An electrophysiological analysis of modality-specific aspects of word repetition

Priming effects to words are reduced when modality changes from study to test. This change was examined here using behavioral and electrophysiological measures of priming. During the study, half of the words were presented visually and half auditorally; during a subsequent lexical decision test, all words were presented visually. Lexical decisions were faster for within- than cross-modality repetitions. In contrast, modality influenced recognition only for low-frequency words. During lexical decision, event-related brain potentials were more positive to studied than unstudied words (200-500 ms). A larger and shorter duration effect was observed for within- than cross-modality repetitions (300-400 ms). This later effect is viewed as an electrophysiological index of modality-specific processing associated with priming. Results suggest that multiple events--both modality-specific and modality-nonspecific--underlie perceptual priming phenomena.