Modulation of automatic semantic priming by feature-specific attention allocation

Journal of Memory and Language

Volumn 61, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 37-54

  Spruyt, Adriaan ^a   Houwer, Jan De ^a   Hermans, Dirk ^b  

^a GHENT UNIVERSITY   (Belgium)

^b UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN   (Belgium)

Author keywords

Affective priming; Automatic semantic priming; Feature specific attention allocation; Meaning; Salience; Semantics

Indexed keywords

EID: 65549090375     PISSN: 0749596X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2009.03.004     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. Baayen R.H., Davidson D.J., and Bates D.M. Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language (2008)
2. Baayen R.H., Tweedie F.J., and Schreuder R. The subjects as a simple random effect fallacy: Subject variability and morphological family effects in the mental lexicon. Brain and Language 81 (2002) 55-65
3. Balota D.A., and Lorch R.F. Depth of automatic spreading activation: Mediated priming effects in pronunciation but not in lexical decision. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 12 (1986) 336-345
4. Balota D.A., Yap M.J., Cortese M.J., and Watson J.M. Beyond mean response latency: Response time distributional analyses of semantic priming. Journal of Memory and Language 59 (2008) 495-523
5. Bargh J.A. Automaticity in social psychology. In: Higgins E.T., and Kruglanski A.W. (Eds). Social psychology. Handbook of basic principles (1996), Guilford Press, New York 169-183
6. Bargh J.A. The automaticity of everyday life. In: Wyer Jr. R.S. (Ed). The automaticity of everyday life: Advances in social cognition Vol. 10 (1997), Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ 1-61
7. Bargh J.A., Chaiken S., Raymond P., and Hymes C. The automatic evaluation effect: Unconditional automatic attitude activation with a pronunciation task. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 32 (1996) 104-128
8. Barsalou L.W. Context-independent and context-dependent information in concepts. Memory & Cognition 10 (1982) 82-93
9. Besner D., Stolz J.A., and Boutilier C. The Stroop effect and the myth of automaticity. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 4 (1997) 221-225
10. Bower G.H. Mood congruity of social judgements. In: Forgas J.P. (Ed). Emotion and social judgements (1991), Pergamon Press, Oxford 31-54
11. Caroll J.D., and Wish M. Models and methods for three-way multidimensional scaling. In: Krantz D.H., Atkinson R.C., Luce R.D., and Suppes P. (Eds). Contemporary developments in mathematical psychology Vol. 2 (1974), Freeman, San Francisco 57-105
12. Chen M., and Bargh J.A. Consequences of automatic evaluation: Immediate behavioral predispositions to approach and avoid the stimulus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25 (1999) 215-224
13. Chiappe P.R., Smith M.C., and Besner D. Semantic priming in visual word recognition: Activation blocking and domains of processing. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 3 (1996) 249-253
14. Collins A.M., and Loftus E.F. A spreading activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review 82 (1975) 407-428
15. de Groot A.M.B. Primed lexical decision: Combined effects of the proportion of similar prime-target pairs and the stimulus-onset asynchrony of prime and target. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 36 (1984) 253-280
16. De Houwer J., and Hermans D. Differences in the affective processing of words and pictures. Cognition and Emotion 12 (1994) 1-20
17. De Houwer J., Hermans D., and Eelen P. Affective and identity priming with episodically associated stimuli. Cognition and Emotion 12 (1998) 145-169
18. De Houwer J., Hermans D., Rothermund K., and Wentura D. Affective priming of semantic categorization responses. Cognition and Emotion 16 (2002) 643-666
19. De Houwer J., Hermans D., and Spruyt A. Affective priming of pronunciation responses: Effects of target degradation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 37 (2001) 85-91
20. De Houwer J., and Randell D. Robust affective priming effects in a conditional pronunciation task: Evidence for the semantic representation of evaluative information. Cognition and Emotion 18 (2004) 251-264
21. De Jong R., Liang C.-C., and Lauber E. Conditional and unconditional automaticity: A dual-process model of effects of spatial stimulus-response correspondence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20 (1994) 731-750
22. Draine S.C., and Greenwald A.G. Replicable unconscious semantic priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 127 (1998) 286-303
23. Dreisbach G., Haider H., and Kluwe R.H. Preparatory processes in the task-switching paradigm: Evidence from the use of probability cues. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 28 (2002) 468-483
24. Duckworth K.L., Bargh J.A., Garcia M., and Chaiken S. The automatic evaluation of novel stimuli. Psychological Science 13 (2002) 513-519
25. Duscherer K., Holender D., and Molenaar E. Revisiting the affective Simon effect. Cognition and Emotion 22 (2008) 193-217
26. Eder A.B., and Klauer K.C. Common valence coding in action and evaluation: Affective blindness towards response-compatible stimuli. Cognition and Emotion 21 (2007) 1297-1322
27. Eder A.B., and Rothermund K. When do motor behaviors (mis)match affective stimuli? An evaluative coding view of approach and avoidance reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 137 (2008) 262-281
28. *Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods 39 (2007) 175-191
29. Fazio R.H. On the automatic activation of associated evaluations: An overview. Cognition and Emotion 15 (2001) 115-141
30. Fazio R.H., Sanbonmatsu D., Powell M., and Kardes F. On the automatic activation of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50 (1986) 229-238
31. Ferguson M.J., Bargh J.A., and Nayak D.A. After-affects: How automatic evaluations influence the interpretation of subsequent, unrelated stimuli. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 41 (2005) 182-191
32. Fiske, S. T., & Pavelchak, M. A. (1986). Category-based versus piecemeal-based affective responses: Developments in schema-triggered affect. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition (pp. 167-203). New York: Wiley.
33. Flores d'Arcais G.B., Schreuder R., and Glazenborg G. Semantic activation during recognition of referential words. Psychological Research 47 (1985) 39-49
34. Folk C.L., and Remington R. Selectivity in distraction by irrelevant featural singletons: Evidence for two forms of attentional capture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 24 (1998) 847-858
35. Fuentes L.J., Carmona E., Agis I.F., and Catena A. The role of the anterior attention system in semantic processing of both foveal and parafoveal words. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 6 (1994) 17-25
36. Fuentes L.J., and Tudela P. Semantic processing of foveally and parafoveally presented words in a lexical decision task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 45A (1992) 299-322
37. Gawronski B., Deutsch R., and Seidel O. Contextual influences on implicit evaluation: A test of additive versus contrastive effects of evaluative context stimuli in affective priming. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31 (2005) 1226-1236
38. Giner-Sorolla R., Garcia M., and Bargh J.A. The automatic evaluation of pictures. Social Cognition 17 (1999) 76-96
39. Glaser W.R. Picture naming. Cognition 42 (1992) 61-105
40. Glaser W.R., and Glaser M.O. Context effects in Stroop-like word and picture processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 118 (1989) 13-42
41. Heil M., Rolke B., and Pecchinenda A. Automatic semantic activation is no myth. Semantic context effects on the N400 in the letter-search task in the absence of response time effects. Psychological Science 15 (2004) 852-857
42. Henik A., Friedrich F.J., and Kellogg W.A. The dependence of semantic relatedness effects upon prime processing. Memory & Cognition 11 (1983) 366-373
43. Henik A., Friedrich F.J., Tzelgov J., and Tramer S. Capacity demands of automatic processes in semantic priming. Memory & Cognition 22 (1994) 157-168
44. Hermans D., and De Houwer J. Affective and subjective familiarity ratings of 740 Dutch words. Psychologica Belgica 34 (1994) 115-139
45. Hermans D., De Houwer J., and Eelen P. The affective priming effect: Automatic activation of evaluative information in memory. Cognition and Emotion 8 (1994) 515-533
46. Hermans, D., Clarysse, J., Baeyens, F., & Spruyt, A. (2003). Affect (version 3.0) [computer software. ]. University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
47. Hermans D., Smeesters D., De Houwer J., and Eelen P. Affective priming for associatively unrelated primes and targets. Psychologica Belgica 42 (2002) 191-212
48. Hutchison K.A. Is semantic priming due to association strength or feature overlap? A microanalytic review. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 10 (2003) 785-813
49. Hutchison K.A., and Bosco F.A. Congruency effects in the letter search task: Semantic activation in the absence of priming. Memory & Cognition 35 (2007) 514-525
50. Kiefer M., and Brendel D. Attentional modulation of unconscious "automatic'' processes: Evidence from event-related potentials in a masked priming paradigm. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18 (2006) 184-198
51. Klauer K.C., Eder A.B., Greenwald A.G., and Abrams R.L. Priming of semantic classifications by novel subliminal prime words. Consciousness and Cognition 16 (2007) 63-83
52. Klauer K.C., and Musch J. Does sunshine prime loyal? Affective priming in the naming task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 54 (2001) 727-751
53. Klauer K.C., and Musch J. Goal-dependent and goal-independent effects of irrelevant evaluations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28 (2002) 802-814
54. Klauer K.C., and Musch J. Affective priming: Findings and theories. In: Musch J., and Klauer K.C. (Eds). The psychology of evaluation: Affective processes in cognition and emotion (2003), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ
55. Klauer K.C., Roβnagel R., and Musch J. List-context effects in evaluative priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 23 (1997) 246-255
56. Klauer K.C., and Stern E. How attitudes guide memory-based judgments: A two-process model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 28 (1992) 186-206
57. Klinger M.R., Burton P.C., and Pitts G.S. Mechanisms of unconscious priming: I. Response competition, not spreading activation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 26 (2000) 441-455
58. Kouider S., and Dehaene S. Levels of processing during non-conscious perception: A critical review of visual masking. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 362 B (2007) 857-875
59. Lachter J., Forster K.I., and Ruthruff E. Title: Forty-five years after Broadbent (1958): Still no identification without attention. Psychological Review 111 (2004) 880-913
60. Locker L., Hoffman L., and Bovaird J.A. On the use of multilevel modeling as an alternative to items analysis in psycholinguistic research. Behavior Research Methods 39 (2007) 723-730
61. Lucas M. Semantic priming without association: A meta-analytic review. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 7 (2000) 618-630
62. Marcel A.J. Conscious and unconscious perception: Experiments on visual masking and word recognition. Cognitive Psychology 15 (1983) 197-237
63. Maxfield L. Attention and semantic priming: A review of prime task effects. Consciousness and Cognition 6 (1997) 204-218
64. McKoon G., and Ratcliff R. Conceptual combinations and relational contexts in free association and in priming in lexical decision and naming. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 2 (1995) 527-533
65. McNamara T.P. Semantic priming (2005), Psychology Press, New York
66. McRae K., and Boisvert S. Automatic semantic similarity priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 24 (1998) 558-572
67. Medin D.L. Structural principles in categorization. In: Tighe T.J., and Shepp B.E. (Eds). Perception, cognition, and development: Interactional analysis (1983), Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ 203-230
68. Medin D.L., and Schaffer M.M. Context theory of classification learning. Psychological Review 85 (1978) 207-238
69. Moors A., and De Houwer J. Automaticity: A conceptual and theoretical analysis. Psychological Bulletin 132 (2006) 297-326
70. Murphy S.T., and Zajonc R.B. Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 (1993) 723-739
71. Musch J., and Klauer K.C. Locational uncertainty moderates affective congruency effects in the evaluative decision task. Cognition and Emotion 15 (2001) 167-188
72. Musch J., and Klauer K.C. The psychology of evaluation: Affective processes in cognition and emotion (2003), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ
73. Naccache L., Blandin E., and Dehaene S. Unconscious masked priming depends on temporal attention. Psychological Science 13 (2002) 416-424
74. Nairne J.S., and Pandeirada J.N.S. Adaptive memory: Is survival processing special?. Journal of Memory and Language 59 (2008) 377-385
75. Neely J.H. Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Roles of inhibitionless spreading activation and limited-capacity attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 106 (1977) 226-254
76. Neely J.H. Semantic priming effects in visual word recognition: A selective review of current findings and theories. In: Besner D., and Humphreys G.W. (Eds). Basic processes in reading: Visual word recognition (1991), Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ 264-336
77. Neely J.H., and Kahan T.A. Is semantic activation automatic? A critical reevaluation. In: Roedinger H.L., Nairne J.S., Neath I., and Suprenant A.M. (Eds). The nature of remembering: Essays in honor of Robert G. Crowder (2001), American Psychological Association, Washington, DC 63-93
78. Nosofsky R.M. Choice, similarity, and the context of classification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 10 (1984) 104-114
79. Nosofsky R.M. Attention, similarity, and the identification-categorization relationship. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 115 (1986) 39-57
80. Nosofsky R.M. Attention and learning processes in identification and categorization of integral stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 13 (1987) 87-108
81. Nosofsky R.M., and Palmeri T.J. An exemplar-based random walk model of speeded classification. Psychological Review 104 (1997) 266-300
82. Osgood C.E., Suci G.J., and Tannenbaum P.H. The measurement of meaning (1957), University of Illinois Press, Urbana
83. Pecher D., Zanolie K., and Zeelenberg R. Verifying visual properties in sentence verification facilitates picture recognition memory. Experimental Psychology 54 (2007) 173-179
84. Pecher D., Zeelenberg R., and Raaijmakers G.W. Does pizza prime coin? Perceptual priming in lexical decision and pronunciation. Journal of Memory and Language 38 (1998) 401-418
85. Perea M., and Gotor A. Associative and semantic priming effects at very short stimulus-onset asynchronies in lexical decision and naming. Cognition 62 (1997) 223-240
86. Posner M.I., and Snyder C.R.R. Attention and cognitive control. In: Solso R.L. (Ed). Information processing and cognition: The Loyola symposium (1975), Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ 55-83
87. Ratcliff R. Methods for dealing with reaction-time outliers. Psychological Bulletin 114 (1993) 510-532
88. Ratcliff R., and McKoon G. A retrieval theory of priming in memory. Psychological Review 95 (1988) 385-408
89. Reed S.K. Pattern recognition and categorization. Cognitive Psychology 3 (1972) 382-407
90. Schreuder R., Flores d'Arcais G.B., and Glazenborg G. Effects of perceptual and conceptual similarity in semantic priming. Psychological Research 45 (1984) 339-354
91. Shelton J.R., and Martin R.C. How semantic is automatic semantic priming?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 18 (1992) 1191-1210
92. Smith M.C. Contextual facilitation in a letter search task depends on how the prime is processed. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 5 (1979) 239-251
93. Smith M.C., Bentin S., and Spalek T.M. Attention constraints of semantic activation during visual word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 27 (2001) 1289-1298
94. Snijders T.A.B., and Bosker R. Multilevel analysis (1999), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA
95. Spruyt, A. (2005). Affective priming of nonaffective responses: Theories, findings, and applications. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Leuven, Belgium.
96. Spruyt, A., & Hermans, D. (2008). Affective priming of naming responses does not depend on stimulus repetition. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 237-241.
97. Spruyt A., De Houwer J., Hermans D., and Eelen P. Affective priming of nonaffective semantic categorization responses. Experimental Psychology 54 (2007) 44-53
98. Spruyt, A., De Houwer, J., Hermans, D., & Moors, A. (2009). Salience effects in automatic stimulus processing, in preperation.
99. Spruyt A., Hermans D., De Houwer J., and Eelen P. On the nature of the affective priming effect: Affective priming of naming responses. Social Cognition 20 (2002) 227-256
100. Spruyt A., Hermans D., De Houwer J., and Eelen P. Non-associative semantic priming: Episodic affective priming of naming responses. Acta Psychologica 116 (2004) 39-54
101. Spruyt A., Hermans D., De Houwer J., Vandromme H., and Eelen P. On the nature of the affective priming effect: Effects of stimulus onset asynchrony and congruency proportion in naming and evaluative categorization. Memory & Cognition 35 (2007) 95-106
102. Spruyt A., Hermans D., Pandelaere M., De Houwer J., and Eelen P. On the replicability of the affective priming effect in the pronunciation task. Experimental Psychology 51 (2004) 109-115
103. Stolz J.A., and Besner D. Role of set in visual word recognition: Activation and activation blocking as nonautomatic processes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 22 (1996) 1166-1177
104. Stolz J.A., and Besner D. On the myth of automatic semantic activation in reading. Current Directions in Psychological Science 8 (1999) 61-65
105. Storbeck J., and Robinson M.D. Preferences and inferences in encoding visual objects: A systematic comparison of semantic and affective priming. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30 (2004) 81-93
106. Tse C.S., and Neely J.H. Semantic priming from letter-searched primes occurs for low- but not high-frequency targets: Automatic semantic access may not be a myth. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition 33 (2007) 1143-1161
107. Tversky A. Features of similarity. Psychological Review 84 (1977) 327-352
108. Valdés B., Catena A., and Marí-Beffa P. Automatic and controlled semantic processing: A masked prime-task effect. Consciousness and Cognition 14 (2005) 278-295
109. Wentura D. Activation and inhibition of affective information: Evidence for negative priming in the evaluation task. Cognition and Emotion 13 (1999) 65-91
110. Wentura D. Dissociative affective and associative priming effects in the lexical decision task: Yes versus no responses to word targets reveal evaluative judgment tendencies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 26 (2000) 456-469
111. Wentura D., and Frings C. Response-bound primes diminish affective priming in the naming task. Cognition and Emotion 22 (2008) 374-384
112. Williams J.N. Is automatic priming semantic?. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 8 (1996) 113-161
113. Winer B. Statistical principles in experimental design (1971), McGraw-Hill, New York
114. Zajonc R.B. Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist 35 (1980) 151-175
115. Zajonc R.B. On the primacy of affect. American Psychologist 39 (1984) 117-123