Cross-modal priming of lexical decision is a well-established method for probing the activation of competing interpretations of lexically-ambiguous spoken sequences

Cross-modal priming of lexical decision is a well-established method for probing the activation of competing interpretations of lexically-ambiguous spoken sequences (Zwitserlood, 1989; Gow & Gordon, 1995; Tabossi, Burani & Scott, 1995; Gaskell & Marslen-Wilson, 1996). In constructing materials for use in priming tasks, a variety of different relations between prime and target have been utilised. Target words that are both semantically and associatively related to the prime are commonly used. For example, the pair cat and DOG not only have a similar meaning, but are also associatively related since a majority of participants in a free-association task produce the word DOG for the cue word cat (Moss & Older, 1996).