Relation and lexical priming during the interpretation of noun-noun combinations

This research indicates that recent exposure to a similar combination (e.g., oil moisturizer or surgery treatment) influences the processing of a subsequent combination (e.g., oil treatment) by increasing the availability of the lexical entries for the modifier and head noun, and by altering the availability of the relation used to link the two nouns. The amount of lexical and relational priming obtained depends on whether the modifier or head noun is in common between the prime and target. The head noun prime yields more lexical priming than does the modifier prime and this finding suggests that the head noun is more strongly activated than the modifier. In contrast, relation priming is obtained only from the modifier prime and this finding is consistent with the CARIN theory (C. L. Gagné & E. J. Shoben, 1997) but inconsistent with schema-based theories of conceptual combination (e.g., G. L. Murphy, 1988; E. J. Wisniewski, 1996).