title: Semantic richness effects in lexical decision: The role of feedback.
abstract: Across lexical processing tasks, it is well established that words with richer semantic representations are recognized faster. This suggests that the lexical system has access to meaning before a word is fully identified, and is consistent with a theoretical framework based on interactive and cascaded processing. Specifically, semantic richness effects are argued to be produced by feedback from semantic representations to lower-level representations. The present study explores the extent to which richness effects are mediated by feedback from lexical- to letter-level representations. In two lexical decision experiments, we examined the joint effects of stimulus quality and four semantic richness dimensions (imageability, number of features, semantic neighborhood density, semantic diversity). With the exception of semantic diversity, robust additive effects of stimulus quality and richness were observed for the targeted dimensions. Our results suggest that semantic feedback does not typically reach earlier levels of representation in lexical decision, and further reinforces the idea that task context modulates the processing dynamics of early word recognition processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Block AS4, #02-07, 9 Arts Link, Singapore, 117570, Singapore. melvin@nus.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Melvin J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Yap
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Block AS4, #02-07, 9 Arts Link, Singapore, 117570, Singapore.
authors.forename: Gail Y
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Penny M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Pexman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Lexical decision; RT distributional analyses; Semantic feedback; Semantic richness; Stimulus quality; Visual word recognition