Haskins Publications

Number	471
Year	1984
Drawer	8
Entry Date	11/19/1999
Authors	Bentin, S. & Katz, L.
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Publication	Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 22, 381-384.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0471.pdf
Abstract	An experiment with 24 Subjects investigated semantic awareness on a nonlexical task and whether a levels-of-processing explanation would be appropriate for word recognition and, if so, whether the depth of processing would be under the Subject's strategic control. Priming effects were compared in a task in which Subjects made lexical decisions for 2 semantically associated words presented in sequence, the 1st word referred to as the prime, the 2nd as the target. Subjects decided whether the prime was written in lower- or uppercase or made lexical decisions on the prime, in addition to making lexical decisions about the targets. 32 target words were preceded either by semantic associates or by unrelated words. For both case and lexical-decision conditions for the prime, equal facilitation (based on RTs) was found for related targets, suggesting that Subjects analyzed words at a semantic level even while making upper-/lowercase decisions. Findings question the applicability of a level-of-processing model for word recognition processes and suggest that presentation of a word triggers a process that, if not disturbed, will automatically continue until the stimulus is semantically coded.
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