Short-term implicit memory was examined for mixed auditory (A) and visual (
V) stimuli. In lexical decision, words and nonwords were repeated at lags o
f 0, 1, 3, and 6 intervening trials, in four prime-target combinations (VV,
VA, AV,AA). Same-modality repetition priming showed a lag x lexicality inte
raction for visual stimuli (nonwords decayed faster), but not for auditory
stimuli (longer lasting smooth decay for both words and nonwords). These mo
dality differences suggest that short-term priming has a perceptual locus,
with the phonological lexicon maintaining stimuli active longer than the or
thographic lexicon and treating pseudowords as potential words. We interpre
t these differences in terms of the different memory needs of speech recogn
ition and text reading. Weak cross-modality short-term priming was present
for words and nonwords, indicating recoding between perceptual forms.