On the limits of familiarity accounts in lexical decision: The case of repetition effects

Examining long-term repetition priming effects in spoken word recognition using computer mouse tracking

Language researchers in a variety of disciplines have used priming as a tool to investigate theoretical questions. In spoken word recognition, long-term repetition priming effects have been obtained across a number of behavioral tasks (e.g., lexical decision, shadowing). Repeated - primed - words are responded to more efficiently than new - unprimed - words. However, to our knowledge, long-term repetition priming effects have not been examined using computer mouse tracking, which would provide data regarding the time course of long-term repetition priming effects. Consequently, we compared participants' lexical decision responses using a computer mouse to primed and unprimed words. We predicted that participants would respond more efficiently to primed words compared to unprimed words. Indeed, across all of the dependent variables investigated (accuracy, reaction time, mouse trajectories) and across environments (in person, online), participants responded more efficiently to primed words than to unprimed words. We also performed additional exploratory analyses examining long-term repetition priming effects for nonwords. Across environments (in person, online), participants had more errors to primed nonwords than to unprimed nonwords, but there were no differences in reaction times and mouse trajectories. The current data demonstrating long-term repetition priming effects in mouse tracking are expected to motivate future investigations examining the time course of various long-term repetition priming effects for both words and nonwords.

Do both WRAP and TRAP inhibit the recognition of the French word DRAP? Impact of orthographic markedness on cross-language orthographic priming

We investigated lexical and sub-lexical orthographic coding in bilingual visual word recognition by examining interactions between orthographic neighbourhood and markedness. In three experiments, French/English bilinguals performed a masked lexical decision task in French (L1) in which orthographically related prime words could be either marked or unmarked English (L2) words, compared to unrelated primes (e.g., wrap, trap, gift-DRAP, meaning sheet). The results yielded an overall inhibition priming effect, which was unexpectedly more robust in the marked condition than in the unmarked one. This result highlights the need to integrate both lexical competition and orthographic markedness in bilingual models such as BIA/+ and determine how the latter may modulate lexical processing in bilinguals.