Does the sandwich priming procedure enhance masked semantic priming effects?

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Psychology
• Experimental Psychology

Background:

• The sandwich priming paradigm involves presenting a target word within a sequence of primes (e.g., white-whete-WHITE).
• Previous research indicated sandwich priming amplifies masked orthographic and morphological priming effects.
• However, its effect on masked semantic priming remained uninvestigated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if sandwich priming enhances masked semantic priming effects.
• To investigate the underlying mechanisms of sandwich priming, differentiating between morphological and semantic influences.
• To clarify whether observed effects in morphological priming are truly morphological or semantically driven.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted comparing conventional masked priming with sandwich priming.
• Participants were exposed to prime-target word pairs under both conditions.
• Semantic priming effects (e.g., black-WHITE) were measured and compared between the two priming paradigms.

Main Results:

• Sandwich priming did not significantly increase the magnitude of masked semantic priming effects.
• The results indicate that the enhancement of priming effects observed with sandwich priming is specific to morphological relationships.
• This finding contrasts with previous observations for orthographic and morphological priming.

Conclusions:

• Sandwich priming does not boost semantic priming, suggesting distinct processing pathways.
• The observed amplification of morphological priming by sandwich priming is likely a genuine morphological effect.
• This research differentiates the mechanisms underlying different types of masked word recognition priming.