Does semantic redundancy gain result from multiple semantic priming?
Fiedler, Schröter, and Ulrich (2013) reported faster responses to a single written word when the semantic content of this word (e.g., "elephant") matched both targets (e.g., "animal", "gray") as compared to a single target (e.g., "animal", "brown"). This semantic redundancy gain was explained by statistical facilitation due to a race of independent memory retrieval processes. The present experiment addresses one alternative explanation, namely that semantic redundancy gain results from multiple pre-activation of words that match both targets. In different blocks of trials, participants performed a redundant-targets task and a lexical decision task. The targets of the redundant-targets task served as primes in the lexical decision task. Replicating the findings of Fiedler et al., a semantic redundancy gain was observed in the redundant-targets task. Crucially, however, there was no evidence of a multiple semantic priming effect in the lexical decision task. This result suggests that semantic redundancy gain cannot be explained by multiple pre-activation of words that match both targets.
Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany. Electronic address: hannes.schroeter@uni-tuebingen.de.
Hannes
H
Schröter
Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Daniel
D
Bratzke
Department of Psychology, The University of IA, USA.
Anja
A
Fiedler
Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Teresa
T
Birngruber
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D014956:Writing; D055815:Young Adult
Multiple priming; Race model; Reaction time; Redundancy gain; Semantic memory