Feature accessibility in conceptual combination: Effects of context-induced relevance

In conceptual combinations such as peeled apples, two kinds of features are potentially accessible: phrase features and noun features. Phrase features are true only of the phrase (e.g., "white"), whereas noun features are tru e of both the phrase and the head noun (e.g., "round"). When people compreh end such combinations, phrase features are verified more quickly and more a ccurately than noun features. We examine relevance as an explanation for th is phrase feature superiority. If relevance is the critical factor, then co ntexts that explicitly make noun features relevant and phrase features irre levant should reverse the phrase feature superiority (i.e., they should mak e noun features easier to verify than phrase features). Consistent with the relevance hypothesis, brief contexts that made noun features relevant also made those noun features more accessible than phrase features, and vice ve rsa. We conclude that the phrase feature superiority effect is attributable to the discourse strategy of assigning relevance to modifiers in combinati ons, unless a context indicates otherwise.