Similarity effects in word and pseudoword repetition priming

Repetition priming refers to the facilitation in the visual identification of a stimulus produced by a recent encounter with that stimulus. In the paradigm used here, subjects performed a naming task in which a sequence of primes was presented; then they performed a tachistoscopic identification task in which the stimuli that were presented varied in their similarity to the primes. The results indicated that repetition priming facilitated the identification of repeated words and pronounceable nonwords that were similar, but not identical, to the recently encountered primes. Moreover, the number of presentations of the primes influenced the amount of facilitation for repeated words but, in contrast to previous findings, had no effect on the amount of facilitation for repeated nonwords or similar words and nonwords. The results are interpreted within a connectionist model of visual word identification.