The source of masked priming effects: lexical or episodic memory?

Masked priming is a technique in which a word is presented so briefly that it cannot be consciously perceived, while at the same time it has an effect on the processing speed of a subsequently presented word. For this reason the technique is often used to investigate the nature of memory structures and processes underlying word recognition. However, recently the lexical nature of these masked priming effects has been called into question by Bodner and Masson (2003, 2004, 2006). Do these effects reflect the structure of the mental lexicon or do they reflect residual activation in episodic memory, where personal experiences are stored? A series of experiments is planned to investigate whether a lexical interpretation of the effect can be defended. Given the popularity of the technique the results of this research can have far-reaching consequences with respect to the theory formation on the mental lexicon.

Keywords:MEMORY, MENTAL LEXICON, PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

Disciplines:Animal experimental and comparative psychology, Applied psychology, Human experimental psychology, Linguistics