TY - JOUR
T1 - Nonword Facilitation in a Lexical Decision Task
AU - Kinoshita, Sachiko
AU - Taft, Marcus
AU - Taplin, John E.
PY - 1985/4
Y1 - 1985/4
N2 - It has been reported in previous experiments that in a lexical decision task, sentence contexts facilitate decisions for nonword targets relative to a neutral context condition (e.g., Schuberth & Eimas, 1977). The present three experiments investigated possible explanations for this nonword facilitation effect, using moderately predictable sentence contexts. Results provided support for the view that nonword facilitation stems from an overestimate of the baseline decision latency when a neutral context condition and sentence context conditions are intermixed. Specifically, it was suggested that context affects a post-access decision stage during which sentential meaningfulness is used as a basis for making word-nonword discriminations and that nonword facilitation stems from an extra processing stage required for targets following a neutral context. Implications of this interpretation for the effects of sentence context on the recognition of words are discussed.
AB - It has been reported in previous experiments that in a lexical decision task, sentence contexts facilitate decisions for nonword targets relative to a neutral context condition (e.g., Schuberth & Eimas, 1977). The present three experiments investigated possible explanations for this nonword facilitation effect, using moderately predictable sentence contexts. Results provided support for the view that nonword facilitation stems from an overestimate of the baseline decision latency when a neutral context condition and sentence context conditions are intermixed. Specifically, it was suggested that context affects a post-access decision stage during which sentential meaningfulness is used as a basis for making word-nonword discriminations and that nonword facilitation stems from an extra processing stage required for targets following a neutral context. Implications of this interpretation for the effects of sentence context on the recognition of words are discussed.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=2342583592&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1037/0278-7393.11.2.346
DO - 10.1037/0278-7393.11.2.346
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:2342583592
SN - 0278-7393
VL - 11
SP - 346
EP - 362
JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
IS - 2
ER -