Use of the letter search task in the context of the priming paradigm has proved to be an invaluable tool for the investigation of the strategic control of processes involved in word recognition. In particular, previous findings that letter search on a prime word interferes with the priming of semantically/associatively related targets, but not with the priming of either identical or morphologic...

Using fMRI during a lexical decision task, we investigated the neural correlates of semantic priming under masked and unmasked prime presentation conditions in a repeated measurement design of the same group of 24 participants (14 women). The task was to discriminate between pseudowords and words. Masked and unmasked prime words differed in their degree of semantic relatedness with target stimu...

Semantic priming is a phenomenon that occurs when a semantically related ‘‘prime’’ word produces a faster response time to a sequentially presented ‘‘target’’ word than if they were semantically unrelated. This process of priming is thought to involve two distinct processes, one that is reflexive and unconscious, and the other, which is voluntary and intention-driven. It is believed that a dysf...

One key issue for models of bilingual memory is to what degree the semantic representation from one of the languages is shared with the other language. In the present paper, we examine whether there is an early, automatic semantic priming effect across languages for noncognates with highly proficient (Basque/Spanish) bilinguals. Experiment 1 was a between-languagemasked semantic priming lexical...

In two experiments, we explored the effects of co-occurrence and semantic relationships in the associative priming of faces. In Experiment 1, pairs of computer-generated human faces were presented simultaneously (i.e., they co-occurred) with no associated semantic information attached to them. A significant facilitation effect in the subsequent recognition of these paired faces (priming) was ob...

Repetition of any number of cognitive processes can facilitate subsequent performance (i.e., repetition priming). In this study, we explored several candidate mechanisms that could account for repetition priming on a word generation task. In Experiment 1, we examined whether repetition of semantic processing is necessary for priming on this task. In Experiment 2, we examined whether repetition ...