Manipulating attention-induced priming in a lexical decision task by means of repeated prime-target presentations

The present experiments were designed to devise a technique of manipulating the degree of attention-induced priming in a word-word lexical decision paradigm. Experiment 1 involved six repetitions of a block of prime-target pairs using a stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) of 550 ms between prime and target presentations. The results produced a substantial increase in facilitation over trial blocks for the semantically related and unrelated word-word conditions as measured against a neutral prime condition. Experiment 2 was designed to evaluate whether this growth in facilitation was in fact attention-induced. This experiment was a replication of the first experiment, except for a shorter SOA (100 ms). The interaction between repetition or trial blocks and priming conditions was absent while traditional semantic priming was obtained. Experiments 3 and 4 indicated that the short SOA prevented subjects from implementing attention-induced or paired-associate priming. Finally, Experiment 5 determined that paired-associate priming involves the priming of specific target information as opposed to a more general word or nonword expectation. Implications of these results are discussed within the context of M. I. Posner and C. R. Snyder's dual-process model (1975, Attention and cognitive control, in R. L. Solso (Ed.), Information Processing and Cognition: The Loyola Symposium, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum) and within the context of E. Tulving's distinction between episodic and semantic memory (1983, Elements of Episodic Memory, New York: Oxford Univ. Press).