| |
Abstract:
Abstract: Data from masked priming experiments have been used
to support a traditional view of the mental lexicon where morphemes
are stored discretely and complex words are decomposed in
processing. In masked priming, visual primes are presented briefly
and masked so that subjects cannot consciously process them. This
paradigm is generally considered insensitive to semantic effects.
Thus, results showing greater facilitation for morphologically
complex (CARS-CAR) compared to orthographically overlapping
prime-target pairs (CARD-CAR) are argued to arise from
morphological rather than semantic factors. In contrast, in two
masked priming experiments we demonstrate that semantic similarity
modulates priming: highly related items (HARDLY-HARD: 30 ms) primed
more than moderately related items (LATELY-LATE: 19 ms), while
unrelated items did not prime (BOLDLY-BOLD: -1 ms). Furthermore,
very highly semantically related items with no form overlap
(PROFIT-GAIN) produced significant facilitation (21 ms). This
surprising pattern of results suggests that semantic information is
available very early on, even in the absence of conscious
processing. Moreover, the graded priming effects support a view of
morphology as an interlevel representation that mediates mappings
between semantics and phonology and that emerges in the service of
language acquisition and processing. On this view, morphology
reflects structure present in the world: language input contains
patterns that are picked up on by language learners to the extent
that they are useful in solving the primary tasks of competent
speakers, that is comprehending and producing speech.
|
