Perceptual learning accounts of orthographic coding predict that transposed-letter (TL) priming effects should be smaller when the prime and target stimuli are not presented in their canonical ...(left-to-right horizontal in English) orientation (Dehaene, Cohen, Sigman, & Vinckier, 2005; Grainger & Holcomb, 2009). In contrast, abstract letter unit accounts would propose that TL priming effects should be essentially unaffected by presenting stimuli in most unfamiliar text orientations (Witzel, Qiao, & Forster, 2011). In the present experiments, we examined masked TL priming effects with primes and targets presented in 3 different text orientations (e.g., 0°, as well as 90° and 180° rotations). Results revealed that the magnitude of the TL priming effect with native English readers was equivalent for stimuli presented in these three orientations, providing support for abstract letter unit accounts of orthographic coding.
In the Stroop task, the identities of the targets (e.g., colours) and distractors (e.g., words) used are often correlated. For example, in a list in which 4 words and 4 colours are combined to form ...16 stimuli, each of the 4 congruent stimuli is typically repeated 3 times as often as each of the 12 incongruent stimuli. Some accounts of the Stroop effect suggest that in this type of list, often considered as a baseline because of the matching proportion of congruent and incongruent stimuli (50%), the word dimension actually receives more attention than it does in an uncorrelated list in which words and colours are randomly paired. This increased attention would be an important determinant of the Stroop effect in correlated situations, an idea supported by the observation that higher target-distractor correlation lists are associated with larger Stroop effects. However, because target-distractor correlation tends to be confounded with congruency proportion in common designs, the latter may be the crucial factor, consistent with accounts that propose that attention is adapted to the list's congruency proportion. In four experiments, we examined the idea that target-distractor correlation plays a major role in colour-word Stroop experiments by contrasting an uncorrelated list with a correlated list matched on relevant variables (e.g., congruency proportion). Both null hypothesis significance testing and Bayesian analyses suggested equivalent Stroop effects in the two lists, challenging accounts based on the idea that target-distractor correlations affect how attention is allocated in the colour-word Stroop task.
Does visuospatial orientation influence repetition and transposed character (TC) priming effects in logographic scripts? According to perceptual learning accounts, the nature of orthographic (form) ...priming effects should be influenced by text orientation (Dehaene, Cohen, Sigman, & Vinckier, 2005; Grainger & Holcomb, 2009). In contrast, Witzel, Qiao, and Forster's (2011) abstract letter unit account argues that the mechanism responsible for such effects acts at a totally abstract orthographic level (i.e., the visuospatial orientation is irrelevant to the nature of the relevant orthographic code). The present experiments expanded this debate beyond alphabetic scripts and the syllabic Kana script used by Witzel et al. to a logographic script (Chinese). Experiment 1 showed masked repetition and TC priming effects with primes and targets presented in both the conventional left-to-right horizontal orientation and the vertical top-to-bottom orientation, replicating Witzel et al. Experiment 2 showed masked repetition and TC priming effects even when both the primes and targets were presented in the right-to-left orientation, a rare but existent text orientation in Chinese. In Experiment 3, the primes, but not the targets, were presented in the right-to-left orientation. Priming effects were again obtained regardless of the fact that the primes and targets appeared in different orientations. Experiment 4, which involved primes and targets presented in a completely novel bottom-to-top orientation, also produced a TC priming effect. These results support abstract letter/character unit accounts of form priming effects while failing to support perceptual learning accounts.
The experiments reported here used "Reversed-Interior" (RI) primes (e.g., cetupmor-COMPUTER) in three different masked priming paradigms in order to test between different models of orthographic ...coding/visual word recognition. The results of Experiment 1, using a standard masked priming methodology, showed no evidence of priming from RI primes, in contrast to the predictions of the Bayesian Reader and LTRS models. By contrast, Experiment 2, using a sandwich priming methodology, showed significant priming from RI primes, in contrast to the predictions of open bigram models, which predict that there should be no orthographic similarity between these primes and their targets. Similar results were obtained in Experiment 3, using a masked prime same-different task. The results of all three experiments are most consistent with the predictions derived from simulations of the Spatial-coding model.
Adapting attention flexibly is a fundamental ability of the human control system. In the color-word Stroop task, for example, congruency effects are typically smaller for colors and words that appear ...mainly in incongruent stimuli (mostly-incongruent items) than for colors and words that appear mainly in congruent stimuli (mostly-congruent items). At least part of this item-specific proportion-congruent (ISPC) effect is due to a process of reactive conflict adaptation that affords higher selectivity (i.e., more efficient selection of task-relevant information) when a specific stimulus is presented that is frequently associated in the experiment with conflicting task-irrelevant information. What is unclear, however, is whether, normally, this stimulus-specific adaptation is triggered by the task-relevant component, the task-irrelevant component, or both components of the stimulus. In two experiments, using modified color-word (Experiment
1
) and spatial (Experiment
2
) Stroop tasks that allowed task-relevant and task-irrelevant triggering processes to be dissociated, we found that the two processes have approximately equivalent impacts. Because these results were obtained in experiments imposing no limitations on the processes potentially contributing to the ISPC effect, these results challenge claims that the ISPC effect involves conflict-adaptation processes only in special situations. The ISPC effect may involve conflict-adaptation processes in most situations, with both task-relevant and task-irrelevant information triggering such processes.
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.
Masked priming has a short and somewhat controversial history. When used as a tool to study whether semantic processing can occur in the absence of conscious awareness, considerable debate followed, ...mainly about whether masked priming truly tapped unconscious processes. For research into other components of visual word processing, however - in particular, orthographic, phonological, and morphological - a general consensus about the evidence provided by masked priming results has emerged. This book contains thirteen original chapters in which these three components of visual word processing are examined using the masked priming procedure. The chapters showcase the advantages of masked priming as an alternative to more standard methods of studying language processing that require comparisons of matched items. Based on a recent conference, this book offers up-to-date research findings, and would be valuable to researchers and students of word recognition, psycholinguistics, or reading.
Preface.
Section 1: Mechanisms. The Mechanics of Masked Priming Kenneth I. Forster, Kathleen Mohan & Jo Hector. An Abstractionist Account of Masked and Long-Term Priming Jeffrey Bowers. A Retrospective View of Masked Priming: Toward a Unified Account of Masked and Long-Term Repetition Priming Michael E.J. Masson & Glen E. Bodner.
Section 2: Orthographics Effects. Transposed-Letter Confusability Effects in Masked Form Priming Manuel Perea & Stephen J. Lupker. Factors Underlying Masked Priming Effects in Competitive Network Models of Visual Word Recognition Colin J. Davis
Section 3: Phonological Effects. The Robustness of Phonological Effects in Fast Priming Ram Frost. Dissociating Automatic Orthographic and Phonological Codes in Lexical Access and Lexical Acquisition Michael B. Johnston & Anne E. Castles The Nature of Masked Onset Priming Effect in Naming: A Review Sachiko Kinoshita.
Section 4: Morphological Effects. Racehorses, Reindeers and Sparrows: Using Masked Priming to Investigate Morphological Influences on Compound Word Identification Natalie Shoolman and Sally Andrews. Reading Morphologically-Complex Words: Some Thoughts from Masked Priming Kathleen Rastle and Matthew H. Davis.
Section 5: Masked Priming in Special Populations.
Masked Priming Across Languages: An Insight into Bilingual Lexical Processing Chris Davis, Jeesun Kim & Rosa Sanchez-Casas Bilingual Visual Word Recognition: Evidence from Masked Phonological Priming Marc Brysbaert
Word Recognition Development in Children: Insights from Masked-Priming Anne Castles, Chris Davis & Kenneth I. Forster
A consistent finding in the Stroop literature is that congruency effects (i.e., the color-naming latency difference between words presented in incongruent vs. congruent colors) are larger for ...mostly-congruent items (e.g., the word RED presented most often in red) than for mostly-incongruent items (e.g., the word GREEN presented most often in yellow). This "item-specific proportion-congruent effect" might be produced by a conflict-adaptation process (e.g., fully focus attention to the color when the word GREEN appears) and/or by a more general learning mechanism of stimulus-response contingencies (e.g., respond "yellow" when the word GREEN appears). Under the assumption that limited-capacity resources are necessary for learning stimulus-response contingencies, we examined the contingency-learning account using both Stroop and nonconflict (i.e., noncolor words written in colors) versions of a color identification task while participants maintained a working memory (WM) load. Consistent with the contingency-learning account, WM load modulated people's ability to learn contingencies in the nonconflict task. In contrast, across 3 experiments, WM load did not affect the item-specific proportion-congruent effect in the Stroop task even though we employed a design (the "2-item set" design) in which contingency learning should be the dominant process. These results imply that the item-specific proportion-congruent effect is not merely a byproduct of contingency learning but a manifestation of reactive control, a mode of control engagement that may be especially useful when WM resources are scarce.
The present research examined whether a lexical competition process operates when different-script bilinguals process L2 words. In masked priming lexical decision experiments (67 ms prime duration), ...word neighbor primes facilitated target identification for Japanese-English bilinguals (Experiment 1) although the same primes produced inhibitory effects for L1 English readers (Experiment 2). Subsequent experiments confirmed that the facilitory priming effects are reliable (Experiment 4), and are not due to bilinguals' inability to process masked L2 primes to the lexical level (Experiments 3 and 4) or bilinguals relying on sublexical activation from neighbor primes in responding to upper-case English targets (Experiment 5). Some evidence of lexical competition was observed, however, with clearly visible primes (Experiment 6, using a 175 ms prime duration). These results suggest that different-script bilinguals deal with orthographic similarity in L2 words differently from L1 readers. The authors discuss ways in which the L2 lexicon of different-script bilinguals may be different.
Public Significance Statement
The authors' examination of how bilinguals deal with visually similar words in their second language when that second language has a different writing system than their first language (Japanese-English bilinguals) showed that bilinguals process these words a bit differently than how native readers of a language do. The authors conclude, therefore, that the nature of second language reading, even for skilled bilinguals, is somewhat different than the nature of first language reading when the two languages involve different scripts.
Masked Inhibitory Priming in English Davis, Colin J; Lupker, Stephen J
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance,
06/2006, Letnik:
32, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Predictions derived from the interactive activation (IA) model were tested in 3
experiments using the masked priming technique in the lexical decision task. Experiment 1
showed a strong effect of ...prime lexicality: Classifications of target words were
facilitated by orthographically related nonword primes (relative to unrelated nonword
primes) but were inhibited by orthographically related word primes (relative to unrelated
word primes). Experiment 2 confirmed IA's prediction that inhibitory priming effects are
greater when the prime and target share a neighbor. Experiment 3 showed a minimal effect
of target word neighborhood size (N) on inhibitory priming but a trend toward greater
inhibition when nonword foils were high-N than when they were low-N. Simulations of 3
different versions of the IA model showed that the best fit to the data is produced when
lexical inhibition is selective and when masking leads to reset of letter activities.
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