Priming processes in semantic memory.
Robert F. Lorch · ScholarWorks@UMassAmherst (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 1980
How does the strength of an association determine the speed with which the association can be retrieved?Three alternative models of retrieval are developed within a network theoretic framework: Informa to say the exemplar word aloud as soon as they recognized it.Subjects vi were faster to say the exemplar when it was preceded by the name of its category than when it was preceded by the word "blank."Further, priming effects were greater when the category prime and exemplar probe were strongly associated than when they were weakly associated.In addition, priming effects increased linearly as SOA increased from 150 to 600 msec.The effects of SOA and strength of association were again independent, however.Thus, the results of Experiment 2 also provided support for the Threshold Model.A final priming experiment using a sentence verification task failed to produce any conclusive results .The support for the Threshold Model provided by the results of Experiments 1 and 2 was interpreted as suggesting a fundamentally different conception of the activation process than has usually been assumed: Rather than being a mechanism for the retrieval of individ- ual associative connections, the activation process appears to be a pre-processing mechanism that makes the entire set of associates of a concept simultaneously available for closer scrutiny by a selection mechanism.