Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:34:25.466Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Masked and Unmasked Priming Effects as a Function of Semantic Relatedness and Associative Strength

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2013

Rosa Sánchez-Casas ,
Pilar Ferré ,
Josep Demestre ,
Teófilo García-Chico  and
José E. García-Albea
Rosa Sánchez-Casas*
Affiliation:
Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain)
Pilar Ferré
Affiliation:
Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain)
Josep Demestre
Affiliation:
Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain)
Teófilo García-Chico
Affiliation:
Universidad Pontificia de Comillas (Spain)
José E. García-Albea
Affiliation:
Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain)
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Rosa Sánchez-Casas. Departament de Psicologia, Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Ctra. de Valls s/n 43007 Tarragona (Spain). E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The study presented in this paper aimed to investigate the pattern of semantic priming effects, under masked and unmasked conditions, in the lexical decision task, manipulating type of semantic relation and associative strength. Three different kinds of word relations were examined in two experiments: only-semantically related words [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)] and semantic/associative related words with strong [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair) and weak association strength [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. In Experiment 1 a masked priming procedure was used with a prime duration of 56 ms, and in Experiment 2, the prime was presented unmasked for 150 ms. The results showed that there were masked priming effects with strong associates, but no evidence of these effects was found with weak associates or only-semantic related word pairs. When the prime was presented unmasked, the three types of relations produced significant priming effects and they were not influenced by association strength.

El presente estudio tenía como objetivo investigar el patrón de efectos de priming enmascarado y no enmascarado en la tarea de decisión léxica, manipulando el tipo de relación semántica y la fuerza asociativa entre prime y target. Se llevaron a cabo dos experimentos donde se examinaron tres tipos de relaciones: palabras relacionadas solo semánticamente [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)], palabras semánticamente relacionadas con una asociación fuerte [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair)] y palabras con una relación semántica asociativa débil [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. En el Experimento 1 se utilizó un procedimiento de priming enmascarado con una duración del prime de 57 ms, y en el Experimento 2, un procedimiento no enmascarado presentándose el prime durante 150 ms. Los resultados mostraron efectos de priming enmascarado significativos con pares de palabras que eran asociados fuertes pero no cuando eran asociados débiles o tenían una relación sólo semántica (no asociativa). Cuando el prime se presentaba en condiciones no enmascaradas, los tres tipos de relaciones produjeron efectos de priming significativos y no se vieron influidos por la fuerza asociativa.

Keywords

masked and unmasked priminglexical decision tasksemantic and associative relationsassociation strengthpriming enmascarado y no enmascaradotarea de decisión léxicarelaciones semánticas y asociativasfuer za asociativa
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , November 2012 , pp. 891 - 900
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Altarriba, J., & Basnight-Brown, D. M. (2007). Methodological considerations in performing semantic - and translation-priming experiments across languages. Behavior Research Methods, 39(1), 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03192839CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bueno, S., & Frenck-Mestre, Ch. (2002). Rapid activation of the lexicon: A further investigation with behavioral and computational results. Brain and Language, 81, 120–130. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brln.2001.2511CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bueno, S., & Frenck-Mestre, Ch. (2008). The activation of semantic memory: Effects of prime exposure, prime-target relationship, and task demands. Memory and Cognition, 36, 882–898. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.4.882CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82, 407–428. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0033-295X.82.6.407CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, C. J., & Perea, M. (2005). Buscapalabras: A program for deriving orthographic and phonological neighbourhood statistics and other psycholinguistic indices in Spanish. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 37, 665–671. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03192738CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fernández, A., Díez, E., Alonso, A. M., & Beato, M. S. (2004). Free-association norms for the Spanish names of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 36, 577–583. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03195604CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferrand, L., & New, B. (2003). Semantic and associative priming in the mental lexicon. In Bonin, P. (Ed.), Mental lexicon: Some words to talk about words (pp.25–43). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Forster, K. I., & Forster, J. F. (2003). DMDX:AWindows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 35, 116–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03195503CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hino, Y., Lupker, S. J., & Sears, C. R. (1997). The effects of word association and meaning frequency in a cross-modal lexical decision task: Is priming due to semantic activation? Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 51, 195–211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1196-1961.51.3.195CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchison, K. A. (2003). Is semantic priming due to association strength or featural overlap? A micro-analytic review. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 10, 785–813. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03196544CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hutchison, K.A., Balota, D. A., Cortese, M. J., & Watson, J. M. (2008). Predicting semantic priming at the item level. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 1036–1066. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470210701438111CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lucas, M. (2000). Semantic priming without association:Ameta-analytic review. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 7, 618–630. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03212999CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lund, K., Burgess, C., & Audet, C. (1996). Dissociating semantic and associative word relationships using high-dimensional semantic space. Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 18, 603–608.Google Scholar
McKoon, G., & Ratcliff, R. (1995). Conceptual combinations and relational contexts in free association and in priming in lexical decision and naming. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2, 527–533. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03210988CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McNamara, T. P. (1992). Priming and constraints it places on theories of memory and retrieval. Psychological Review, 99, 650–662. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0033-295X.99.4.650CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNamara, T. P., & Altarriba, J. (1988). Depth of spreading activation revisited: Semantic mediated priming occurs in lexical decisions. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 545–559. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0749-596X(88)90025-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McRae, K. (2004). Semantic memory: Some insights from feature-based connectionist attractor networks. In Ross, B. H. (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 45, pp. 41–86). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
McRae, K., & Boisvert, S. (1998). Automatic semantic similarity priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24, 558–572. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0278-7393.24.3.558Google Scholar
Neely, J. H. (1991). Semantic priming effects in visual word recognition:Aselective review of current findings and theories. In Besner, D. & Humprheys, G. W. (Eds.), Basic processes in reading: Visual word recognition (pp. 264–336) Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Google Scholar
Ostrin, R. K., & Tyler, L. K. (1993). Automatic access to lexical semantics in aphasia: Evidence from semantic and associative priming. Brain and Language, 45, 147–159. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brln.1993.1040CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perea, M., & Gotor, A. (1997). Associative and semantic priming effects occur at very short SOAs in lexical decision and naming. Cognition, 67, 223–240. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(96)00782-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perea, M., Gotor, A., & Nacher, M. J. (1997). Efectos de facilitación asociativa vs. semántica en la tarea de decisión léxica [Associative and semantic priming effects at a very brief stimulus asynchrony in the lexical decision task]. Psicothema, 9, 509–517.Google Scholar
Perea, M., & Rosa, E. (2002). The effects of associative and semantic priming in the lexical decision task. Psychological Research, 66, 180–194. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00426-002-0086-5CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perea, M., Duñabeitia, J. A., & Carreiras, M. (2008). Masked associative/semantic priming effects across languages with highly proficient bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 916–930. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2008.01.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plaut, D. C. (1995). Semantic and associative priming in a distributed attractor network. Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 17, 37–42.Google Scholar
Plaut, D. C., & Booth, J. R. (2000). Individual and developmental differences in semantic priming: Empirical and computational support for a single-mechanism account of lexical processing. Psychological Review, 107, 786–823. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.107.4.786CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sánchez-Casas, R., Ferré, P., García-Albea, J. E., & Guasch, M. (2006). The nature of semantic priming: Effects of the degree of semantic similarity between primes and targets in Spanish. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 18(2), 161–184. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09541440500183830CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoonbaert, S., Duyck, W., Brysbaert, M., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2009). Semantic and translation priming from a first language to a second and back: Making sense of the findings. Memory & Cognition, 37, 569–586. http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/MC.37.5.569CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thompson-Schill, S. L., Kurtz, K. J., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (1998). Effects of semantic and associative relatedness on automatic priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 38, 440–458. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1997.2559CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vigliocco, G., Vinson, D. P., Lewis, W., & Garrett, M. F. (2004). Representing the meaning of object and action words: The featural and unitary semantic space (FUSS) hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology, 48, 422–488. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2003.09.001CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, J. N. (1996). Is automatic priming semantic? European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 8, 113–162. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/095414496383121CrossRefGoogle Scholar