Abstract
The questions asked in the present experiments concern the generality of semantic and phonological priming effects: Do these effects arise automatically regardless of target task, or are these effects restricted to target tasks that specifically require the retrieval of the primed information? In Experiment 1, subjects produced faster color matching times on targets preceded by a masked rhyming prime than on targets preceded by an orthographic control or an unrelated prime. This result suggests that automatic priming effects on the basis of phonological similarity can be obtained even when the target task does not make use of phonological information. This claim was reinforced in Experiment 2 in which a rhyme priming effect and a semantic priming effect were found in a semantic categorization task. In Experiment 3, the target task was phonological (rhyme detection), and, again, both phonological and semantic priming effects were observed. Finally, in Experiments 4 and 5, in a replication and an extension of Experiment 1, phonological and semantic priming effects were found in a color matching task, a task involving neither phonological nor semantic processing. These results are most straightforwardly interpreted by assuming that both semantic and phonological priming effects are, at least in part, due to automatic activation of memorial representations.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Collins, A. M., &Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing.Psychological Review,82, 407–428.
Content, A., Mousty, P., &Radeau, M. (1990). Brulex: Une base de données lexicales informatisée pour le français écrit et parlé. [Brulex: A computerized lexical database for written and spoken French].L’Année Psychologique,90, 551–566.
Ferrand, L., &Grainger, J. (1992). Phonology and orthography in visual word recognition: Evidence from masked non-word priming.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,45A, 353–372.
Fleming, K. K. (1993). Phonologically mediated priming in spoken and printed word recognition.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,19, 272–284.
Forster, K. I. (1976). Accessing the mental lexicon. In R. J. Wales & E. W. Walker (Eds.),New approaches to language mechanisms (pp. 257–287). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Frost, R., &Bentin, S. (1992). Processing phonological and semantic ambiguity: Evidence from semantic priming at different SOAs.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,18, 58–68.
Hillinger, M. L. (1980). Priming effects with phonemically similar words: The encoding-bias hypothesis reconsidered.Memory & Cognition,8, 115–123.
Holender, D. (1986). Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: A survey and appraisal.Behavioral & Brain Sciences,9, 1–66.
Humphreys, G. W., Evett, L. J., &Taylor, D. E. (1982). Automatic phonological priming in visual word recognition.Memory & Cognition,10, 576–590.
Lesch, M. F., &Pollatsek, A. (1993). Automatic access of semantic information by phonological codes in visual word recognition.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,19, 285–294.
Lukatela, G., Carello, C., &Turvey, M. T. (1990). Phonemic priming by words and pseudowords.European Journal of Cognitive Psychology,2, 375–394.
Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1990a). Automatic and prelexical computation of phonology in visual word identification.European Journal of Cognitive Psychology,2, 325–344.
Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1990b). Phonemic similarity effects and prelexical phonology.Memory & Cognition,18, 128–152.
Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1991). Phonological access of the lexicon: Evidence from associative priming with pseudohomophones.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,17, 951–966.
Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1993). Similar attentional, frequency, and associative effects for pseudohomophones and words.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,19, 166–178.
Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1994). Visual lexical access is initially phonological: 1. Evidence from associative priming by words, homophones, and pseudohomophones.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,123, 107–128.
Marcel, A. J. (1983). Conscious and unconscious perception: Experiments on visual masking and word recognition.Cognitive Psychology,15, 197–237.
Martin, R. C., &Jensen, C. R. (1988). Phonological priming in the lexical decision task: A failure to replicate.Memory & Cognition,16, 505–521.
Masson, M. E. J. (1995). A distributed memory model of semantic priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,21, 3–23.
McKoon, G., &Ratcliff, R. (1992). Spreading activation versus compound cue accounts of priming: Mediated priming revisited.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,18, 1155–1172.
Meyer, D. E., Schvaneveldt, R. W., &Ruddy, M. G. (1974). Functions of graphemic and phonemic codes in visual word recognition.Memory & Cognition,2, 309–321.
Neely, J. H., Keefe, D. E., &Ross, K. L. (1989). Semantic priming in the lexical decision task: Roles of prospective prime-generated expectancies and retrospective semantic matching.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,15, 1003–1019.
Perfetti, C. A., &Bell, L. C. (1991). Phonemic activation during the first 40 msec of word identification: Evidence from backward masking and priming.Journal of Memory & Language,30, 473–485.
Perfetti, C. A., Bell, L. C., &Delaney, S. (1988). Automatic (prelexical) phonetic activation in silent reading: Evidence from backward masking.Journal of Memory & Language,27, 59–70.
Peter, M., Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1990). Phonological priming: Failure to replicate in the rapid naming task.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,28, 389–392.
Seidenberg, M. S., &McClelland, J. L. (1989). A distributed, developmental model of word recognition and naming.Psychological Review,96, 523–568.
Sternberg, S. (1969). The discovery of processing stages: Extensions of Donder’s method.Acta Psychologica,30, 276–315.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions.Journal of Experimental Psychology,18, 643–661.
Tanenhaus, M. K., Flanigan, H. P., &Seidenberg, M. S. (1980). Orthographic and phonological activation in auditory and visual word recognition.Memory & Cognition,8, 513–520.
Van Orden, G. C. (1984).A ROWS is a /ROZ/ is a ROSE: Visual, phonological, developmental and strategic influences upon lexical access. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, San Diego.
Van Orden, G. C. (1987). A ROWS is a ROSE: Spelling, sound, and reading.Memory & Cognition,15, 181–198.
Weber, R. M. (1970). A linguistic analysis of first-grade reading errors.Reading Research Quarterly,5, 427–451.
Whittlesea, B. W. A., &Jacoby, L. L. (1990). Interaction of prime repetition with visual degradation: Is priming a retrieval phenomenon?Journal of Memory & Language,29, 546–565.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by Conseil de la Région Rhône-Alpes Grant H109130000 to G.T. and by a Conseil de la Région Rhône-Alpes grant to A.R. to allow her to hold a postdoctoral position at the University of Western Ontario.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rouibah, A., Tiberghien, G. & Lupker, S.J. Phonological and semantic priming: Evidence for task-independent effects. Memory & Cognition 27, 422–437 (1999). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03211538
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03211538