Abstract
In Experiment 1, color-naming interference for target stimuli following associated primes was greater in a group making a lexical decision to the prime than in a group reading the prime silently. Highfrequency targets were responded to more quickly than low-frequency targets. In Experiment 2, with subjects naming the prime, there was evidence of associative interference when the prime and the target were grouped temporally but not when the intertrial interval was comparable with the prime-target interval. Associative primes presented at a short (120-msec) prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony facilitated color naming in Experiment 3. Taken together, the results suggest that the effect of faster processing of the base word in a color-naming task is facilitatory and that color-naming priming interference arises when associative prime processing increases conflict between word and color responses by enhancing phonological or articulatory activation of the base word.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Andrews, S. (1989). Frequency and neighborhood effects on lexical access: Activation or search?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,15, 802–814.
Bakan, P., &Alperson, B. (1967). Pronounceability, attensity, and interference in the color-word test.American Journal of Psychology,80, 416–420.
Balota, D. A., &Chumbley, J. I. (1984). Are lexical decisions a good measure of lexical access? The role of word frequency in the neglected decision stage.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,10, 340–357.
Becker, C. A. (1979). Semantic contexts and word frequency effects in visual word recognition.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,5, 252–259.
Burt, J. S. (1994). Identity primes produce facilitation in a colour naming task.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,47A, 957–1000.
Burt, J. S. (1999).Visual and auditory identity priming in color naming. Manuscript in preparation.
Burt, J. S., Walker, M. B., Humphreys, M. S., &Tehan, G. (1993). Associative priming in perceptual identification: Effects of primeprocessing requirements.Memory & Cognition,21, 125–137.
Cohen, J. D., Dunbar, K., &McClelland, J. L. (1990). On the control of automatic processes: A parallel distributed processing account of the Stroop effect.Psychological Review,97, 332–361.
Cohen, J. [D.], &Huston, T. (1994). Progress in the use of interactive models for understanding attention and performance. In C. Umiltà & M. Moscovitch (Eds.),Attention and performance XV: Conscious and nonconscious information processing (pp. 453–476). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Bradford Books.
Cohen, J. D., Schreiber, D., &McClelland, J. L. (1992). A parallel distributed processing approach to automaticity: Views and varieties of automaticity [Special issue].American Journal of Psychology,105, 239–269.
Conrad, C. (1974). Context effects in sentence comprehension: A study of the subjective lexicon.Memory & Cognition,2, 130–138.
Davelaar, E., Coltheart, M., Besner, D., &Jonasson, J. T. (1978). Phonological recoding and lexical access.Memory & Cognition,6, 391–402.
de Groot, A. M. B. (1985). Word-context effects in word naming and lexical decision.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,37A, 281–297.
den Heyer, K. (1985). On the nature of the proportion effect in semantic priming.Acta Psychologica,60, 25–38.
Dosher, B. A., &Corbett, A. T. (1982). Instrument inferences and verb schemata.Memory & Cognition,10, 531–539.
Fischler, I. (1977). Associative facilitation without expectancy in a lexical decision task.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,3, 18–26.
Forster, K. I. (1976). Accessing the mental lexicon. In R. J. Wales & E. C. T. Walker (Eds.),New approaches to language mechanisms (pp. 257–287). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Forster, K. I., &Davis, C. (1984). Repetition priming and frequency attenuation in lexical access.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,10, 680–698.
Forster, K. I., &Chambers, S. M. (1973). Lexical access and naming time.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,12, 627–635.
Gumenik, W. E., &Glass, R. (1970). Effects of reducing the readability of the words in the Stroop color-word test.Psychonomic Science,20, 247–248.
Hays, W. L. (1981).Statistics (3rd ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Henik, A., Friedrich, F. J., &Kellogg, W. A. (1983). The dependence of semantic relatedness effects upon prime processing.Memory & Cognition,11, 366–373.
Herdman, C. M. (1992). Attentional resource demands of visual word recognition in naming and lexical decisions.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,18, 460–470.
Humphreys, G. W., Besner, D., &Quinlan, P. T. (1988). Event perception and the word repetition effect.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,117, 51–67.
Jared, D., McRae, K., &Seidenberg, M. S. (1990). The basis of consistency effects in word naming.Journal of Memory & Language,29, 687–715.
Keefe, D. E., &Neely, J. H. (1990). Semantic priming in the pronunciation task: The role of prospective prime-generated expectancies.Memory & Cognition,18, 289–298.
Kirsner, K., Milech, D., &Standen, P. (1983). Common and modalityspecific processes in the mental lexicon.Memory & Cognition,11, 621–630.
Klein, G. S. (1964). Semantic power measured through the interference of words with color naming.American Journal of Psychology,527, 576–588.
Kučera, H., &Francis, W. N. (1967).Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence, RI: Brown University Press.
Lorch, R. F., Jr.,Balota, D. A., &Stamm, E. G. (1986). Locus of inhibition effects in the priming of lexical decisions: Pre- or postlexical access?Memory & Cognition,14, 95–103.
MacLeod, C., &Rutherford, E. M. (1992). Anxiety and the selective processing of emotional information: Mediating roles of awareness, trait and state variables, and personal relevance of stimulus materials.Behaviour Research & Therapy,30, 479–491.
MacLeod, C. M. (1991). Half a century of research on the Stroop effect: An integrative review.Psychological Bulletin,109, 161–203.
Marcel, A. (1983). Conscious and unconscious perception: Experiments on visual masking and word recognition.Cognitive Psychology,15, 195–237.
Mathews, A., &MacLeod, C. (1985). Selective processing of threat cues in anxiety states.Behaviour Research & Therapy,23, 563–569.
McClain, L. (1983). Color priming affects Stroop interference.Perceptual & Motor Skills,56, 643–651.
McNamara, T. P., &Altarriba, J. (1988). Depth of spreading activation revisited: Semantic mediated priming occurs in lexical decisions.Journal of Memory & Language,27, 545–559.
Merrill, E. C., Sperber, R. D., &McCauley, C. (1981). Differences in semantic encoding as a function of reading comprehension skill.Memory & Cognition,9, 618–624.
Meyer, D. E., &Kieras, D. E. (1997). A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple task performance: Part 1. Basic mechanisms.Psychological Review,104, 3–65.
Mogg, K., Mathews, A., &Weinman, J. (1989). Selective processing of threat cues in anxiety states: A replication.Behaviour Research & Therapy,27, 317–323.
Monsell, S. (1991). The nature and locus of word frequency effects in reading. In D. Besner & G.W. Humphreys (Eds.),Basic processes in reading: Visual word recognition (pp. 148–197). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Morton, J. (1969). Interaction of information in word recognition.Psychological Review,76, 165–178.
Neely, J. H. (1977). Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Roles of inhibitionless spreading activation and limited capacity attention.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,106, 226–254.
Neely, J. H. (1991). Semantic priming effects in visual word recognition: A selective review of current findings and theories. In D. Besner & G.W. Humphreys (Eds.),Basic processes in reading: Visual word recognition (pp. 264–336). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Neill, W. T. (1978). Decision processes in selective attention: Response priming in the Stroop color-word task.Perception & Psychophysics,23, 80–84.
Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L., & Schreiber, T. (1992).The University of South Florida word association, rhyme and word fragment norms. Unpublished manuscript.
Norris, D. (1986). Word recognition: Context effects without priming.Cognition,22, 93–136.
Oden, G. C., &Spira, J. L. (1983). Influence of context on the activation and selection of ambiguous word senses.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,35A, 51–64.
Palermo, D. S., &Jenkins, J. J. (1964).Word association norms: Grade school through college. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Parkin, A. J. (1979). Specifying levels of processing.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,31, 175–195.
Parkin, A. J. (1983). Phonological recoding in lexical decision: The influence of pseudohomophones.Language & Speech,26, 81–90.
Postman, L. (1970). The California norms: Association as a function of word frequency. In L. Postman & G. Keppel (Eds.),Norms of word association (pp. 241–320). New York: Academic Press.
Seidenberg, M. S., &McClelland, J. L. (1989). A distributed, developmental model of word recognition and naming.Psychological Review,96, 523–568.
Shelton, J. R., &Martin, R. C. (1992). How semantic is automatic semantic priming?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,18, 1191–1210.
Smith, L. C., Briand, K., Klein, R. M., &den Heyer, K. (1987). On the generality of Becker’s verification model.Canadian Journal of Psychology,41, 379–386.
Smith, M. C., Theodor, L., &Franklin, P. E. (1983). The relationship between contextual facilitation and depth of processing.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,9, 697–712.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions.Journal of Experimental Psychology,18, 643–662.
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.
Thomson, D. M., Meredith, S. G., &Browning, C. (1976).Monash free association norms. Melbourne: Monash University.
VanVoorhis, B. A., &Dark, V. J. (1995). Semantic matching, response mode, and response mapping as contributors to retroactive and proactive priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,21, 913–932.
Warren, R. E. (1972). Stimulus encoding and memory.Journal of Experimental Psychology,94, 90–100.
Warren, R. E. (1974). Association, directionality and stimulus encoding.Journal of Experimental Psychology,102, 151–158.
Watts, F. N., McKenna, F. P., Sharrock, R., &Trezise, L. (1986). Colour naming of phobia related words.British Journal of Psychology,77, 97–108.
Whitney, P. (1986). Processing category terms in context: Instantiations as inferences.Memory & Cognition,14, 39–48.
Whitney, P., McKay, T., Kellas, G., &Emerson, W. A. J. (1985). Semantic activation of noun concepts in context.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,11, 126–135.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The results of Experiment 2 were presented at the Twenty-second Experimental Psychology Conference at Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 1995. The research was supported by a University of Queensland Special Projects Grant. Part of the data for Experiment 2 were collected by Susan Ryan for a Psychology undergraduate project.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Burt, J.S. Associative priming in color naming: interference and facilitation. Memory & Cognition 27, 454–464 (1999). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03211540
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03211540