Cinel Caterina, Avons Steve E, Russo Riccardo
School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2010 Mar;63(3):580-94. doi: 10.1080/17470210903038966.
Two experiments investigated associative priming with a letter-search prime task where either the prime and letter probe were presented simultaneously, or the letter probe appeared 200 ms (Experiment 1) or 300 ms (Experiment 2) after the prime. Weak associative priming was observed in both experiments, but unlike Stolz and Besner (1996) we found no evidence that priming was increased when the probe was delayed. However, strong associative priming was observed when a semantic decision had to be made on the prime (Experiment 3). Our results are consistent with an account where semantic activation of the prime occurs but its action on the target is suppressed by the prime task. The persistence of weak priming effects with the letter search task is explained in terms of the low-frequency items used.
两项实验采用字母搜索启动任务对联想启动进行了研究，在该任务中，启动刺激和字母探测刺激要么同时呈现，要么启动刺激出现后200毫秒（实验1）或300毫秒（实验2）再呈现字母探测刺激。两项实验均观察到了较弱的联想启动效应，但与斯托尔兹和贝斯纳（1996）的研究不同，我们没有发现证据表明当探测刺激延迟时启动效应会增强。然而，当必须对启动刺激做出语义判断时（实验3），则观察到了较强的联想启动效应。我们的结果与这样一种观点一致，即启动刺激会发生语义激活，但其对目标的作用会受到启动任务的抑制。字母搜索任务中较弱启动效应的持续存在可以用所使用的低频项目来解释。
