title: Attention mechanisms mediate the syntactic priming effect in auditory word identification.
abstract: The syntactic priming effect and the involvement of attention in that process were investigated by testing identification of white noise-masked Hebrew words. Targets were either syntactically congruent or syntactically incongruent with the structure of the sentence. Relative to a neutral condition, similar facilitation and inhibition was found for congruent and incongruent targets, respectively. When syntactic congruency was blocked, the inhibition was attenuated, whereas the facilitation remained the same. A 350-ms silent interstimulus interval between context and target increased inhibition without affecting facilitation. We suggest that both the facilitation and the inhibition effects of syntactic priming are based on a veiled controlled process of generating expectations. The inhibition results from a controlled process of reevaluation that requires additional attention resources.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Deutsch
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bentin
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D009622:Noise; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception