The role of polysemy in masked semantic and translation prim(6)

6M.Finkbeineretal./JournalofMemoryandLanguage51(2004)1–22

constructedineachprimingconditioninordertocounterbalanceacrosstheprimefactor.Inthetransla-tioncondition,targetsthatwereprecededbytheirmaskedL2translationequivalentonListAwerepre-cededbyamaskedcontrolprimeonListB,andviceversa.Inthewithin-L2repetitionprimingcondition,criticaltargetspairedwitharepetitionprimeonListAwerepairedwithacontrolprimeonListB,andviceversa.Therepetitionprimeconsistedofthesameletterstringasthetarget,butwaspresentedinlowercaseletters.Thecontrolprimewascompletelyunrelatedtothetargetexceptthatitwasmatchedwiththetargetonlength,frequency,andconcreteness.Notargetwordorprimewordwasrepeatedwithinlists.Itemswerepre-sentedrandomlytoeachparticipantandRTswerere-cordedtothenearestmillisecond.Results

ThesametrimmingprocedureusedinExperiment1wasemployedagain.Inthetranslationcondition,meanresponsetimeswere529msforJapanesetargetspre-cededbytheirEnglish(L2)translationequivalents,and525msfortargetsprecededbyEnglishcontrolprimes.

Thisslightinhibitorye ectof4mswasnotsigni cant(allFs<1).Themeanerrorratewas5.6%onnon-wordtrialsand1.3%onexperimentaltrials.Errorratesonexperimentaltrialsdidnotdi erbetweenconditions.Cruciallyforthepurposesofthisstudy,anANOVArevealedasigni cantinteractionbetweenthepriminge ectsofExperiments1and2(F1ð1;36Þ¼4:62,P¼:03;F2ð1;51Þ¼6:70,P¼:012).Thisinteraction,depictedinFig.1,providesconvincingsupportforataskdi erence,withreliablepriminginsemanticcate-gorizationbutnotlexicaldecision.

Inthewithin-L2repetitionprimingcondition,twoofthelow-frequencyabstractitemshadtobeexcludedfromanalysisbecauseofexceptionallyhigh-errorrates.Inordertobalancethedesign,twoitemswererandomlyselectedandremovedfromeachoftheotherwordtypes.ThemeanlexicaldecisiontimesandpercenterrorratesarepresentedinTable1.Foreachcomparisonofin-terest,twoanalysesofvariancewereperformed,onetreatingsubjectsasarandomfactor(F1),theothertreatingitemsasarandomfactor(F2).ThefactorswereWordType(abstractvs.concrete),Frequency(highvs.low),andPrimeType(identityvs.unrelated).ThefactorofPrimeTypewasarepeatedmeasuresfactorinbothanalyses,butthefactorsofFrequencyandWordTypewererepeatedinthesubjectanalysisbutnotintheitemanalysis.

AsTable1shows,therewereclearmaine ectsofwordtype,frequency,andprimetype.Participantsexhibitedaclearconcretenesse ect,respondingonaverage89msfastertoconcretewordsthantoab-stractwords.Thisdi erencewasfoundtobehighlyreliable,F1ð1;17Þ¼15:48,P<:01;F2ð1;68Þ¼12:67,P<:01.Likewise,participantsexhibitedaclearfre-quencye ect.Meanresponsetimeswere263msfasterforhigh-frequencyitemsthantheywereforlow-fre-quencyitems.Again,thisdi erencewasfoundtobehighlyreliable:F1ð1;17Þ¼88:70,P<:01;F2ð1;68Þ¼174:19,P<:01.Crucially,participantsexhibitedaclearrepetitionpriminge ect(83ms),whichwasfoundtobereliableinboththesubjectanditemsanalyses,F1ð1;17Þ¼18:95,P<:01;F2ð1;68Þ¼25:67,P<:01.Noneoftheinteractionsbetweenfactorsreachedsigni cance.These ndingsrevealrobust

Table1

Meanlexicaldecisiontimes(ms),percenterrorrates,andpriminge ectsasafunctionofwordtypeinwithin-L2repetitionpriming(Experiment2)

WordType

Abstract

Low-frequency

ControlPrimePriminge ect

990(29)913(33)77

High-frequency659(3)590(2)69

Low-frequency860(22)737(16)123

Concrete

High-frequency630(3)567(2)63