On the role of bias in dissociated phonological priming effects: A reply to Goldinger (1999)

Phonological priming studies have revealed two dissociated effects: low-sim ilarity facilitation and high-similarity interference (Hamburger & Slowiacz ek, 1996, Slowiaczek dt Hamburger, 1992). Because these two effects are inf luenced by differ ent variables, they most likely reflect different process es that occur during auditory word recognition. Goldinger (1999) suggests t hat one bias is responsible for all phonological priming effects. In this r eply we argue against such a position. Although low similarity facilitation is likely the product of this bias, the data on phonological priming indic ate that the dissociated high-similarity interference cannot be produced by the same mechanism. Instead, the data indicate that high-similarity interf erence may, reflect lexical processes.