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Using the same--different task, Perea, Dunabeitia, Pollatsek, and Carreiras (2009) showed that digits resembling letters Cleet digits'; e.g., 1 = I, 4 = A) primed pseudoword strings (e.g., V35Z3D-VESZED), but letters resembling digits ('leet letters') did not prime digit strings (e.g., 9ES7E2-935732), and suggested that this is due to top-down feedback available for letter, but not digit, strings. Here we show that (a) single letters show as much leet priming as 3-letter words (Experiment 1); (b) leet priming is equally robust for digit strings and pseudowords when the string is 4 items long but not when 6 items long (Experiment 2); and (c) with 6-item strings, orthotactically illegal letter strings (e.g., OIAUEQ) behave just like digit strings (Experiment 3). These results indicate that the asymmetry in leet priming is not due to top-down feedback available selectively for letter strings. We offer an alternative explanation based on the Bayesian reader account of masked priming proposed by Norris and Kinoshita (2008), and the role played by the orthotactic knowledge used to extend the functional capacity of visual working memory involved in performing the same--different task. Keywords: letter perception, leet priming, masked priming, Bayesian reader, top-down feedback DOI: 10.1037/a0020609

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2009.11.002 Byline: Dennis Norris (a), Sachiko Kinoshita (b), Maarten van Casteren (a) Keywords: Visual word recognition; Letter position coding; Transposed-letter (TL) effects; Position noise; Masked priming; Open Bigrams; SOLAR; Bayesian Reader Abstract: Early on during word recognition, letter positions are not accurately coded. Evidence for this comes from transposed-letter (TL) priming effects, in which letter strings generated by transposing two adjacent letters (e.g., jugde) produce large priming effects, more than primes with the letters replaced in the corresponding position (e.g., junpe). Dominant accounts of TL priming effect such as the Open Bigrams model () and the SOLAR model () explain this effect by proposing a higher level of representation than individual letter identities in which letter position is not coded accurately. An alternative to this is to assume that position coding is noisy (e.g.,). We propose an extension to the Bayesian Reader () that incorporates letter position noise during sampling from perceptual input. This model predicts 'leakage' of letter identity to nearby positions, which is not expected from models incorporating alternative position coding schemes. We report three masked priming experiments testing predictions from this model. Author Affiliation: (a) MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK (b) Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (MACCS), Department of Psychology, Institute of Human Cognition and Brain Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia Article History: Received 6 May 2009; Revised 10 September 2009

A prime generated by transposing two internal letters (e.g., jugde) produces strong priming of the original word (judge). In lexical decision, this transposed-letter (TL) priming effect is generally weak or absent for nonword targets; thus, it is unclear whether the origin of this effect is lexical or prelexical. The authors describe the Bayesian Reader theory of masked priming (D. Norris & S. Kinoshita, 2008), which explains why nonwords do not show priming in lexical decision but why they do in the cross-case same--different task. This analysis is followed by 3 experiments that show that priming in this task is not based on low-level perceptual similarity between the prime and target, or on phonology, to make the case that priming is based on prelexical orthographic representation. The authors then use this task to demonstrate equivalent TL priming effects for nonwords and words. The results are interpreted as the first reliable evidence based on the masked priming procedure that letter position is not coded absolutely within the prelexical, orthographic representation. The implications of the results for current letter position coding schemes are discussed. Keywords: letter position coding, transposed letters, orthographic similarity, masked priming, same-different match task

Previous studies of letter recognition have not found priming for abstract letter identities. We used a task that required participants to decide whether a target is the same or different from a reference letter presented in opposite case, which avoids the shortcomings of tasks used in previous studies. We found robust priming effects in this task, which were the same size for letter pairs that have similar visual features across case (e.g., c/C, x/X) and dissimilar features (e.g., a/A, b/B). Also, the pattern of priming was the same whether the prime was in the same or different case as the reference. We take these findings as evidence that abstract letter identities support priming in this task. We suggest that the same--different match task is a useful tool for studying representations used to support masked priming in letter recognition and with other stimuli with limited set size. Keywords: Abstract letter identity; Letter recognition; Masked priming.

The authors argue that perception is Bayesian inference based on accumulation of noisy evidence and that, in masked priming, the perceptual system is tricked into treating the prime and the target as a single object. Of the 2 algorithms considered for formalizing how the evidence sampled from a prime and target is combined, only 1 was shown to be consistent with the existing data from the visual word recognition literature. This algorithm was incorporated into the Bayesian Reader model (D. Nords, 2006), and its predictions were confirmed in 3 experiments. The experiments showed that the pattern of masked priming is not a fixed function of the relations between the prime and the target but can be changed radically by changing the task from lexical decision to a same-different judgment. Implications of the Bayesian framework of masked priming for unconscious cognition and visual masking are discussed. Keywords: perception, priming, reading, Bayes

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2007.03.004 Byline: Wendy Maree Quinn, Sachiko Kinoshita Keywords: Masked priming; Semantic categorization; Category congruence effect; Broad and narrow categories Abstract: In semantic categorization, masked primes that are category-congruent with the target (e.g., Planets: mars-VENUS) facilitate responses relative to category-incongruent primes (e.g., tree-VENUS). The present study investigated why this category congruence effect is more consistently found with narrow categories (e.g., Numbers larger/smaller than 5, Planets) than with broad categories (e.g., Animals). Experiments 1 and 2 used broad and narrow categories, respectively, and both experiments showed robust frequency effects for non-exemplar targets. This was in contradiction to Forster's [Forster, K. I. (2004). Category size effects revisited: Frequency and masked priming effects in semantic categorization. Brain &Language, 90(1-3), 276-286.] category search hypothesis, which suggests that frequency-sensitive lexical access is by-passed for narrow categories. These experiments also showed that for non-exemplar targets, semantic feature overlap of non-exemplar primes (e.g., pistol-RIFLE vs. boots-RIFLE) facilitated NO decisions for a broad category but not narrow categories. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that non-exemplar primes which share features with members of narrow categories (e.g., Planets: moon), which we call impostors, facilitated responses to exemplar targets and interfered with responses to non-exemplar targets, relative to unrelated non-exemplar primes. These results suggest that category decisions are made by selectively monitoring semantic features relevant to, but not restricted to those that define, category membership, and they inform the debate regarding the extent to which masked primes are processed semantically. Author Affiliation: Department of Psychology and Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia Article History: Received 14 September 2006; Revised 7 March 2007 Article Note: (footnote) [star] Wendy Maree Quinn and Sachiko Kinoshita, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (MACCS) and Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. The experiments reported in this paper were carried out by Wendy Quinn as her undergraduate honours project under the supervision of Sachiko Kinoshita. We are grateful to Ken Forster for many discussions and helpful comments on the experiments. We are also grateful to the reviewers Jim Neely, Ken Forster and an anonymous reviewer whose constructive comments benefited the paper greatly.

Two experiments investigated whether priming due to a match in just the onset between a masked prime and target is found with high-frequency target words. Forster and Davis (1991, Exp. 5) reported that the masked onset priming effect was absent for high-frequency words and used the finding to argue that the effect has its locus in the grapheme-phoneme mapping process that operates serially within the nonlexical route. Experiment 1 used primes that were unrelated to targets and found a masked onset priming effect of equal size for high-frequency and low-frequency target words. Experiment 2 used form-related primes as used by Forster and Davis, and again found that the effect of onset mismatch was not dependent on target word frequency. These results are interpreted in terms of an alternative view that the masked onset priming effect has its origin in the process of preparing a speech response.

Four experiments are reported, investigating the mechanisms underlying the compatibility effect in the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). All experiments involved two IATs: flower IAT, in which the target categories were flowers and insects, and number IAT, involving even and odd numbers as target categories. In Experiment 1, using the standard IAT procedure, the two IATs produced equal IAT effects, despite large differences in rated valence contrast between flowers and insects and between even and odd numbers. Experiment 2 used a procedure developed by Klauer and Mierke (2005) and produced results consistent with the view that valence plays a role in the flower IAT but not in the number IAT. Experiments 3 and 4 used manipulations similar to those developed by Rothermund and Wentura (2004) and showed that these manipulations affected the flower IAT and number IAT differently. The results provide converging evidence that the two types of IAT effects--one based on valence and one based on familiarity--are empirically dissociable.

In a lexical decision task (LDT) in which list composition is manipulated, a typical finding to date has been a slowdown for easy items (e.g., high-frequency words) but little speedup for hard items (e.g., low-frequency words) when they are mixed together. This asymmetric frequency-blocking effect contrasts with the symmetric pattern (both a speedup for hard items and a slowdown for easy items when they are mixed together) observed with the naming task. In the present study, we investigated the mechanism responsible for the asymmetric blocking effect in the LDT within a model of blocking effect proposed by Mozer, Kinoshita, and Davis (2003), termed the adaptation-to-the-statistics-of-the-environment (ASE) model. Experiments 1A and 1B showed that when the same high- and low-frequency words were used, consistent with the existing literature, an asymmetric blocking effect was found in the LDT and a symmetric blocking effect was found in the naming task. Within the ASE model, a symmetric versus asymmetric blocking effect can be explained in terms of different asymptotic rates in subjective estimates of error probability. Experiments 2 and 3 tested and confirmed a prediction of the model based on this assumption that a speedup of hard items would be observed in an LDT with hard items whose subjective error probability asymptotes near zero (low-frequency words with high familiarity ratings that subjects could be certain were words). Implications of the model for task differences in reaction times are discussed.

We examined the question of whether the sizes of the regularity and lexicality effects in naming can be modulated as a function of filler type (nonwords or low-frequency exception words). The lexicality effect was larger in the exception word filler condition than in the nonword filler condition, but the size of the regularity effect was essentially unaffected by filler type. This pattern is at odds with what is generally assumed to be the predictions from dual-route theories of reading aloud. An attempt was next made to determine whether the dual-route cascaded model of Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, and Ziegler (2001) could possibly simulate this pattern when changes were introduced to each of the three parameters that affect the contribution of the nonlexical route. We discuss the implications of these results for the idea that reliance on the lexical and nonlexical routes is tinder strategic control.

When easy and difficult items are mixed together, their reading aloud latencies become more homogeneous relative to their presentation in unmixed ('pure') conditions (Lupker, Brown, & Colombo, 1997). We report two experiments designed to investigate the nature of the mechanism that underlies this list composition, or blocking, effect. In Experiment 1, we replicated Lupker et al.'s (1997) blocking effect in the reading aloud task and extended these findings to the visual lexical decision task. In Experiment 2, we found that blocking effects generalized across tasks: The characteristics of stimuli in a visual lexical decision task influenced reading aloud latencies, and vice versa, when visual lexical decision and reading aloud trials were presented alternately in the same experiment. We discuss implications of these results within time-criterion (Lupker et al., 1997) and strength-of-processing (Kello & Plaut, 2000, 2003) theories of strategic processing in reading.

The authors report 3 naming experiments using J. D. Zevin and D. A. Balota's (2000) multiple prime manipulation. They used 2 sets of nonword primes (fast and slow) and low-frequency exception word primes to separate the effects of prime speed from those of prime type. The size of the regularity effect was unaffected by prime type. Relative to the low-frequency exception word prime condition, the frequency effect was reduced in the fast, but not in the slow, nonword prime condition. Lexicality effect size was reduced in both nonword prime conditions, a result consistent with the lexical checking strategy described by S. J. Lupker, P. Brown, and L. Colombo (1997). The authors suggest that these results are better explained in terms of S. J. Lupker et al.'s time-criterion account than J. D. Zevin and D. A. Balota's pathway control hypothesis.

Three experiments explored the nature of orthographic influences on performance on phonological awareness tasks. Experiment 1 demonstrated that adults find it easier to perform phoneme deletions on items where there is a direct correspondence between letters and target sounds (e.g., take the/re/from struggle) than where there is not (e.g., take the/we/from squabble). Analogous results were found in a phoneme reversal task. Spelling production ability tended to correlate more strongly with performance on the former type of item than on the latter, suggesting that elevated performance on phonological awareness tasks is associated with the use of orthographic information. Experiment 2 produced similar results in Grade 5 children. Experiment 3 suggested that adults cannot inhibit orthographic activation when it is disadvantageous to them, as they performed no better on items such as squabble when they were presented in pure blocks than when they were presented in mixed blocks. It is concluded that there are substantial automatic orthographic influences on phonological awareness task performance that need to be taken into account in interpreting data concerning the relationship between phonological awareness and reading.

We report two naming experiments examining the effects of filler type on the size of regularity and frequency effects. Low-frequency exception words were used as one filler type in both experiments. Their effects were contrasted with the effects of nonword fillers (Experiment 1) and low-frequency regular word fillers (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the size of the regularity effect was unaffected by the filler type manipulation. In contrast, the frequency effect interacted with filler type such that relative to the low-frequency exception filler environment, the size of the frequency effect was reduced in the environment of low frequency regular word fillers, but not in the environment of nonword fillers. These results appear to be better explained in terms of Lupker, Brown, and Colombo's (1997) flexible time-criterion framework than in terms of a pathway control hypothesis (e.g., Zevin & Balota, 2000).

We investigated factors that modulate the presence of the masked onset priming effect in three naming experiments. In Experiment 1, we showed that the masked onset priming effect is found with regular words, but not with exception words, replicating the finding reported by Forster and Davis (1991). In Experiment 2, we used the conditional naming task in which words are mixed with nonwords and participants are instructed to name the item only if it is a word. The masked onset priming effect was eliminated in this experiment, but the regularity effect remained. In Experiment 3, regular and irregular words were mixed randomly, rather than in separate blocks as in Experiment 1. This reduced the size of the regularity effect, and the masked onset priming effect was again absent. We argue that these results, taken as a whole, are better interpreted within the view that the masked onset priming effect has its origin in the preparation of a speech response, rather than within the original dual-route interpretation proposed by Forster and Davis.

Patients with amnesia resulting from alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome and elderly control patients studied a list of words in two typographies (typed and handwritten) and then received a word-fragment completion test (e.g., _ys _e _y for mystery) in which the test cues also varied in typography. Unlike the elderly control patients, the amnesic patients did not show greater priming effect when the typography at test matched that at study. The amount of typography-dependent priming was positively correlated with the score on the Wechsler Memory Scale. These results suggest that the effects of typography change on repetition priming in word-fragment completion reflect explicit recollection, and that the representation that supports repetition priming effects observed with amnesic subjects in the word-fragment completion task does not code typography information., Repetition priming refers to changes in task performance observed with materials that have been encountered recently, relative to materials that have not. It has been observed in various tasks that [...]

In the same-different match task, masked priming is observed with the same responses but not different responses. Norris and Kinoshita's (2008) Bayesian reader account of masked priming explains this pattern based on the same principle as that explaining the absence of priming for nonwords in the lexical decision task. The pattern of priming follows from the way the model makes optimal decisions in the two tasks; priming does not depend on first activating the prime and then the target. An alternative explanation is in terms of a bias towards responding 'same' that exactly counters the facilitatory effect of lexical access. The present study tested these two views by varying both the degree to which the prime predicts the response and the visibility of the prime. Unmasked primes produced effects expected from the view that priming is influenced by the degree to which the prime predicts the response. In contrast, with masked primes, the size of priming for the same response was completely unaffected by predictability. These results rule out response bias as an explanation of the absence of masked priming for different responses and, in turn, indicate that masked priming is not a consequence of automatic lexical access of the prime.

The generality of the homogenization pattern by examining picture naming and a sum-naming task involving addition problems are investigated. The results indicate that theoretical mechanisms like those proposed by Los (1996) and theoretical mechanisms like those proposed by Lupker et al. (1997) are both active in reaction time experiments.

S. M. Smith and D. R. Tindell (1997) reported that prior study of words that are orthographically similar to the solutions of test word fragments (e.g., studying ANALOGY and completing the fragment A_L_ _GY, whose solution is ALLERGY) reduced the fragment completion rate relative to a baseline condition in which unrelated words were studied. They called this effect the memory-block effect. In the present experiment, the authors replicated this effect using a larger set of materials than that used by S. M. Smith and D. R. Tindell. The authors also found that dividing attention at study eliminated the memory-block effect. This pattern mimicked the effect of dividing attention on recognition memory but differed from the effect on repetition priming effects. The authors suggest that the memory-block effect is driven by a mechanism different from that responsible for producing repetition priming effects in an implicit fragment completion test.

Dienes & Perner's analysis provides a clear theoretical justification for using a demonstration of volitional control as a criterion for conscious awareness. However, in memory tasks, the converse does not hold: A phenomenological awareness of a memory episode can arise involuntarily, even when the task does not require retrieval of the episode. The varying amounts of volitional retrieval required by different memory tasks need to be recognized.

The goal of the present study was to investigate the locus of the memory advantage for words that are generated according to a nonsemantic rule (letter transposition) over words that are presented intact (read words). In the first two experiments, a category instance generation task was used to test the possibility that the semantic features of generated words are more readily available than those of read words. This possibility was not supported. In Experiment 3, generation effects were found to depend on the level of meaningfulness of words in recall, but not in recognition. In Experiment 4, a between-list design eliminated the generation effect found in recall, but did not affect the generation effect in recognition. Taken together, these findings suggest that generating a target according to a letter transposition rule enhances the distinctiveness of the word along a nonsemantic dimension.

The relationship between perceptual fluency and recognition memory observed both with memory-intact subjects and various amnesic subjects is a mixed one. This commentary argues that such a mixed pattern of data presents a problem for the computational model of memory and suggests that a central system to evaluate the output of memory modules is needed.