Levels of representation in visual word recognition: A dissociation between morphological and semantic processing

A robust semantic priming effect typically occurs in visual word recognitio n if the prime is read before a response to the target However, this effect is dramatically reduced if a letter search is performed on the prime prior to responding to the target. Three lexical decision experiments document t he new observation that morphological priming is preserved following letter search on the prime. This dissociation between morphological and semantic priming following letter search can be understood in the context of an inte ractive activation framework. In addition, the implications of these result s for connectionist and compound cue accounts of word recognition, as well as the issue of automaticity in word recognition, are discussed.