The role of polysemy in masked semantic and translation prim(11)

M.Finkbeineretal./JournalofMemoryandLanguage51(2004)1–2211

Results

ThesametrimmingprocedureusedinExperiments1–3wasemployedhere.InExperiment4a,themany-to-one(or‘‘L1–L2’’)condition,meanresponsetimeswere550msfortargets(e.g.,OAR)precededbyarelatedprime(e.g.,paddle)and573msfortargetsprecededbyacontrolprime.AnANOVAshowedthatthisfacilitatione ectof23mswasreliable(F1ð1;20Þ¼12:41,P¼:002;F2ð1;38Þ¼14:26,P<:001).Themeanerrorratewas5.9%andwasnotdi erentbetweenexperimentalandcontrolconditions(allFs<1).

InExperiment4b,theone-to-manycondition(or‘‘L2–L1’’direction),thepatternofresultswasmarkedlydi erentdespiteusingthesamewordpairs,albeitintheoppositedirection.Meanresponsetimeswere538msfortargets(e.g.,PADDLE)precededbyarelatedprime(e.g.,oar)and528msfortargetsprecededbyacontrolprime.AnANOVAshowedthatthisinhibitorye ectof10mswasnotreliable(F1ð1;20Þ¼1:71,P¼:21;F2ð1;38Þ¼3:24,P<:079).Themeanerrorratewas5.7%andwasnotdi erentbetweenconditions(allFs<1).Importantly,therewasasigni cantinteractionbetweentheresultsofExperiments4aand4b(F1ð1;40Þ¼10:49,P¼:002;F2ð1;72Þ¼15:70,P<:001).

Onepossibleexplanationforthisinteractionthatweconsiderhastodowiththelargedi erenceinsurfacefrequencybetweentheprimesandthetargets.Many-sensewords,byvirtueofhavingseveraldi erentusages,haveamuchhighersurfacefrequencythanfew-sensewords.Becausesurfacefrequencyandnumberofsensesaresohighlycorrelated,wewereunabletocontrolap-propriatelyforthisinouritemselection,andthecon-cernisthathigh-frequencywordsmaybebettersemanticprimesthanlow-frequencywords.Althoughitiswellknownthatfrequencyrarelyinteractswithmaskedrepetitionpriminge ects(cf.Experiment2),muchlessisknownaboutthepossibilityoffrequencyinteractingwithmaskedsemanticpriminge ects.Inordertoaddressthispossibility,wecalculatedthepriminge ectforeachitemfromExperiments4aand4bandenteredthemintoasimultaneousmultipleregres-sionanalysiswiththesensecountsofthetargetwordsandthesurfacefrequenciesoftheprimewordsincludedaspredictors.Thisanalysisrevealedthatalthoughthesensecountsofthetargetwordsaccountedforasig-ni cantproportionofthepriminge ect(t¼À2:97,P¼:003),thesurfacefrequenciesoftheprimewordsdidnot(t¼À0:27,P¼:788).Discussion

These ndingscon rmthepredictionsoftheSenseModelandhenceprovidesupportfortheassumptionthatarepresentationalasymmetrybetweenL1andL2

equivalentsmaybethesourceofthetranslationprimingasymmetry.Maskedprimingwasobservedinthelexicaldecisiontaskbetweenmany-sensewords(e.g.,‘‘paddle’’)andone-sensewords(e.g.,‘‘oar’’)inthemany-to-onedirection.Thise ectisanalogoustothemaskedtrans-lationpriminge ectsfoundwithbilingualsintheL1–L2direction(deGroot&Nas,1991;Gollanetal.,1997;Jiang,1999).Usingthesamewordpairs,butnowintheone-to-manydirection,noprimingwasobserved.This ndingisanalogoustothelackofmaskedtranslationprimingintheL2–L1direction(Gollanetal.,1997;Grainger&Frenck-Mestre,1998;Jiang,1999;Sanchez-Casasetal.,1992;andExperiment2above).

Theseresultsareimportantinatleasttwodi erentways.First,theyprovidejustthekindofevidencenee-dedtocon rmthecentralassumptionoftheSenseModel.Second,theyrepresentarelativelyunusualcaseofsemanticpriminginthatthisisamaskedsemanticpriminge ectinlexicaldecision;mostpreviousstudiesreportingsemanticpriminge ectshaveusedmuchlongerprimedurationsorsemanticjudgmenttasks.4

Experiment5—symmetricalpriminginsemanticcatego-rization

InExperiment4,thecentralassumptionoftheSenseModelwascon rmed,namelythattheprimingasym-metryfrequentlyobservedintranslationprimingistheconsequenceofarepresentationalasymmetrybetweenL1andL2translationequivalents.Wenowturnourinvestigationtothetaskdi erenceinL2–L1translationpriming.Here,thequestionishowthesemanticcate-gorizationtaskeliminatestheprimingasymmetrythatisclearlypresentinlexicaldecision.Wehavesuggestedthatinlexicaldecision,thereisnotaskrelevantcategorytorestricthowparticipantsgeneratedecisions,e ec-tivelydilutingthee cacyoftheL2prime.Insemanticcategorization,though,thepresenceofrelevantcategoryinformationmayservetofocushowdecisionsaremadeinresponsetothetarget.Theconsequenceofthis‘‘fo-cusing’’e ectisthatonlythesemanticsensethatisrelevanttothecategoryistakenintoaccount,therebyallowingtheL2primetobee ective.Thatis,byhy-pothesis,semanticcategorizatione ectivelyturnsmany-sensewordsintoone-sensewordsforthepurposesofthetask.Ifthishypothesisiscorrect,thenprimingshouldbesymmetricalbetweenmany-andfew-sensewordsin

4

Subsequentreplicationsofthisexperimenthaveuncoveredacuriousfact:many-to-onepriminge ectsareonlyobservedwhenatleast50%ofthepositiveitemsareofthe‘‘paddle–OAR’’type.Currently,wehavenoexplanationforthisresult,otherthantopointoutthatthismaybesimilartotherelatednessproportione ectsreportedbyBodnerandMasson(2001)inmaskedpriming.