title: Summation of activation: evidence from multiple primes that converge and diverge within semantic memory.
abstract: Six experiments addressed the combinatorial influence of multiple related primes in naming, lexical decision and relatedness judgment performance. Primes either converged on a single semantic representation (e.g., LION-STRIPES-TIGER) or diverged onto distinct semantic representations (e.g., KIDNEY-PIANO-ORGAN). The facilitatory influence of 2 related primes was well predicted by the sum of the influences from the single-related-prime conditions (a) for both convergent and divergent primes, (b) in lexical-decision and naming, (c) across varying prime-target stimulus onset asynchronies, and (d) under target-degradation conditions that increased the priming effects. The relatedness-judgment task yielded an additive pattern of priming for convergent prime conditions; however, an underadditive pattern of priming was found for divergent prime conditions. Discussion focuses on the role of attentional systems that modulate the type of information used to perform a given task.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA. dbalota@artsci.wustl.edu
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Balota
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Paul
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics