Can orthographic rimes facilitate naming?

Although the orthographic rime (body) is thought to play an important role in reading English, previous priming experiments found little or no evidenc e for facilitatory body-priming effects in the naming task. That is, hose p rimes NOSE no better than does a completely unrelated prime. In the present study, the hypothesis that facilitatory body-priming effects are typically masked by strong inhibitory onset effects was investigated It was shown th at when the onset of a prime was removed, facilitatory body priming could b e obtained with stimuli that previously had produced no evidence of facilit ation. The present study thus reconciles conflicting patterns concerning fa cilitation versus inhibition in body priming.