TY - JOUR
T1 - SOA does not reveal the absolute time course of cognitive processing in fast priming experiments
AU - Tzur, Boaz
AU - Frost, Ram
PY - 2007/4
Y1 - 2007/4
N2 - Applying Bloch's law to visual word recognition research, both exposure duration of the prime and its luminance determine the prime's overall energy, and consequently determine the size of the priming effect. Nevertheless, experimenters using fast-priming paradigms traditionally focus only on the SOA between prime and target to reflect the absolute speed of cognitive processes under investigation. Some of the discrepancies in results regarding the time course of orthographic and phonological activation in word recognition research may be due to this factor. This hypothesis was examined by manipulating parametrically the luminance of the prime and its exposure duration, measuring their joint impact on masked repetition priming. The results show that small and non-significant priming effects can be more than tripled as a result of simply increasing luminance, when SOA is kept constant. Moreover, increased luminance may compensate for briefer exposure duration and vice versa.
AB - Applying Bloch's law to visual word recognition research, both exposure duration of the prime and its luminance determine the prime's overall energy, and consequently determine the size of the priming effect. Nevertheless, experimenters using fast-priming paradigms traditionally focus only on the SOA between prime and target to reflect the absolute speed of cognitive processes under investigation. Some of the discrepancies in results regarding the time course of orthographic and phonological activation in word recognition research may be due to this factor. This hypothesis was examined by manipulating parametrically the luminance of the prime and its exposure duration, measuring their joint impact on masked repetition priming. The results show that small and non-significant priming effects can be more than tripled as a result of simply increasing luminance, when SOA is kept constant. Moreover, increased luminance may compensate for briefer exposure duration and vice versa.
KW - Luminance
KW - Masked priming
KW - Phonological computation
KW - SOA
KW - Visual word recognition
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33847122928&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jml.2006.11.007
DO - 10.1016/j.jml.2006.11.007
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AN - SCOPUS:33847122928
SN - 0749-596X
VL - 56
SP - 321
EP - 335
JO - Journal of Memory and Language
JF - Journal of Memory and Language
IS - 3
ER -