The role of polysemy in masked semantic and translation prim(7)

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lexicalprocessingskillsand,hence,indicatethatthelackofL2–L1priminginlexicaldecisionwasnotduetoparticipantsÕinabilitytoprocessL2primesundertheseparticularmaskingconditions.Discussion

Takentogether,the ndingsofExperiments1and2demonstrateclearlythatL2–L1primingistaskdepen-dent.Despiteobservingrobustwithin-L2maskedrepe-titionpriming(con rmingthe ndingsofGollanetal.,1997;Jiang,1999),andclearL2–L1maskedtranslationpriminginsemanticcategorization(con rmingthe ndingreportedbyGrainger&Frenck-Mestre,1998),therewasamarkedabsenceofL2–L1translationpriminginthelexicaldecisiontask(cf.Gollanetal.,1997;Grainger&Frenck-Mestre,1998;Jiang,1999;Keatlyetal.,1994).Modelsofbilinguallexicalpro-cessingsuchastheRHMhavedi cultyaccountingforthistaskdependencybecauseL2form–meaningcon-nectionstrengths,proposedtobethelimitingfactorsinL2–L1priming,cannotatthesametimelimitpriminginonetaskbutnotanother.

Onemaywanttoargue,though,thatthetaskdif-ferenceisduesimplytothefactthatconsiderationofmeaningiscriticalforsemanticcategorizationbutnotforlexicaldecision.Thatis,participantsessentiallyig-noremeaningwhentheymakelexicaldecisions,butnotwhentheymakesemanticcategorydecisions.Theproblemwiththisargumentisthatitfailstoexplaintheexistenceofstrongsemanticandassociativeprim-inge ectsinlexicaldecision(seeNeely,1991forareview),whichsuggeststhatsemanticandconceptualpropertiesarehighlyrelevanttothedecisionprocess.Alternatively,itcouldbearguedthatthesemanticcategorizationtaskitselfampli esthestrengthoftheform–meaningconnections,sothattheweakL2form–meaningconnectionsarenowstrongenoughtopro-ducepriming.Ifthiswerethecase,thenweshouldobserveprimingforbothexemplars(aswasthecaseinExperiment1)andnon-exemplars.Analternativepossibilityisthatinthesemanticcategorizationtask,theexistenceofthecategoryitselfmightactasacontext,whichmayservetoemphasizethecategory-relevantsemanticpropertiesofboththeprimeandtarget,therebyincreasingthesemanticoverlapbetweenthem.Ifthiswerethecase,thenprimingwouldbeexpectedonlyforexemplars,sincethenon-exemplarswouldnothaveanycategory-relevantsemanticfea-tures,andhencewouldbeuna ectedbythecategorycontext.Thus,itiscriticaltodeterminewhetherprimingisobtainedfornon-exemplarsaswellasex-emplars:asimpleampli cationmodelpredictsprimingforboth,butacontextselectionmodelpredictsprim-ingonlyforexemplars.WetestthispossibilityinExperiment3.

Experiment3—semanticcategorizationwithnon-exemp-lars

Experiment3wasidenticaltothatofExperiment1,theonlyexceptionbeingthatthecriticalitemsfromExperiment1werenowpresentedasnon-exemplars.Thiswasachievedbyrandomlyselecting48oftheori-ginal52itemsanddistributingthemevenlybetween6newcategories(militarytitle,partofspeech,weapon,naturalearthformation,weatherphenomenon,andgirl’s rstname).Theseparticularcategorieswerechosenfortworeasons:(1)noneofourcriticalitemscouldbeconstruedashavingexemplarstatusinanyofthecate-goriesand(2)noneoftheexemplarsinthesecategorieswerecognateswiththeirEnglishtranslationequivalents.Eachcategoryconsistedof30items,15exemplarsand15non-exemplars.InordertomaintainconsistencywithExperiment1,thecriticalitems(N¼8percategory)wereinterleavedwithanequalnumberofexemplarsandpresentedrandomlywithincategories,withtheonlyconstraintbeingthatthecriticalitems(andanequalnumberofexemplars)werepresentedsubsequenttotheotheritemsineachcategory.Theparticipants(N¼20)wererecruitedfromthesamestudentpopulationofin-dividualstestedinExperiments1and2.Again,eachparticipantwaspaidfortheirparticipation.Results

ThesametrimmingprocedureusedinExperiments1and2wasemployedagain.Meanresponsetimesforthecriticalitemsasnon-exemplarswere605mswhenpre-cededbyEnglish(L2)translation-equivalentprimes,and609mswhenprecededbyEnglishcontrolprimes.Thisslightpriminge ectof4mswasnotfoundtobesig-ni cant(allFs<1).Errorrates(M¼3:5%)didnotdi ersigni cantlybetweenconditions.Importantly,therewasaninteractionbetweenthepriminge ectsofExperiment1,whenthecriticalitemswereexemplars,andthoseofthepresentexperiment,whenthecriticalitemswerenon-exemplars(F1ð1;36Þ¼6:99,P¼:01;F2ð1;92Þ¼3:53,P¼:07).Discussion

Thelackofareliablepriminge ectinthepresentexperimentfornon-exemplarssuggeststhatthere-quirementsofthesemanticcategorizationtaskalonedonotsimplystrengthentheform–meaningconnectionsnecessarytoproduceL2–L1priming.Furthermore,thenatureoftheinteractionbetweenthepriminge ectsobservedinExperiment1andthelackofpriminginthepresentexperimentsuggeststhatreliableprimingintheL2–L1directionisobservedinsemanticcategorizationonlywhenparticipantsgeneratedecisionsforexemplars.Thisresultisconsistentwiththeproposalthatthe