Repeated masked category primes interfere with related exemplars: new evidence for negative semantic priming.
In 4 experiments, the authors found evidence for negatively signed masked semantic priming effects (with category names as primes and exemplars as targets) using a new technique of presenting the masked primes. By rapidly interchanging prime and mask during the stimulus onset asynchrony, they increased the total prime exposure to a level comparable with that of a typical visible prime condition without increasing the number of participants having an awareness of the prime. The negative effect was observed for only low-dominance exemplars and not for high-dominance exemplars. The authors found it using lexical decision (Experiments 1 and 2), lexical decision with a response-window procedure (Experiment 3), and the pronunciation task (Experiment 4). The results are discussed with regard to different theories on semantic priming.
Wentura
Dirk
D
Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany. wentura@mx.unisaarland.de
Frings
Christian
C
D000328:Adult; D001244:Association; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary