The repetition priming effect has been taken as evidence that lexical
entries are automatically activated in memory. However, contextual cue
s in an experiment may influence repetition priming, suggesting that t
his priming may not be the result of automatic processes. Five experim
ents used a primed shadowing task to explore the role of phonological
context on repetition priming. In the first four experiments, high- an
d low-expectancy conditions were tested. Between experiments, the degr
ee of phonological relatedness (high or low phonological similarity),
percentage of related trials that were repetition trials (ID ratio), a
nd modality of stimulus presentation (auditory or visual) were manipul
ated. Results indicate that repetition priming in auditory word recogn
ition is eliminated by a low ID ratio. The fact that an external varia
ble such as the ID ratio influences repetition priming suggests that r
epetition priming may be the product of processes extraneous to the au
tomatic activation of lexical entries.