Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, in press Masked nonword repetition effects in yes/no and go/no-go lexical decision: A test of the Evidence Accumulation and Deadline accounts

The pattern of masked repetition priming effects for word and nonword targets differs across tasks: masked priming effects in lexical decision occur for positive responses (i.e., words) but not for negative responses (nonwords), whereas masked priming effects in the cross-case same-different task occur for positive responses (“same”), but not for negative responses (“different”) –regardless of lexical status. Here, we examined whether masked nonword priming effects are greater when the task involves an active “go” response to nonwords than when it involves the standard yes/no procedure in lexical decision. The obtained masked repetition priming effect for nonwords was of similar size in yes/no vs. go/no-go tasks. This finding is compatible with accounts of nonword priming that posit that nonword responses are produced by actively accumulating evidence for the nonword alternative in yes/no and go/no-go procedures, whereas it is inconsistent with the assumption of a deadline for “no” responses in the yes/no task.