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Performance in a lexical decision task is crucially dependent on the difficulty of the word--nonword discrimination. More wordlike nonwords cause not only a latency increase for words but also, as reported by Stone and Van Orden (1993), larger word frequency effects. Several current models of lexical decision making can explain these types of results in terms of a single mechanism, a mechanism driven by the nature of the interactions within the lexicon. In 2 experiments, we replicated Stone and Van Orden's increased frequency effect using both pseudohomophones (e.g., BEEST) and transposed-letter nonwords (e.g., JUGDE) as the more wordlike nonwords. In a 3rd experiment, we demonstrated that simply increasing word latencies without changing the difficulty of the word-nonword discrimination does not produce larger frequency effects. These results are reasonably consistent with many current models. In contrast, neither pseudohomophones nor transposed-letter nonwords altered the size of semantic priming effects across 4 additional experiments, posing a challenge to models that would attempt to explain both nonword difficulty effects and semantic priming effects in lexical decision tasks in terms of a single, lexically driven mechanism. Keywords: nonword difficulty, lexical processing, pseudohomophones, transposed-letter nonwords, frequency effects, semantic priming DOI: 10.1037/a0020125

Recent studies have found that masked word primes that are orthographic neighbors of the target inhibit lexical decision latencies (Davis & Lupker, 2006; Nakayama, Sears, & Lupker, 2008), consistent with the predictions of lexical competition models of visual word identification (e.g., Grainger & Jacobs, 1996). In contrast, using the fast priming paradigm (Sereno & Rayner, 1992), orthographically similar primes produced facilitation in a reading task (H. Lee, Rayner, & Pollatsek, 1999; Y. Lee, Binder, Kim, Pollatsek, & Rayner, 1999). Experiment 1 replicated this facilitation effect using orthographic neighbor primes. In Experiment 2, neighbor primes and targets were presented in different cases (e.g., SIDE-tide); in this situation, the facilitation effect disappeared. However, nonword neighbor primes (e.g., KIDE-tide) still significantly facilitated reading of targets (Experiment 3). Taken together, these results suggest that it is possible to explain the priming effects from word neighbor primes in fast priming experiments in terms of the interactions between the inhibitory and facilitory processes embodied in lexical competition models. Keywords: fast priming, masked priming, neighbor priming, orthographic neighbors, neighborhood frequency DOI: 10.1037/a0016800

An orthographically similar masked nonword prime facilitates responding in a lexical decision task (Forster & Davis, 1984). Recently, this masked priming paradigm has been used to evaluate models of orthographic coding--models that attempt to quantify prime-target similarity. One general finding is that priming effects often do not occur when prime-target similarity is moderate, a result that the authors interpret as being due to uncontrolled effects of lexical inhibition. In the present research, a new version of the masked priming paradigm, sandwich priming, was introduced in an effort to minimize the impact of lexical inhibition. Masked sandwich priming involves briefly presenting the target itself prior to the presentation of each prime. Results indicate that the new paradigm was successful. The predicted priming effects were observed for Guerrera and Forster's (2008) T-All primes (e.g., avacimo-VACATION) and for primes differing from their targets at 3 letter positions (e.g., coshure--CAPTURE)--effects that are not found with the conventional masked priming paradigm. In addition to demonstrating the usefulness of the sandwich priming technique, these results also support the assumption that inhibitory processes play an important role in lexical processing. Keywords: sandwich priming, orthographic coding, lexical competition, masked priming

In models of visual word identification that incorporate inhibitory competition among activated lexical units, a word's higher frequency neighbors will be the word's strongest competitors. Preactivation of these neighbors by a prime is predicted to delay the word's identification. Using the masked priming paradigm (K. I. Forster & C. Davis, 1984, J. Segui and J. Grainger (1990) reported that, consistent with this prediction, a higher frequency neighbor prime delayed the responses to a lower frequency target, whereas a lower frequency neighbor prime did not delay the responses to a higher frequency target. In the present experiments, using English stimuli, it was found that this pattern held only when the primes and targets had few neighbors; when the primes and targets had many neighbors, lower frequency primes delayed responses to higher frequency targets essentially as much as higher frequency primes delayed responses to lower frequency targets. Several possible explanations for these findings are discussed along with their theoretical implications. Considered together, the results are most consistent with activation-based accounts of the masked priming effect. Keywords: masked priming, orthographic neighbors, neighborhood frequency, inhibitory priming

What is the effect of a word's higher frequency neighbors on its identification time? According to activation-based models of word identification (J. Grainger & A. M. Jacobs, 1996; J. L. McClelland & D. E. Rumelhart, 1981), words with higher frequency neighbors will be processed more slowly than words without higher frequency neighbors because of the lexical competition mechanism embodied in these models. Although a critical prediction of these models, this inhibitory neighborhood frequency effect has been elusive in studies that have used English stimuli. In the present experiments, the effect of higher frequency neighbors was examined in the lexical decision task and when participants were reading sentences while their eye movements were monitored. Results suggest that higher frequency neighbors have little, if any, effect on the identification of English words. The implications for activation-based models of word identification are discussed. Keywords: orthographic neighbors, neighborhood frequency effect

Predictions derived from the interactive activation (IA) model were tested in 3 experiments using the masked priming technique in the lexical decision task. Experiment 1 showed a strong effect of prime lexicality: Classifications of target words were facilitated by orthographically related nonword primes (relative to unrelated nonword primes) but were inhibited by orthographically related word primes (relative to unrelated word primes). Experiment 2 confirmed IA's prediction that inhibitory priming effects are greater when the prime and target share a neighbor. Experiment 3 showed a minimal effect of target word neighborhood size (N) on inhibitory priming but a trend toward greater inhibition when nonword foils were high-N than when they were low-N. Simulations of 3 different versions of the IA model showed that the best fit to the data is produced when lexical inhibition is selective and when masking leads to reset of letter activities. Keywords: masked priming, inhibition, interactive activation, lexical decision, visual word recognition

An ambiguity disadvantage (slower responses for ambiguous words, e.g., bank, than for unambiguous words) has been reported in semantic tasks (L. R. Gottlob, S. D. Goldinger, G. O. Stone, & G. C. Van Orden, 1999; Y. Hino, S. J. Lupker, & P. M. Pexman, 2002; C. D. Piercey & S. Joordens, 2000) and has been attributed to the meaning activation process. The authors tested an alternative explanation: The ambiguity disadvantage arises from the decision-making process in semantic tasks. The authors examined effects of ambiguity on unrelated trials in a relatedness decision task, because these trials are free from response competition created by ambiguous words on related trials. Results showed no ambiguity effect on unrelated trials (Experiments 2, 3c, and 5c) and an ambiguity disadvantage on related trials (Experiments 3a, 3b, 5a, and 5b).

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.

K. Rastle and M. Coltheart (1999) demonstrated that both nonwords and low-frequency regular words are named more slowly when mixed with first-phoneme irregular word fillers (e.g., CHEF) than when mixed with third-phoneme irregular word fillers (e.g., GLOW). Those authors suggested that their effects were due to a strategic de-emphasis of the nonlexical route when first-phoneme irregular fillers were used. An alternative explanation is that these results simply reflect a more lax position of a time criterion (S. J. Lupker, P. Brown, & L. Colombo, 1997) in the first-phoneme irregular filler condition. We contrasted these 2 accounts in 4 experiments. In all experiments, target naming latencies were longer when the fillers were harder to name, regardless of whether the fillers were nonwords or exception words. These results strongly favor a time-criterion account of K. Rastle and M. Coltheart's effects.

In this article, ambiguity and synonymy effects were examined in lexical decision, naming, and semantic categorization tasks. Whereas the typical ambiguity advantage was observed in lexical decision and naming, an ambiguity disadvantage was observed in semantic categorization. In addition, a synonymy effect (slower latencies for words with many synonyms than for words with few synonyms) was observed in lexical decision and naming but not in semantic categorization. These results suggest that (a) an ambiguity disadvantage arises only when a task requires semantic processing, (b) the ambiguity advantage and the synonymy disadvantage in lexical decision and naming are due to semantic feedback, and (c) these effects are determined by the nature of the feedback relationships from semantics to orthography and phonology.

The effects of large neighborhoods (neighborhood size) and of higher frequency neighbors (neighborhood frequency) were examined as a function of nonword neighborhood size in lexical decision tasks. According to the multiple read-out model (J. Grainger & A. M. Jacobs, 1996), neighborhood size and neighborhood frequency effects should vary systematically as a function of nonword neighborhood size. In these experiments, the nonword context was more extensively manipulated than in previous studies, providing a more complete test of the model's predictions. In addition, simulations were conducted examining the model's ability to account for the facilitatory neighborhood size and neighborhood frequency effects observed in these experiments. The results suggest that the model overestimates the role of inhibition in the orthographic processing of English words.

P. M. Pexman, S. J. Lupker, and D. Jared (2001) reported longer response latencies in lexical decision tasks (LDTs) for homophones (e.g., maid) than for nonhomophones, and attributed this homophone effect to orthographic competition created by feedback activation from phonology. In the current study, two predictions of this feedback account were tested: (a) In LDT, observe homophone effects should be observed but not regularity or homograph effects because most exception words (e.g., pint) and homographs (e.g., wind) have different feedback characteristics than homophones do, and (b) in a phonological LDT ('does it sound like a word?'), regularity and homograph effects should be observed but not homophone effects. Both predictions were confirmed. These results support the claim that feedback activation from phonology plays a significant role in visual word recognition.

The effects of word frequency and spelling-to-sound regularity were examined using standard naming, standard lexical-decision, go/no-go naming, and go/no-go lexical-decision tasks. In both the standard and go/no-go naming tasks, tasks requiring phonological coding, a significant Frequency x Regularity interaction was observed. That is, the regularity effect was limited to low-frequency words. In the standard and go/no-go lexical-decision tasks, tasks not requiring phonological coding, no Frequency x Regularity interaction was observed. These results indicate not only that the Frequency x Regularity interaction is a product of phonological coding processes but also that these processes are similar in the standard and go/no-go naming tasks. Results are discussed in terms of the dual-route and the parallel distributed processing frameworks.

The effects of word frequency were examined for Japanese Kanji and Katakana words in 6 experiments. The sizes of frequency effects were comparable for Kanji and Katakana words in the standard lexical decision task. In the standard naming task, the frequency effect for Katakana words was significantly smaller than that for Kanji words. These results were consistent with the lexical-selection account of frequency effects offered by dual-route models. Contrary to this account, however, frequency effects were smaller for Katakana words than for Kanji words in go/no-go naming tasks, in which participants were asked to name a stimulus aloud only if it was a word. This Frequency x Script Type interaction was not the result of using a go/no-go task because the interaction disappeared in the go/no-go lexical decision task. These results pose a strong challenge for the lexical-selection account of frequency effects offered by dual-route models.

S. Monsell, K. E. Patterson, A. Graham, C. H. Hughes, and R. Milroy (1992) reported that high-frequency irregular words are named faster when presented in a 'pure' block than when mixed with nonwords. They attributed this effect to a de-emphasis of an assembly route in the pure block. The current authors replicated this effect in Experiment 1. In Experiments 2 and 3, similar effects resulted from mixing high- and low-frequency regular words with nonwords and from mixing high- and low-frequency irregular words together. Further, in all cases, the more slowly named stimuli were named faster in mixed blocks than in pure blocks. An alternative to the de-emphasis account, which is based on strategic control of initiation of articulation, was supported in Experiment 4 by confirming the alternative account's novel prediction of a regularity effect for high-frequency words in pure blocks. Implications for the single- versus dual-route debate and for interpretations of strategy effects in general are discussed.

The effects of polysemy (number of meanings) and word frequency were examined in lexical decision and naming tasks. Polysemy effects were observed in both tasks. In the lexical decision task, high- and low-frequency words produced identical polysemy effects. In the naming task, however, polysemy interacted with frequency, with polysemy effects being limited to low-frequency words. When degraded stimuli were used in both tasks, the interaction appeared not only in naming but also in lexical decision. Because stimulus degradation also produced an effect of spelling-sound regularity in the lexical decision task, the different relationships between polysemy and frequency appear to be due to whether responding was based primarily on orthographic or phonological codes. As such, the effects of polysemy seem to be due to the nature of task-specific processes. An explanation in terms of M. S. Seidenberg and J. L. McClelland's (1989) and D.C. Plaut and J. L. McClelland's (1993) parallel distributed processing models is proposed.

What are the effects of a word's orthographic neighborhood on the word recognition process? Andrews (1989) reported that large neighborhoods facilitate lexical access (the neighborhood size effect). Grainger, O'Regan, Jacobs, & Segui (1989) reported that higher frequency neighbors inhibit lexical access (the 'neighborhood frequency effect'). Because neighborhood size and neighborhood frequency typically covary (words with large neighborhoods will usually possess higher frequency neighbors), these findings would seem to contradict one another. In the present study, 6 experiments on the effects of neighborhood size and neighborhood frequency indicated that, at least for low-frequency words, large neighborhoods do facilitate processing. However, the existence of higher frequency neighbors seems to facilitate rather than inhibit processing. The implications of these findings for serial and parallel models of lexical access are discussed.

Hypothetically, words can be named by spelling-sound translation rules or by looking up a phonological code in a lexicon. Following J. Baron and C. Strawson (1976), naming performance was measured as a function of skill with each route, using sets of stimuli varying in reliance on either route. 'Phoenicians' were defined to be better with rules than with look-up; 'Chinese' were better at look-up than with rules. As predicted by J. Baron and C. Strawson, Phoenicians named low-frequency regular words and nonwords faster than Chinese. Contrary to predictions, Phoenicians were also faster at naming irregular words of various frequencies. Implications of these results for various dual-route models versus single-route models are discussed.

Although a majority of studies support the notion that formally similar primes facilitate target processing, recent research has shown inhibition effects in some circumstances, particularly with high-frequency targets. The present studies focused on an explanation of this effect provided by a recent phonological competition model. Lexical decision results using rhyming primes indicate that the inhibition is more prevalent at short stimulus onset asynchronies and is unaffected by requiring verbal report of the prime. Naming results indicate that the inhibition only arises with irregular word pairs. Neither this model nor any of the models considered provided an adequate explanation of these effects. An alternative model that incorporates automatic, lexically based inhibition and strategically based facilitation processes is proposed.

As previous research has shown, items not recalled on an initial memory task are not simply forgotten. Often, some can be recalled on a later, second task. Further, subjects can generally predict, in terms of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) ratings, which items will be subsequently recalled. Two experiments were carried out to assess both second-task performance and FOK accuracy for unrecalled items as a function of two factors, encoding manipulations (levels of processing in Experiment 1, study time in Experiment 2) and the nature of the second task (explicit or implicit cued stem completion). Results indicate that although levels of processing affected explicit second-task performance more than implicit second-task performance, it increased FOK accuracy in both types of tasks. Study time, however, affected FOK accuracy only in the explicit second task. Apparently, only when subjects were able to do some elaborative processing on the items did their FOK ratings reflect information relating to factors that drive performance on implicit tasks.

S. J. Lupker, P. Brown, and L. Colombo (1997) reported that target naming latencies are strongly affected by the difficulty of the other stimuli in a trial block, an effect they attributed to readers' strategic use of a time criterion to guide responding. In the present research, the authors asked whether there are also trial-by-trial ('sequential') effects by examining naming latency as a function of the difficulty of the preceding stimulus. In Experiment 1, both nonwords and high-frequency regular words were named more rapidly following a word than a nonword. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 were parallel experiments involving a variety of stimulus types (e.g., high- and low-frequency inconsistent words, easy and hard nonwords). In all cases, similar sequential effects were observed (i.e., all stimulus types had shorter latencies following an easier-to-name than a harder-to-name stimulus). In terms of the time-criterion account, criterion placement appears to be affected by the relative difficulty of the preceding stimulus in a way that is independent of stimulus type.

The role of phonology in word recognition was investigated in 6 lexical-decision experiments involving homophones (e.g., MAID-MADE). The authors' goal was to determine whether homophone effects arise in the lexical-decision task and, if so, in what situations they arise, with a specific focus on the question of whether the presence of pseudohomophone foils (e.g., BRANE) causes homophone effects to be eliminated because of strategic deemphasis of phonological processing. All 6 experiments showed significant homophone effects, which were not eliminated by the presence of pseudohomophone foils. The authors propose that homophone effects in lexical decision are due to the nature of feedback from phonology to orthography.

Orthographically/phonologically related primes have typically been found to facilitate processing of target words. This phenomenon is usually explained in terms of speading activation between nodes for orthographically/phonologically similar words in lexical memory. The phenomenon was explored in a series of studies involving the manipulations of prime and target type (word or picture) and prime and target task (naming or categorization). Generally, the results support the lexical activation explanation. Named primes, which activate lexical memory, facilitate processing in all target tasks involving lexical access (word and picture naming and word categorization), independent of prime type. Categorized primes show the expected Prime Type X Relatedness interaction with word primes, which activate lexical memory, producing much more facilitation than picture primes. Finally, unlike in semantic priming studies, increased depth of processing of a word prime decreased the size of the priming effects. Apparently, initial activation levels in lexical memory are not maintained when semantic processing of the prime is required.