Interaction of Prime Repetition with Visual Degradation: Is Priming a Retrieval Phenomenen?

Pronunciation of a word can be facilitated by preceding its presentation with that of an associatively related word. This associative priming effect has been taken as support for network models of semantic representation, in which activation of the node corresponding to a word spreads to & thereby preactivates nodes corresponding to related words. Critically, in such models, processing of the prime cannot be made conditional on unforeseen events: the amount of preactivation of a related probe word must be independent of the conditions under which the probe will be tested. In contrast, if priming is a retrieval phenomenon, in which the probe retrieves the prime to assist its identification, then the prime might be retrieved, & influence processing of the probe, only when processing the probe is difficult. To discriminate these alternatives, the degradation & relatedness of a probe word following the prime was manipulated & the effects of these manipulations on the time taken to pronounce a repetition of the prime were observed. Contrary to the predictions of spreading activation accounts, it was observed that pronunciation of the repeated prime was dependent on the difficulty of the probe, & was fastest when the second word was degraded & related to the prime. This was interpreted to mean that degradation of the probe caused unitization of the probe with its prime. It is argued that such qualitative shifts may be best understood in terms of changes in retrieval processing. 7 Tables, 39 References. Modified AA