The onset effect in word and picture naming

N.O. Schiller*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This study investigates whether or not masked form priming effects in the naming task depend on the number of shared segments between prime and target. Dutch participants named bisyllabic words, which were preceded by visual masked primes. When primes shared the initial segment(s) with the target, naming latencies were shorter than in a control condition (string of percent signs). Onset complexity (singleton vs. complex word onset) did not modulate this priming effect in Dutch. Furthermore, significant priming due to shared final segments was only found when the prime did not contain a mismatching onset, suggesting an interfering role of initial non-target segments. It is concluded that (a) degree of overlap (segmental match vs. mismatch), and (b) position of overlap (initial vs. final) influence the magnitude of the form priming effect in the naming task. A modification of the segmental overlap hypothesis (Schiller, 1998) is proposed to account for the data.
Original languageEnglish
Article number4
Pages (from-to)477-490
JournalJournal of Memory and Language
Volume50
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2004

Cite this