Semantic activation of noun concepts in context.
A modified Stoop procedure was used to examine the role that context plays in guiding semantic access of unambiguous nouns in sentence contexts. The sentences either emphasized a high- or a low-dominant property of a noun that was the last word in the sentence or were control sentences. Each sentence was followed by the relevant high- or low-dominant property either immediately or after a 300-or 600-ms delay. There was significant color-naming interference (relative to control) for high-dominant properties regardless of biasing context in the immediate and delayed conditions. There was also significant color-naming interference for low-dominant properties in the immediate condition regardless of context. However, in the delayed conditions, the low-dominant properties led to color-naming interference only when preceded by sentence contexts biasing interpretation toward the low-dominant property. It was concluded that high-dominant properties function as core, or invariant, aspects of meaning and that initial semantic access is context independent.
Whitney
P
P
McKay
T
T
Kellas
G
G
Emerson
W A
WA
D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D006801:Humans; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D012718:Set, Psychology