Matei Vladeanu | PubMed Health

PubMed2006

What do we know about psycholinguistic effects?

Identifying clear and unequivocal psycholinguistic effects for lexical retrieval tasks has been the aim of a significant proportion of recent research activity. Debates have erupted concerning the existence or otherwise of particular effects on particular lexical tasks. Here, it is suggested that the reason for these debates is that researchers exercise choice in what variables they consider in their analysis. It is further illustrated that methods that have been employed for comparing the size of these effects between tasks can only lead to inconclusive results. It is suggested that psycholinguistic data may be better analysed using structural equation modelling methodologies. An example of such an approach is presented.

Awareness↗

PubMed2006

Associative priming in faces: semantic relatedness or simple co-occurrence?

In two experiments, we explored the effects of co-occurrence and semantic relationships in the associative priming of faces. In Experiment 1, pairs of computer-generated human faces were presented simultaneously (i.e., they co-occurred) with no associated semantic information attached to them. A significant facilitation effect in the subsequent recognition of these paired faces (priming) was observed. Thus, repeatedly presenting faces together while keeping semantic information to a minimum appears to be enough to produce associative priming. In Experiment 2, the computer-generated faces were associated with semantic information and again presented ipairs. Priming effects arising from co-occurrence and semantic relatedness were observed. The results from these experiments show that semantic relatedness is not the sole cause of the association between faces; co-occurrence plays a crucial role too. This conclusion has significant implications for the current computational models of face processing.

Adult↗