PERCEPTUAL AND CONCEPTUAL PRIMING IN A SEMANTIC REPROCESSING TASK

Two experiments are reported that addressed the relative involvement a nd nature of perceptual and conceptual priming in a semantically compl ex task. Both experiments investigated facilitation from repeated sema ntic comparison trials in which subjects decided whether two words had the same meaning (e.g., moist damp). The first experiment compared th e magnitude and persistence of perceptual and conceptual priming compo nents. Perceptual priming effects were modest, and contrary to some pr evious evidence, they did not appear to be more persistent than nonper ceptual priming effects. The second experiment investigated the memory processes involved when perceptual priming was eliminated through a m odality change between prime and target trials. Evidence suggested tha t conceptual priming primarily involved memory for the meaning compari son processes rather than better access to existing memory for the sti mulus words.