Abstract
An earlier experiment (Blank & Foss, 1978) showed that the time required to access the object noun of a sentence was shortened if the noun was preceded by a semantically related verb or adjective. When both the verb and the adjective were semantically related to the noun, the amount of facilitation of lexical access was additive. However, additivity appeared to break down for subjects who did poorly on the comprehension test administered in that experiment, suggesting that the activation function among related lexical items was different for good and poor comprehenders. Such a finding would have implications for theories of lexical facilitation, especially the two-factor theories such as the one proposed by Posner and Snyder (1975). The present experiment again measured access time for the object noun of a sentence when it was preceded by an unrelated or a related verb or adjective (four sentence types). Two groups of college subjects were tested, relatively good (N = 63) and relatively poor (N = 42) comprehenders. The difference in the time taken to retrieve the object noun was ascertained by measuring reaction time to respond to the initial phoneme of the next word in the sentence (phoneme monitoring technique). Reaction times were shorter when the noun was preceded by a semantically related word; the effects of two sources of related context (verb and adjective) appeared to be additive forboth groups of subjects. These results were discussed within the context of two-factor theories of lexical activation and within the context of Morton’s (1969) logogen model.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Blank, M. A., &Foss, D. J. Semantic facilitation and lexical access during sentence processing.Memory & Cognition, 1978,6, 644–652.
Collins, A. M., &Loftus, E. F. A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing.Psychological Review, 1975,82, 407–428.
Forster, K. I. Accessing the mental lexicon. In R. J. Wales & E. Walker (Eds.),New approaches to language mechanisms. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1976.
Foss, D. J., Harwood, D. A., & Blank, M. A. Deciphering decoding decisions: Data and devices. In R. A. Cole (Ed.),Perception and production of fluent speech. Hillsdale, N.J: Erlbaum, in press.
Kirsner, K., &Craik, F. I. M. Naming and decision processes in short-term recognition memory.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1971,88, 149–157.
Kučera, H., &Francis, W. N.Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence, R.I: Brown University Press, 1967.
Meyer, D. E. Correlated operations in searching stored semantic categories.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1973,99, 124–133.
Meyer, D. E., &Schvaneveldt, R. W. Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: Evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1971,90, 227–234.
Morton, J. Interaction of information in word recognition.Psychological Review, 1969,76, 165–178.
Morton, J., &Long, J. Effect of word transitional probability on phoneme identification.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1976,15, 43–52.
Neely, J. H. Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Roles of inhibitionless spreading activation and limited-capacity attention.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 1977,106, 226–254.
Posner, M. I., &Snyder, C. R. Attention and cognitive control. In R. L. Solso (Ed.),Information processing and cognition: The Loyola symposium. Hillsdale, N.J: Erlbaum, 1975.
Warren, R. E. Stimulus encoding and memory.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1972,94, 90–100.
Warren, R. E. Time and the spread of activation in memory.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 1977,3, 458–466.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH29891.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Foss, D.J., Cirilo, R.K. & Blank, M.A. Semantic facilitation and lexical access during sentence processing: An investigation of individual differences. Memory & Cognition 7, 346–353 (1979). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196938
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196938