REPETITION PRIMING FOR NEWLY FORMED AND PREEXISTING ASSOCIATIONS - PERCEPTUAL AND CONCEPTUAL INFLUENCES

Three experiments demonstrate that association-specific repetition eff ects can be obtained for both newly formed and preexisting association s and that these effects are sensitive to modality of presentation. Af ter studying a list of word pairs, participants were shown the origina l intact pairs and pairs formed by recombining the original pairs. In a lexical-decision task in which participants were asked to indicate w hether bath items were words, responses were faster to newly formed as sociations in the intact than in the recombined condition. This associ ation-specific repetition priming effect was also observed far preexis ting associations when a speeded relatedness judgment task was used. B oth effects were found to be attenuated under cross-modal presentation . Finally, an explicit speeded recognition task revealed an associativ e effect that was not attenuated when modality was crossed for newly f ormed associations and was actually exaggerated for preexisting associ ations, suggesting that the repetition priming effects were not produc ed by conscious recollection. Results are discussed in terms of framew orks that are based either on perceptual representation systems or on a transfer-appropriate processing model.