The role of polysemy in masked semantic and translation prim(14)

14M.Finkbeineretal./JournalofMemoryandLanguage51(2004)1–22

wasthecase,thenthefacilitatione ectwouldbeacongruencye ect,notapriminge ect.Again,thisisapossibilitythatweaddressinExperiment6.

Turningnowtotheprimeawarenesstask,thepar-ticipantsinExperiment5bdidnotdoanybetterthanthoseinExperiment5a.Themeanaccuracyrateontrialswitha41msprimeduration(asinthesemanticcategorizationtask)was53.2%.Thisdidnotdi ersig-ni cantlyfromchance(F¼2:5;p¼:11).Participantsdidmuchbetterontrialswheretheprimewaspresentedfor10refreshcycles(137.3ms),correctlyidentifyingtheprimewordscontainingtheletter‘‘e’’83%ofthetime.Again,thispatternof ndingsindicatesveryclearlythat:(1)participantsweretryingtodothistaskand(2)thatdespitetheire orts,theywerenotabletoperceivetheprimewhenthepresentationsequencewasidenticalinitstemporalcharacteristicstothatusedinthesemanticcategorizationtask.Followingfromthis,itisunlikelythattheprimingexhibitedbythesesameparticipantsinthesemanticcategorizationtaskcouldhavebeenduetotheirawarenessoftheprimeÕspresence.

Experiment5hascontributedinanimportantwaytoourunderstandingofthetaskdi erencebetweense-manticcategorizationandlexicaldecisionintranslationpriming.Itisclearfromthisexperimentthatsemanticprimingoccursequallyinboththeone-to-manyandthemany-to-onedirection,despitetherepresentationalasymmetrybetweenprimeandtarget.Thisisquitedif-ferentfromtheresultsseeninlexicaldecision.Inlexicaldecision,primingonlyoccursinthemany-to-onedi-rection.Althoughthispatternof ndings tsverywellwiththepredictionsoftheSenseModel,thereisapossiblealternativeexplanationforthetaskdi erence,whichweaddressnow.Thisisthepossibilityofadeci-sioncon ict.

ThispossibilitywaspointedoutbyDavis,Kim,andSanchez-Casas(2003)intheircritiqueoftheoriginal ndingreportedbyGraingerandFrenck-Mestre(1998).TheyarguedthatthecontrolconditionusedintheGraingerandFrenck-Mestre(1998)experiment(thesameasinourExperiments1and5)mayhavebeeninappropriate.Forthecriticalitems,theunrelatedprimewasanon-exemplar,whilethetargetwasanexemplar.Thismayhavegeneratedadecisioncon ictforunre-lateditems,butnotforrelateditems(sincebothprimeandtargetwereexemplars),whichwouldproduceacongruencee ectintheplaceofatruepriminge ect.Previousattemptstodiscoversuchcongruencee ects,however,havenotbeensuccessful.Inarecentexperi-ment,Damian(2001)foundthatdecisioncon ictsinasizejudgmenttaskaroseonlywhenprimeshadprevi-ouslyappearedastargets.Damianinterpretedthose ndingstomeanthatdecisioncon icts,whentheyar-ose,weretheresultofautomatizedstimulus–responsemappings,notunconsciouscategorizationoftheprime.Becausenoneoftheprimesinthepresentsetof

experimentseverappearedastargets,thereisnoreasontobelievethatourparticipantseverdevelopedsuchautomatizedstimulus–responsemappings.Inaseparateinvestigationofthesameissue,Forsteretal.(2003),usingthecategoryANIMAL,foundnodi erencebe-tweencongruentpairs(e.g.,‘‘shark–ROBIN’’)andin-congruentpairs(e.g.,‘‘badge–ROBIN’’),suggestingthatcongruencee ectscouldsafelybeignored.However,thiswastrueonlyforexemplars.Fornon-exemplars,acongruencee ect(15ms)wasdetected.SimilarresultsforexemplarswereobtainedbyBuenoandFrenck-Mestre(2002),whoreportedsimilarpriminge ectsfor‘‘dolphin–WHALE’’whenthecontrolconditionusednon-exemplarsasprimes(e.g.,‘‘helmet–WHALE’’)andwhenthecontrolconditionusedcongruent,butse-manticallydissimilar,exemplarsasprimes(e.g.,‘‘spar-row–WHALE’’).Sinceneitheroftheseexperimentsreportevidenceofacongruencee ectforexemplars,adecisioncon ictaccountforthepriminge ectsseeninExperiments1and5seemsveryunlikely.However,re-centevidence(Forster,inpress)indicatesthatverysubstantialcongruencee ectscanbegeneratedforbothexemplarsandnon-exemplarswhenasmallcategoryisused(e.g.,farmanimal),butnotwhenalargecategoryisused(e.g.,animal).SincesomeofthecategoriesusedinExperiments1and5mightbedescribedas‘‘small,’’itseemedwisetoeliminatethispossibleexplanationofthepriminge ect.Accordingly,weaddressthispossibilityinExperiment6byconductingareplicationofExperi-ment5.Theonlydi erencebetweenthetwoexperimentswasthatinExperiment6bothexperimentalandcontrolprimessharedexemplarstatuswiththetarget.

Experiment6—semanticcategorizationwithexemplarsascontrolprimesParticipants

Twenty-fourundergraduatestudentsfromtheUni-versityofArizonaparticipatedforcoursecredit.Materials

ThematerialswereidenticaltothoseusedinExper-iment5exceptforthecontrolprimesonthe42criticaltrials.Thesewerereplacedsothatbothprimeandtargetwereexemplarsofthesamecategory.Inselectingthenewcontrolitems,carewastakentoensurethatthecontrolprimesweresemanticallydistantfromthetar-gets.Forexample,intheBODYPARTcategory,thetarget‘‘HAND’’waspairedwiththeexperimentalprime‘‘wrist’’andthecontrolprime‘‘kidney.’’Ifparticipantsaregeneratingaresponsebasedonthecategorymem-bershipoftheprimeword,thenthereshouldbenodi erenceinresponsetimesbetweenexperimentaland