Contexts and Trans-Situational Variation of Concepts

Three experiments tested the effects of context on initial access to central & peripheral properties of concepts of natural categories. In experiment 1, pairs of words & target properties (either primary or secondary) of those words were selected. Context sentences were constructed to bias readers toward selecting one or the other associated property. In addition to context, manipulations included modality (appropriate, inappropriate context, & control) & property (primary, secondary). Ss (N = 60) were required to read the context sentences & complete a lexical decision task. Experiment 2 used the same format but provided a semantically richer context. The objective of experiment 3 was to differentiate contextual effects deriving from semantic elaboration & those deriving from the simple associative relation between stimulus & target (N = 60). Overall results showed a facilitating effect of context, if it is semantically rich enough, & if stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) is sufficient to warrant that processing is automatic. Experiment 3 findings weaken the hypothesis of an intralexical facilitation between context & target, & confirm that semantic constructions elaborated by the S best facilitate access to relevant properties of the prime. 3 Tables, 84 References. Adapted from the source document