Role of Familiarity and Unitization on New-Association Priming

The role of familiarity and stimulus unitization was examined for nonverbal associations. Implicit memory was tested using a color-naming task. In 2 experiments spatially separated words, novel shapes, or nonwords and colors were presented, and the encoding instructions encouraged their unitization. New-association priming occurred between words and colors but not between abstract shapes and colors or between nonwords and colors. The results suggest that new-association priming occurs for familiar stimuli that are not physically integrated. However, when the stimuli are neither familiar nor unitized, new-association priming does not occur. It is possible that during encoding, memory representations are activated. If the stimuli are neither familiar nor unitized,then these processes must be carried out at study at the expense of learning of the associations.