model explained between-group differences in trial-by-trial N400 amplitudes as participants transitioned from conditions of lower to higher predictive validity. These findings suggest that, compared with healthy controls, people with schizophrenia are less able to mobilize predictive mechanisms to facilitate processing at the earliest stages of accessing the meanings of incoming words. This deficit may be linked to a failure to adapt to changes in the broader environment. This reciprocal relationship between impairments in probabilistic prediction and Bayesian learning/adaptation may drive a vicious cycle that maintains cognitive disturbances in schizophrenia.

Faster might not be better: Pictures may not elicit a stronger unconscious priming effect than words when modulated by semantic similarity.

It has been suggested that unconscious semantic processing is stimulus-dependent, and that pictures might have privileged access to semantic content. Those findings led to the hypothesis that unconscious semantic priming effect for pictorial stimuli would be stronger as compared to verbal stimuli. This effect was tested on pictures and words by manipulating the semantic similarity between the prime and target stimuli. Participants performed a masked priming categorization task for either words or pictures with three semantic similarity conditions: strongly similar, weakly similar, and non-similar. Significant differences in reaction times were only found between strongly similar and non-similar and between weakly similar and non-similar, for both pictures and words, with faster overall responses for pictures as compared to words. Nevertheless, pictures showed no superior priming effect over words. This could suggest the hypothesis that even though semantic processing is faster for pictures, this does not imply a stronger unconscious priming effect.

Semantic priming effects can be modulated by crosslinguistic interactions during second-language auditory word recognition

AbstractThe current study investigates how second languageauditoryword recognition, in early and highly proficient Spanish–Basque (L1-L2) bilinguals, is influenced by crosslinguistic phonological-lexical interactions and semantic priming. Phonological overlap between a word and its translation equivalent (phonological cognate status), and semantic relatedness of a preceding prime were manipulated. Experiment 1 examined word recognition performance in noisy listening conditions that introduce a high degree of uncertainty, whereas Experiment 2 employed clear listening conditions, with low uncertainty. Under noisy listening conditions, semantic priming effects interacted with phonological cognate status: for word recognition accuracy, a related prime overcame inhibitory effects of phonological overlap between target words and their translations. These findings are consistent with models of bilingual word recognition that incorporate crosslinguistic phonological-lexical-semantic interactions. Moreover, they suggest an interplay between L2-L1 interactions and the integration of information across acoustic and semantic levels of processing in flexibly mapping the speech signal onto the spoken words, under adverse listening conditions.

Electrophysiological Differentiation of the Effects of Stress and Accent on Lexical Integration in Highly Fluent Bilinguals

Individuals who acquire a second language (L2) after infancy often retain features of their native language (L1) accent. Cross-language priming studies have shown negative effects of L1 accent on L2 comprehension, but the role of specific speech features, such as lexical stress, is mostly unknown. Here, we investigate whether lexical stress and accent differently modulate semantic processing and cross-language lexical activation in Welsh–English bilinguals, given that English and Welsh differ substantially in terms of stress realisation. In an L2 cross-modal priming paradigm, we manipulated the stress pattern and accent of spoken primes, whilst participants made semantic relatedness judgments on visual word targets. Event-related brain potentials revealed a main effect of stress on target integration, such that stimuli with stress patterns compatible with either the L1 or L2 required less processing effort than stimuli with stress incompatible with both Welsh and English. An independent cross-language phonological overlap manipulation revealed an interaction between accent and L1 access. Interestingly, although it increased processing effort, incorrect stress did not significantly modulate semantic priming effects or covert access to L1 phonological representations. Our results are consistent with the concept of language-specific stress templates, and suggest that accent and lexical stress affect speech comprehension mechanisms differentially.

SEMANTIC PRIMING EFFECT ON SURVEY RESULTS

This article presents the findings of an experimental study focusing on the effect of semantic priming on survey respondents. The study involved manipulation of survey questions so that one version included priming triggers and the other one did not. The two versions of the survey were tested on two groups of Canadians (50 respondents each). The results confirmed the authors’ hypotheses, as they demonstrated that the inclusion of the priming triggers activated the relevant concepts in respondents’ minds and, as a result, they included concepts similar to those triggers in their responses to open-ended questions. To be precise, respondents who were exposed to priming triggers “one”, “first” and “three”, as well as “saving on food”, were significantly more likely to say they shop one or three times a week and to recall the grocery store “Save-On-Foods” in an unaided recall qustion. The findings in this study have theoretical and empirical significance and should be taken into consideration by all the researchers who design questionnaires in their research projects. Based on this research, one can conclude that a researcher who designs questionnaires should be cautions and make sure to sequence questions in a way that would minimize the priming effect on questions following priming triggers.