Abstract
In two different tasks, subjects were asked to make lexica! decisions (word or nonword) and symmetry judgments (symmetrical or nonsymmetrical) about two-dimensional polygons. In both tasks, every stimulus was repeated at one of four lags (0, 1, 4, or 8 items interposed between the first and second stimulus presentations). This paradigm, known as repetition priming, revealed comparable short-term priming (Lag 0) and long-term priming (Lags 1, 4, and 8) both for symmetrical polygons and for words. A shorter term component (Lags 0 and 1) of priming was observed for nonwords, and only very short-term priming (Lag 0) was observed for nonsymmetrical polygons. These results indicate that response facilitation accruing from repeated exposure can be observed for stimuli that have no preexisting memory representations and suggest that perceptual factors contribute to repetition-priming effects.
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This research was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. The work was supported by N1H Grant NS 21135 and by the Veterans Administration Research Service.
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Kersteen-Tucker, Z. Long-term repetition priming with symmetrical polygons and words. Memory & Cognition 19, 37–43 (1991). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198494
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198494