Masked phonological priming effects in English - Center for Reading ...
Masked phonological priming effects in English - Center for Reading ...
Masked phonological priming effects in English - Center for Reading ...
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102 K. Rastle, M. Brysbaert / Cognitive Psychology 53 (2006) 97–145<strong>in</strong>vestigation both because it has been studied extensively aga<strong>in</strong>st benchmark <strong>effects</strong> ofvisual word recognition and because it has been highly <strong>in</strong>fluential <strong>in</strong> this area <strong>for</strong> a numberof years. Furthermore, the DRC model has been made available <strong>for</strong> public evaluation (seehttp://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/~max/DRC), thus allow<strong>in</strong>g us to exam<strong>in</strong>e its per<strong>for</strong>manceexplicitly on the actual stimuli used <strong>in</strong> our experiments. F<strong>in</strong>ally, the DRC model is controlledby a number of parameters, each of which can be altered <strong>in</strong>dependently. The factthat such parametric alterations are possible <strong>in</strong> the implemented model provides scope <strong>for</strong>an evaluation of a number of potential theories of visual word recognition, rang<strong>in</strong>g fromtheories that postulate a very ‘‘weak’’ <strong>phonological</strong> contribution to those that postulate a‘‘stronger’’ <strong>phonological</strong> contribution to this process.2. The masked <strong>phonological</strong> <strong>prim<strong>in</strong>g</strong> effect <strong>in</strong> <strong>English</strong>: What are the data?Five experimental paradigms have been used to exam<strong>in</strong>e the <strong>in</strong>fluence of tachistoscopicallypresented homophonic stimuli on the process<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>English</strong> target words:<strong>for</strong>ward-masked perceptual identification, backward-masked perceptual identification,<strong>for</strong>ward-masked read<strong>in</strong>g aloud, <strong>for</strong>ward-masked lexical decision, and text read<strong>in</strong>g (eyemovements). Though our own experimental work will use the <strong>for</strong>ward-masked visual lexicaldecision task, we review evidence from all five of the paradigms both <strong>for</strong> completenessand to identify whether the appearance of the masked <strong>phonological</strong> <strong>prim<strong>in</strong>g</strong> effect mightbe related to particular characteristics of the per<strong>for</strong>mance tasks themselves. Further, we<strong>in</strong>clude all studies that fall <strong>in</strong>to one of the five paradigms, even though some of these studiesclaimed to look <strong>for</strong> the boundary conditions of the masked <strong>phonological</strong> <strong>prim<strong>in</strong>g</strong> effectby us<strong>in</strong>g, <strong>for</strong> example, very short stimulus-onset-asynchronies, homophones <strong>in</strong> the stimuluslist, or parafoveal nonword stimuli. This decision was made because researchers acrossparadigms have not been consistent <strong>in</strong> their views concern<strong>in</strong>g the conditions under whichthe masked <strong>phonological</strong> <strong>prim<strong>in</strong>g</strong> effect occurs. Our discussion of each experimental paradigmis accompanied by tables present<strong>in</strong>g various details about each experiment considered<strong>in</strong> the meta-analysis. To enable readers to ask specific questions about the nature ofthe masked <strong>prim<strong>in</strong>g</strong> effect, we present more <strong>in</strong><strong>for</strong>mation concern<strong>in</strong>g each experiment <strong>in</strong> thetables than we discuss <strong>in</strong> text (e.g., prime exposure duration, target duration). Our ownpurpose is to establish the empirical basis <strong>for</strong> a masked <strong>phonological</strong> <strong>prim<strong>in</strong>g</strong> effect <strong>in</strong> <strong>English</strong>,however, and so we do not enterta<strong>in</strong> these more specific questions here.2.1. Forward-masked perceptual identificationIn the <strong>for</strong>ward-masked perceptual identification procedure (Humphreys et al., 1982), a<strong>for</strong>ward pattern mask (e.g., #########) is followed immediately by a briefly presentedword or nonword prime stimulus, which is then replaced by a briefly presented target stimulusand a backward pattern mask. Prime and target are presented <strong>in</strong> different cases, andparticipants are asked to identify the target word. The dependent variable is the percentageof target words correctly identified. Three papers (18 experiments) us<strong>in</strong>g this paradigm aresummarized <strong>in</strong> Table 1: Humphreys et al. (1982), Perfetti and Bell (1991, Experiment 3),and Booth, Perfetti, and MacWh<strong>in</strong>ney (1999). 11 Booth et al. (1999) reported <strong>phonological</strong> <strong>prim<strong>in</strong>g</strong> <strong>effects</strong> <strong>in</strong> different age groups of children. We describe hereonly data collected from the older children (6th grade).