Nonword Repetition Priming in Lexical Decision Reverses as a Function of Study Task and Speed Stress

Zeelenberg, René
Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan
Shiffrin, Richard M.

¹Department of Psychology, Indiana University Bloomington
²Department of Psychology, Northwestern University.

³Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to René Zeelenberg, Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. E-mail: [email protected].

We thank Bill Hockley, Judith Kroll, and Diane Pecher for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Received Date: March 26, 2003; Revised Date: June 27, 2003; Accepted Date: July 8, 2003

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 30(1):p 270-277, January 2004.

The authors argue that nonword repetition priming in lexical decision is the net result of 2 opposing processes. First, repeating nonwords in the lexical decision task results in the storage of a memory trace containing the interpretation that the letter string is a nonword; retrieval of this trace leads to an increase in performance for repeated nonwords. Second, nonword repetition results in increased familiarity, making the nonword more “wordlike,” leading to a decrease in performance. Consistent with this dual-process account, Experiment 1 showed a facilitatory effect for nonwords studied in a lexical decision task but an inhibitory effect for nonwords studied in a letter-height task. Experiment 2 showed inhibitory nonword repetition priming for participants tested under speed-stress instructions.