Masked and Unmasked Priming Effects as a Function of Semantic Relatedness and Associative Strength

• Published in: The Spanish journal of psychology 2012-11, Vol.15 (3), p.891-900
• Main Authors: Sánchez-Casas, Rosa, Ferré, Pilar, Demestre, Josep, García-Chico, Teófilo, García-Albea, José E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Association; Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Language; Miscellaneous; Neuropsychological Tests; Perceptual Masking - physiology; Psycholinguistics - methods; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Repetition Priming - physiology; Semantics; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1138-7416; 1988-2904
• DOI: 10.5209/rev_SJOP.2012.v15.n3.39382

The study presented in this paper aimed to investigate the pattern of semantic priming effects, under masked and unmasked conditions, in the lexical decision task, manipulating type of semantic relation and associative strength. Three different kinds of word relations were examined in two experiments: only-semantically related words [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)] and semantic/associative related words with strong [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair) and weak association strength [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. In Experiment 1 a masked priming procedure was used with a prime duration of 56 ms, and in Experiment 2, the prime was presented unmasked for 150 ms. The results showed that there were masked priming effects with strong associates, but no evidence of these effects was found with weak associates or only-semantic related word pairs. When the prime was presented unmasked, the three types of relations produced significant priming effects and they were not influenced by association strength. El presente estudio tenía como objetivo investigar el patrón de efectos de priming enmascarado y no enmascarado en la tarea de decisión léxica, manipulando el tipo de relación semántica y la fuerza asociativa entre prime y target. Se llevaron a cabo dos experimentos donde se examinaron tres tipos de relaciones: palabras relacionadas solo semánticamente [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)], palabras semánticamente relacionadas con una asociación fuerte [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair)] y palabras con una relación semántica asociativa débil [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. En el Experimento 1 se utilizó un procedimiento de priming enmascarado con una duración del prime de 57 ms, y en el Experimento 2, un procedimiento no enmascarado presentándose el prime durante 150 ms. Los resultados mostraron efectos de priming enmascarado significativos con pares de palabras que eran asociados fuertes pero no cuando eran asociados débiles o tenían una relación sólo semántica (no asociativa). Cuando el prime se presentaba en condiciones no enmascaradas, los tres tipos de relaciones produjeron efectos de priming significativos y no se vieron influidos por la fuerza asociativa.