PSYC3311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Lexical Decision Task, Spreading Activation, Insecticide
Week 7 lec 2
influence of context (e.g. sentences) on lexical processing. Is it the case that when a word is
presented in context, we process it in a qualitatively different way to when it is presented in
isolation?
Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971)
- Priming unmasked
- Researchers were the first to show that a target word (e.g., NURSE) is recognised more
quickly when preceded by a semantically related prime (e.g., DOCTOR) than by an
unrelated prime (e.g., NATION). However, it has also been shown (by Neely, 1976) that
a neutral condition (e.g., NURSE preceded by XXXXX) falls in between the other two
conditions. That is, related words show facilitation (relative to the neutral baseline) while
unrelated words show inhibition.
Spread of activation through shared semantic features – doctor and nurse. So doctor spreads to
other things related to hospital and medical things.
But what about inhibition? Wouldn’t spread like this
"Nurse" is a predictable response to the word "doctor" in a semantic association task. Does one
also find facilitation to the target when the prime is related but not predictable? Yes. E.g.,
INJECTION primes NURSE relative to the neutral (XXXXX) baseline.
Doctor and nurse r associates. But injection- may think of vaccination or something, so doctor
and nurse (predictable), injection and nurse (unpredictable but related)
Still see facilitation relative to the neutral
Neely (1976) explains the pattern of priming results in terms of there being two processes: 1)
Automatic spreading activation leads to facilitation of predictable words. 2) a conscious strategy
where attention is directed to the relevant part of semantic memory also leads to facilitation of
related words,. → so for doctor and injection there is facilitation for related words (nurse). but
inhibition of unrelated words. For e.g. if u see nation thinking of something else
Is lexical processing qualitatively affected by its sentence context (like if a word was embedded
in sentence)?
Schuberth & Eimas (1977), Fischler & Bloom (1979), and others:
Presented sentence context and then target word. And have to make lexical decision. Lexical
decision responses to BONE faster when preceded by "The dog gnawed happily on the" than "xxx
xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xx xxx" (equivalent to DOCTOR NURSE vs XXXXXX NURSE: Predictable
vs Neutral)
Also inhibition for unrelated (anomalous=doesn’t make sense) contexts (equivalent to NATION
NURSE): "The girl ran hurriedly through the BONE" > "xxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xx xxx BONE"
- Thinking of ‘girl running’ through …. And bone is not something you’d think of
However, unlike INJECTION NURSE, related, but not predictable sentence contexts produce no
priming: "Inside the cave we found a large BONE" = "xxxxxx xxxx xxxxxx xx xxxx BONE"
- This sentence is plausible but not predictable → no priming
Lexical decision responses to a target word show facilitation when predictable from the sentence
context, inhibition for unrelated (anomalous) contexts, and no priming when simply plausible in
the context (but not predictable).
Forster (1981) explains this pattern of results as demonstrating that the main impact of sentence
context is to inhibit words that don't fit the context – a post-access account of context. Before u
recognise the word, u’ve already activated it (pre-access). Post-access is u process word and use
context to inhibit it. The facilitation observed with highly predictable targets is seen as a special
case of guessing (not actually normal reading), and is not the typical thing we do when reading
(because most words are not so predictable from their context).
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Document Summary
Week 7 lec 2 influence of context (e. g. sentences) on lexical processing. Researchers were the first to show that a target word (e. g. , nurse) is recognised more quickly when preceded by a semantically related prime (e. g. , doctor) than by an unrelated prime (e. g. , nation). However, it has also been shown (by neely, 1976) that a neutral condition (e. g. , nurse preceded by xxxxx) falls in between the other two conditions. That is, related words show facilitation (relative to the neutral baseline) while unrelated words show inhibition. Spread of activation through shared semantic features doctor and nurse. So doctor spreads to other things related to hospital and medical things. nurse is a predictable response to the word doctor in a semantic association task. Injection primes nurse relative to the neutral (xxxxx) baseline. But injection- may think of vaccination or something, so doctor and nurse (predictable), injection and nurse (unpredictable but related)
