Abstract
The time course of semantic priming between two associated words was tracked using rapid serial visual presentation of two synchronized streams of stimuli appearing at about 20 items/sec, each stream including a target word. The two words were semantically related or unrelated and were separated by stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 0–213 msec. Accuracy in reporting the first target (T1) versus the second target (T2) has been shown to interact dramatically with SOA over this range. The materials were in English in Experiment1 and Italian in Experiment2. T1 was semantically primed only at short SOAs, whereas T2 was primed at all SOAs (Experiment 1) or at all SOAs except the shortest one (Experiment2). The results indicate a strong competition between target words early in processing, with T2 often becoming the first word identified at short SOAs, thus priming T1.
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This work was supported by FIRB Grant RBAU01LE9P from the Italian Ministry of University to R.D.A. and by Grant MH47432 from the National Institute of Mental Health to M.C.P.
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Potter, M.C., Dell’acqua, R., Pesciarelli, F. et al. Bidirectional semantic priming in the attentional blink. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 12, 460–465 (2005). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193788
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193788