Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Saturday Afternoon Papers 235–241
stronger than others. We hypothesized that the strength of memory
connections would be influenced by the age of acquisition of individual
words. L1 words learned early in life were predicted to have stronger
connections to conceptual information than do L1 words learned later in
life. Evidence for this hypothesis was obtained in an experiment with
36 highly fluent Spanish–English bilinguals for whom Spanish was a
first language. Participants carried out a translation task in which they
translated L1 words into the second language (L2) and L2 words into
the L1 under conditions in which the words were presented in random
order or blocked by semantic category (cf. Kroll & Stewart, 1994).
The results have implications for models of bilingual word memory.
3:10–3:25 (235)
Ubiquitous Control of Lexical and Nonlexical Pathways in Reading
Aloud. MIKE REYNOLDS & DEREK BESNER, University of Waterloo
(read by Derek Besner)—Subjects were asked to read aloud words
and nonwords that appeared one at a time in a predictable sequence.
Control was assessed by measuring the effect of predictable switches
in the lexicality and regularity of the stimuli. The results of three experiments
are consistent with the claim that skilled readers can control
the relative contribution from separate lexical and nonlexical
routes when reading aloud.
Masked Priming and Word Recognition
Grand Ballroom Centre, Saturday Afternoon, 4:10–5:30
Chaired by Stephen J. Lupker, University of Western Ontario
4:10–4:25 (236)
Masked Form Priming Effects and the Interactive-Activation Model.
STEPHEN J. LUPKER, University of Western Ontario, COLIN J.
DAVIS, University of Bristol, & JASON R. PERRY, University of Western
Ontario—The ability of various versions of the interactive-activation
model to explain masked priming effects was investigated in a series
of experiments. Facilitation effects were obtained from a variety of
form-related nonword primes: standard nonwords (azle–AXLE), partial
nonwords (h#use–HOUSE) and letter pairs (##ai#–TRAIL). Inhibition effects
were obtained from form-related word primes (e.g., able–AXLE)
and from letter primes that, together with the rest of the target word,
create a competing word (e.g., ##ia#–TRAIL). The version of the model
that was most successful in simulating these data was one that assumed
that (1) letter activations are reset when the target is presented,
(2) orthographic similarity modulates lexical inhibition such that lexical
units only inhibit other lexical units with which they share letters,
and (3) the lexical units activated by a letter string are more extensive
than just those corresponding to the conventionally defined substitution
neighbors.
4:30–4:45 (237)
Masked Orthographic and Phonological Priming: Evidence From
ERPs. JONATHAN GRAINGER, CNRS & University of Provence, &
KRISTI KIYONAGA & PHILLIP J. HOLCOMB, Tufts University—
Masked priming combined with the recording of event-related brain
potentials (ERPs) was used to plot the time course of orthographic and
phonological processing in visual word recognition. Participants monitored
target words for animal names, and critical (nonanimal) trials
were primed by briefly presented (50-msec) pattern-masked nonwords
that varied in terms of their orthographic and phonological overlap
with target words. The earliest evidence for an orthographic effect on
target word processing appeared at around 150 msec post–target onset,
and phonological priming effects were already robust only about
50 msec later. These results fit with the predictions of the bimodal
interactive-activation model, proposed over 10 years ago to account
for a similar time course pattern in behavioral data.
4:50–5:05 (238)
The Neural Correlates of Long-Term Morphological Priming. JAY
G. RUECKL, University of Connecticut and Haskins Laboratories,
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STEPHEN J. FROST & W. EINAR MENCL, Haskins Laboratories,
DANIEL J. YAFFEE, University of Connecticut, REBECCA SANDAK,
Haskins Laboratories, & KENNETH R. PUGH, Haskins Laboratories
and Yale School of Medicine—Event-related functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) was used to identify the neural correlates of
morphological priming in visual word identification. Subjects performed
a continuous lexical decision task in which prime words preceded
their targets at an average lag of about 10 intervening items. The
neural response to targets primed by morphologically related words
(marker–MARK) was contrasted with the responses to words primed by
either identity primes (mark–MARK) or orthographically similar words
(market–MARK). Morphological priming was associated with reductions
in activation in a number of cortical regions, including in particular
the occipitotemporal juncture (OT)—an area sometimes referred
to as the “visual word form area.” The results are considered in
light of both previous neuroimaging results concerning the neural
basis of word identification and previous behavioral results suggesting
an early, modality-specific basis for morphological priming.
5:10–5:25 (239)
Visual Word Recognition in Hebrew and English: Are the Differences
Qualitative or Quantitative? RAM FROST & HADAS VELAN, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem—Previous studies have reported marked
differences in processing orthographic and morphological information
in Hebrew and English. These differences concern effects of morphological
priming compared with effects of simple orthographic
priming. Are these differences quantitative or qualitative? Do Hebrew
and English represent extreme ends of the same distribution, or do
they differ qualitatively in their lexical organization? We present a series
of experiments that compared performance of Hebrew–English
bilinguals. Our empirical investigation explored effects of masked
morphological and form priming and the impact of letter transposition
on priming as well as on fast reading. Our results lead us to suggest
that in contrast to English, the Hebrew orthographic lexicon is organized
by morphological principles by which words are clustered in
lexical space according to their root morphemes and not according to
contiguous letter units. Thus, lexical architecture for visually presented
words is primarily determined by morphological rather than by
orthographic constraints.
Memory Processes II
Grand Ballroom East, Saturday Afternoon, 3:30–5:30
Chaired by Jeffrey N. Rouder, University of Missouri, Columbia
3:30–3:45 (240)
Selective Influence Within the Process Dissociation Model. JEFFREY
N. ROUDER, University of Missouri, Columbia, JUN LU, American University,
& PAUL L. SPECKMAN, DONGCHU SUN, & RICHARD D.
MOREY, University of Missouri, Columbia—Although the process
dissociation model (Jacoby, 1991) has been extraordinarily successful
in assessing recollection and familiarity, it has a known statistical
shortcoming. In conventional analyses, estimates of familiarity may
be downward biased, making it difficult to assess selective influence
(Curran & Hintzman, 1995). The bias comes about if participants with
high recollection also have high familiarity or if items that are more
recollectable are also more familiar. To get accurate estimates, it is
necessary to model covariation of recollection and familiarity across
both participants and items. We do so within a Bayesian hierarchical
model with random effects for participants and items. On the basis of
this improved analysis of empirical data, we show that (1) recollection
and familiarity are uncorrelated across participants; (2) recollection
and familiarity correlate highly across items; and (3) study duration
selectively influences recollection and not familiarity.
3:50–4:05 (241)
Estimating Controlled and Automatic Processes in Free Recall Using
the Process Dissociation Procedure. DAVID P. MCCABE, HENRY L.