THE DETECTION OF SEMANTIC ILLUSIONS - TASK SPECIFIC EFFECTS FOR SIMILARITY AND POSITION OF DISTORTED TERMS

The effect of task demands on the detection of semantic illusions was investigated. In Exp. 1, subjects were given a detection task with dif ferent instructions for accuracy. Less illusions occurred under instru ctions that stressed accuracy, indicating strategic control of detecti on rates. In Exp. 2, sentences with dissimilar distorted terms resulte d in shorter latencies than sentences with similar distorted terms in a detection task, but in longer response times in a question-answering task. In Exp. 3, the similarity effect was found to vary with the pos ition of the distorted term in combination with task demands. In a ver ification task, the similarity effect did not differ for the beginning or the end of sentences. In a question-answering task, a significant similarity effect was observed only for distorted terms at the beginni ng of sentences. We argue that the results indicate minimal depth of s emantic processing with respect to different task requirements. Implic ations for different theoretical accounts of semantic illusions are di scussed.