Words, pictures, and priming: On semantic activation, conscious identification, and the automaticity of information processing.

Abstract

We investigated the encoding mechanisms involved in the perceptual recognition of words and pictures. Latencies in naming word and picture targets were analyzed as a function of several characteristics of a preceding prime, including whether it was a word or a picture, its duration of exposure, the interval between the prime and target onset, and whether or not the prime was consciously identified and reported by the subject. Results indicated that a common semantic code is available that can represent the meaning of either a word or a picture. This semantic representation, however, appears to be more easily activated by picture primes than by word primes and seems to benefit the naming of picture targets more than the naming of word targets. Despite the advantage for pictures with respect to semantic activation, overall processing in the naming task was slower and more attention demanding for pictures than for words. Comparison of our data with data on classification, in which an opposite pattern occurs (overall processing appears to be slower and more attention demanding for words than for pictures), suggests that, on the average, pictures have faster and more automatic access to their meanings than to their names but that words have faster and more automatic access to their names than to their meanings. This conclusion concerning the relative ability of stimuli to activate different kinds of internal representations has implications for a theory of the basis and development of automaticity.

Cites (62)

1. Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory
   Shiffrin, Richard M., Schneider, Walter · 1977 · Psychological Review
2. Family resemblances: Studies in the internal structure of categories
   Rosch, Eleanor, Mervis, Carolyn B · 1975 · Cognitive Psychology
3. Controlled and automatic human information processing: I. Detection, search, and attention.
   Schneider, Walter, Shiffrin, Richard M. · 1977 · Psychological Review
4. Basic objects in natural categories
   Rosch, Eleanor, Mervis, Carolyn B, Gray, Wayne D, Johnson, David M, Boyes-Braem, Penny · 1976 · Cognitive Psychology
5. Imagery and Verbal Processes
   Paivio, A. · 2013 · Psychology Press eBooks
6. Principles of Categorization
   2002 · Foundations of Cognitive Psychology
7. Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading
   LaBerge, David, Samuels, S.Jay · 1974 · Cognitive Psychology
8. Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Roles of inhibitionless spreading activation and limited-capacity attention.
   James H. Neely · 1977 · Journal of Experimental Psychology General
9. Automatic and effortful processes in memory.
   Hasher, Lynn, Zacks, Rose T. · 1979 · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
10. Categories and Concepts
    Smith, Edward E., Medin, Douglas L. · 1981 · Harvard University Press eBooks

Show all 62 references

Cited by (18)

1. Toward an instance theory of automatization.
   Logan, Gordon D. · 1988 · Psychological Review
2. Visual objects in context
   Bar, Moshe · 2004 · Nature Reviews Neuroscience
3. Human Brain Language Areas Identified by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
   Binder, Jeffrey R., Frost, Julie A., Hammeke, Thomas A., Cox, Robert W., Rao, Stephen M., Prieto, Thomas · 1997 · The Journal of Neuroscience
4. Human temporal lobe activation by speech and nonspeech sounds
   Binder, J.R. · 2000 · Cerebral Cortex
5. Levels of processing during non-conscious perception: a critical review of visual masking
   Kouider, Sid, Dehaene, Stanislas · 2007 · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

See all 358