AUDITORY PRIMING IN AN IMPLICIT MEMORY TASK THAT EMPHASIZES SURFACE PROCESSING

Auditory priming was examined in an implicit memory task, phoneme moni toring, that emphasized surface processing. The contribution of voice to priming was investigated in single- and multiple-speaker environmen ts by repeating studied words at test in either the same voice or diff erent voices. Multiple-speaker environments, which preserved both acou stic and word repetition, eliminated priming when more than two voice changes between words were introduced. When voice familiarity attenuat ed acoustic variability, priming was reestablished in the condition in which three voices were heard. Voice changes between study and test, which eliminated acoustic repetition, also abolished priming. Word fre quency affected reaction times but not priming. This demonstrated that priming entailed subword processing rather than word processing. This study demonstrates that the significance of voice in implicit memory is dependent on the level of processing required by the task and the a coustic environment.