Morpho-orthographic segmentation without semantics.
Masked priming studies have repeatedly provided evidence for a form-based morpho-orthographic segmentation mechanism that blindly decomposes any word with the mere appearance of morphological complexity (e.g., corn + er). This account has been called into question by Baayen et al. Psychological Review, 118, 438-482 (2011), who pointed out that the prime words previously tested in the morpho-orthographic condition vary in the extent to which the suffix conveys regular meaning. In the present study, we investigated whether evidence for morpho-orthographic segmentation can be obtained with a set of tightly controlled prime words that are entirely semantically opaque. Using a visual lexical decision task, we compared priming from truly suffixed primes (hunter-HUNT), completely opaque pseudo-suffixed primes (corner-CORN), and non-suffixed primes (cashew-CASH). The results show comparable magnitudes of priming for the truly suffixed and pseudo-suffixed primes, and no priming from non-suffixed primes, and therefore provide further important evidence in support of morpho-orthographic segmentation processes operating in the absence of any possible role for semantics.
Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Aix-Marseille Université and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 3, place Victor Hugo, Bat. 9, Case D, 13331, Marseille Cedex 1, France. lisi.beyersmann@gmail.com.
Elisabeth
E
Beyersmann
Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Aix-Marseille Université and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 3, place Victor Hugo, Bat. 9, Case D, 13331, Marseille Cedex 1, France.
Johannes C
JC
Ziegler
Department of Cognitive Science and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Anne
A
Castles
Department of Cognitive Science and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Max
M
Coltheart
Department of Cognitive Science and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Yvette
Y
Kezilas
Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Aix-Marseille Université and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 3, place Victor Hugo, Bat. 9, Case D, 13331, Marseille Cedex 1, France.
Jonathan
J
Grainger
D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011932:Reading; D060865:Repetition Priming / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult
Masked priming; Morpho-orthographic priming; Morphological processing; Pseudo-affixes