Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Priming in Sentence Processing: Intralexical Spreading Activation, Schemas, and Situation Models

  • Published:
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A series of eye-tracking experiments investigated priming in natural language understanding. Intralexical spreading activation accounts of priming predict that the response to a target word will be speeded (i.e., primed) when strong associates appear prior to the target. Schema-based priming accounts predict that priming will occur when the target word is a component of an activated schema or script. Situation model accounts predict that priming will occur when a target word can be integrated easily into an evolving discourse representation. In separate experiments, we measured the effect of associated words, synonyms, and identity primes on processing times for subsequently encountered target words. Our designs crossed prime type (e.g., synonyms vs. unassociated words) with semantic plausibility (i.e., the target word was a plausible vs. an implausible continuation of the sentence). The results showed that identity primes, but not associates or synonyms, primed target words in early measures of processing like first fixation and gaze duration. Plausibility effects tended to emerge in later measures of processing (e.g., on total reading time), although some evidence was obtained for early effects of semantic plausibility. We propose that priming in naturalistic conditions is not caused by intralexical spreading activation or access to precompiled schemas.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Carroll, P., & Slowiaczek, M. L. (1986). Constraints on semantic priming in reading: A fixation time analysis. Memory & Cognition, 14, 509–522.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82, 407–428.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coulson, S., Van Petten C., Federmeier, K., Folstein, J., Weckerly, J., & Kutas, M. (2000, March). Lexical and sentential context effects: An ERP study of the difference between life and death and life in prison. Paper presented to the 13th Annual CUNY Conference, San Diego, California.

  • Dell, G. S., & Reich, P. A. (1981). Stages in sentence production: An analysis of speech error data. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 611–629.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duffy, S. A., Henderson, J. M., & Morris, R. K. (1989). The semantic facilitation of lexical access during sentence processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 15, 791–801.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foss, D. J. (1982). A discourse on semantic priming. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 590–607.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foss, D. J., & Ross, J. R. (1983). Great expectations: Context effects during sentence processing. In G. Flores D'Arcais & R. J. Jarvella (Eds.), The process of language understanding (pp. 169–191). Chichester, England: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foss, D. J., & Speer, S. R. (1991). Global and local context effects in sentence processing. In R. R. Hoffman & D. S. Palermo (Eds.), Cognition and symbolic processes: Applied and ecological perspectives (pp. 115–139). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Francis, W. N., & Kucera, H., (1967). A computational analysis of present day English. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hess, D. J., Foss, D. J., & Carroll, P. (1995). Effects of local and global context on lexical processing during language comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124, 62–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983). Mental models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kawamoto, A. H. (1993). Nonlinear dynamics in the resolution of lexical ambiguity: A parallel distributed processing account. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 474–516.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kintsch, W. (1998). Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kintsch, W., & Mannes, S. M. (1987). Generating scripts from memory. In E. Van Der Meer & J. Hoffman (Eds.), Knowledge-aided information processing (pp. 61–80). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landauer, T. K. (1999). Latent semantic analysis: A theory of the psychology of language and mind. Discourse Processes, 27, 303–310.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landauer, T. K., & Dumais, S. T. (1997). A solution to Plato's problem: The latent semantic analysis theory of acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychological Review, 104, 211–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald, M. E., Pearlmutter, N. J., & Seidenberg, M. S. (1994). The lexical nature of syntactic ambiguity resolution. Psychological Review, 101, 676–703.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandler, J. M. (1992). How to build a baby II: Conceptual primitives. Psychological Review, 99, 587–604.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, D. E., & Schvaneveldt, R. W. (1976). Meaning, memory structure, and mental processes. Science, 197, 27–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morris, R. K. (1994). Lexical and message-level sentence context effects on fixation times in reading. Journal of experimental psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 20, 92–103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morris, R. K, & Folk, J. R. (1998). Focus as a contextual priming mechanism in reading. Memory & Cognition, 26, 1313–1322.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pickering, M. J., & Traxler, M. J. (1998). Plausibility and recovery from garden paths: An eyetracking study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory, & Cognition, 24, 940–961.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pickering, M. J., Traxler, M. J., & Crocker, M. W. (2000). Ambiguity resolution in sentence processing. Evidence against frequency-based accounts. Journal of Memory and Language, 43, 447–475.

    Google Scholar 

  • Posner, M. I., & Raichle, M. E. (1997). Images of mind. New York: Scientific American.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schank, R. C. (1982). Dynamic memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. P. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: I. Detection, search, and attention. Psychological Review, 84, 1–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seidenberg, M. S., Tanenhaus, M. K., Leiman, J. M., & Bienkowski, M. (1982). Automatic access of the meanings of ambiguous words in context: Some limitations of knowledge based processing. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 489–537.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sereno, S. C. (1995). Resolution of lexical ambiguity. Evidence from an eye movement priming paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 21, 582–595.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sereno, S. C., & Rayner, K. (1992). Fast priming during eye fixations in reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Preformance, 18, 173–184.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, G. B., Peterson, R. R., Casteel, M. A., & Burgess, C. (1989). Lexical and sentence context effects in word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 5, 88–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1979). Mechanisms of sentence context effects in reading: Automatic activation and conscious attention. Memory & Cognition, 7, 77–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1981). The effect of sentence context on ongoing word recognition: Tests of a two-process theory. Journal of Experimental Psycholoy: Human Perception & Performance, 7, 658–672.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1983). On priming by a sentence context. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 112, 1–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swinney, D. A. (1979). Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context effects. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 645–659.

    Google Scholar 

  • Traxler, M. J., Bybee, M. D., & Picketing, M. J. (1997). Influence of connectives on language comprehension: Eye-tracking evidence for incremental interpretation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A, 50, 481–497.

    Google Scholar 

  • Traxler, M. J., & Foss, D. J. (2000). Facilitated integration and sentence constraint accounts of priming in sentence comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, in press.

  • Traxler, M. J., & Pickering, M. J. (1996). Plausibility and the processing of unbounded dependencies: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 454–475.

    Google Scholar 

  • Traxler, M. J., Pickering, M. J., & Clifton, C., Jr. (1998). Adjunct attachment is not a form of lexical ambiguity resolution. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 558–592.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trueswell, J. T., & Kim, A. E. (1998). How to prune a garden path by nipping it in the bud: Fast pruning of verb argument structures. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 122–123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trueswell, J. T., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Kello, C. (1993). Verb specific constraints in sentence processing: Separating effects of lexical preference from garden paths. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 19, 528–553.

    Google Scholar 

  • West, R. K., & Stanovich, K. E. (1982). Source of inhibition in experiments of the effect of sentence context on word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 25, 385–399.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitney, P., McKay, T., Kellas, G., & Emerson, W. A., Jr. (1985). Semantic activation of noun concepts in context. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 25, 385–399.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, 29208

    Matthew J. Traxler, Rachel E. Seely & Robin K. Morris

  2. Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, 32306

    Donald J. Foss & Barbara Kaup

Authors
  1. Matthew J. Traxler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Donald J. Foss
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rachel E. Seely
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Barbara Kaup
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Robin K. Morris
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Traxler, M.J., Foss, D.J., Seely, R.E. et al. Priming in Sentence Processing: Intralexical Spreading Activation, Schemas, and Situation Models. J Psycholinguist Res 29, 581–595 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026416225168

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026416225168

Search

Navigation