Browsing by Author "Jensen, Cary Robb"

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    Phonemic priming in the lexical decision task : Evidence for graphemic dependence
    (1985) Jensen, Cary Robb; Martin, Randi C.; Lane, David M.; Howell, William C.
    Hillinger (198) reported that a target word was identified as a real word faster when it was preceded by a phonetically related prime than by a neutral prime. He found that this facilitation occurred even when the prime and target were graphemically dissimilar. On the basis of this he concluded that activation spread automatically from the lexical entry of the prime to phonologically related lexical entries. The series of experiments reported in this thesis were designed to investigate several aspects of Hillinger's experiments. Hillinger's findings were replicated when his design was employed. Further investigations showed that minor variations in this design resulted in very different patterns of facilitation and inhibition. While it was demonstrated that lexical decisions to word targets are facilitated, apparently automatically, when the targets are preceded by graphemically similar-phonemically similar primes, no such facilitation was observed when graphemically dissimilar-graphemically similar primes were used. These results were found even when subjects were required to access the phonology of the primes. It was concluded that phonetic facilitation is the result of a process of structure that is based both on phonology and orthography.
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    Phonological, graphemic, and semantic interference in immediate visual word recognition
    (1988) Jensen, Cary Robb; Martin, Randi C.
    Jensen and Martin (1987) reported that subjects require additional time, and make more errors, when responding to a negative probe in a visual probe recognition task when the memory set contains one word that is either a rhyme of, differs by one letter from, or is a synonym of the probe. The experiments reported in this thesis investigate some aspect of each of these interference effects. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the phonological interference effect is not reduced when subjects must suppress articulation during a 12 second retention interval, and is not increased when subjects must recall the memory set after responding to the probe. This result implies that the phonological interference effect does not result from the retention of the memory set in an articulatory based short-term store. Experiment 2 and 3 demonstrate that similarity of graphemes, not just letters, leads to the graphemic interference effect since the effect was observed even when the probe and memory set were presented in different cases. Secondly, Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate the suitability of a phonological control against which graphemic interference must be measured. Finally, Experiment 4 reveals that the semantic interference effect may result from directional association as well as synonymy. The results of these four experiments are consistent with several recent models of working memory proposed by Barnard (1985) and Monsell (1984) which propose that working memory involves both activated pre-existing memory traces as well as the temporary storage of trace images.