POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SEMANTIC PRIMING OF ATTENDED AND UNATTENDED PARAFOVEAL WORDS IN A LEXICAL DECISION TASK

Two lexical decision experiments examining semantic priming from atten ted and unattended parafoveal words are reported. On every trial, a pe ripheral cue appearing to the left or right of fixation was followed b y two parafoveal primes, one on each visual field, and a subsequent wo rd/nonword target at fixation. In Experiment I, duration of the cue wa s manipulated. Parafoveal semantic priming was found but was significa nt only for the attended primes, showing a similar magnitude of primin g for the different cue durations levels. However, there was a great v ariation in priming among subjects, with some showing positive priming and others showing negative priming. In Experiment 2, different instr uctions to process the primes were manipulated. Results showed that (a ) instructions to attend the primes were associated with positive prim ing; (b) instructions to ignore the primes were associated with negati ve priming, even when the ignored primes were cued. Implications of th ese findings regarding influence of selective attention on semantic pr ocessing of parafoveal words are discussed.