Semantic Priming and Lexical Decision Task - Essay Example

? Cognitive psychology lab report: Semantic priming and lexical decision task Cognitive psychology lab report: Semantic priming and lexical decision task Abstract The study sought to investigate factors affecting priming. It applied repeated measures design with first year and second year students of University of Huddersfield. Opportunity sampling was used to test effects of semantic relationship, spread of activation, and inter stimulus interval on priming, and data analyzed by SPSS software. Results identified significance of semantic relationship between words and spread of activation on priming. Introduction and background information Psychologists’ primary concern is to develop an understanding of the human mind and its roles. Efficiency of cognitive functions and factors that determines it is therefore core to the social science and significant studies, with supportive theories, have been conducted in the field of study. Semantic memory is one of the cognitive studies and relates to rationale and linguistics such as an understanding of conceivable meaning between words. Healy, Weiner and Protctor associate semantic theory with a conceptual framework for understanding mental representation of words that can identify perceived relationships between words (2010, p. 448). Such a concept is measurable by subjecting people to words and allowing them to identify matching words based on a defined criterion. Spreading-activation theory of semantic processing explores semantic memory from name of things and paring of names or words can implement it under conditions to determine effects of the conditions on the cognitive potential. Based on the theory, objects for mental representation assumes a node status in a network and the relationships between the objects depends on the number of networks, or links, that exist between them. Ability to identify more links between two words therefore facilitates their paring and perceived similarities are is critical. More links expected between husband and wife as compared to those expected between husband and airplane would identify faster paring between husband and wife that husband and plane because of the concept of “phonemic similarity” (2010 , p. 448). Factors into the relationships however remain uncertain and offers reasons for psychological research into priming (Lerner and Overton 2010 , n.p.). Compound cue theory also explains semantic priming through three concepts. Information retrieval into priming, according to the theory, involves different cues in the surrounding and the integration of the cues into a comprehensive one. Compound cue theory also assumes an association between subject objects that fits into a network (Kruger 2000, p. 34). It explains the role of background knowledge on both the target item word and the prime word in a priming activity besides identifying significance of history that has negative effects on memory. Based on its provisions, short-term factors affect memory more and therefore determine effectiveness of priming. It however lacks the free association aspect of the Spreading-activation theory of semantic processing (McKoon & Ratcliff 1995, p. 1384- 1388; Traxler & Gernsbacher 2006, p. 436). Investigations into priming stimulus are therefore fundamental and many research activities have been conducted to explore it. Nadel, Hupbach, Gomez and Smith, in their study that sought to investigate memory creation and consolidation reported four significant factors (2012, 1641- 1645). Sustainability of developed links between objects, or nodes, is susceptible to rescaling and bias and a stimulus can therefore it. Assimilation process is further necessary to conceptualize links towards pairing. In addition to existing links for semantic priming, exposure to different environments affects development of new links and is therefore a factor to priming. The authors also acknowledged significance of memory upgrade in their study (2012, p. 1641-1645). Similarity between objects also offer stimulus to association processes of the brain with ease of priming similar items as compared to priming of items bear no similarity. Copland et al. established this in a study on word ambiguity whose findings supported the concept of association between related items than items that are not related (Copland et l. 2006, p. 165- 170; Meyer and Schvaneveldt 1971). Free association tasks offer a basis for semantic priming. In the task, a study’s participants are presented with a word to which they respond with another word that comes to their minds. The response originates from people’s knowledge that links things such as words and names and suggests a relationship between priming and lexical decisions (Zeelenberg, Shiffrin and Raaijmakers 1999, p. 958-960). A study by Murphy (2012) identifies semantic significance within short time intervals while Rossell, Price and Nobre identified effect of time on the relationship between priming and lexical cognitive potential (2003). A different study by Kiang et al. identifies effects of relationship between objects on semantic effects (2012, p. ). Acknowledging this general perspective, Kesteren et al., explains that conflicting knowledge has been developed that would necessitate further studies and their study identified significance of consolidation on item recognition and the role of encoding on development of links that identify networks between objects. Factors to encoding such as available time and familiarity with subjects are therefore fundamental to the priming process (Kesteren et al. 2013, p. 1-5). Exiting knowledge identifies a relationship between semantic priming and lexical decisions but such knowledge is not explorative of factors such as response time and the extent of association through response score. The current study incorporates these variables by controlling inter-string intervals for determining spreading activation and non-words and real words to determine possible effects of priming on non-wording. The inter string interval is varied from 300 ms, 600ms, and 900ms. The study explores the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 The response time will be shorter for target words that are semantically related to the prime word that for target words that bear no semantic relationship with the prime word. Hypothesis 2 The response time is inversely proportional to spread of activation, assuming a monotonic variation in spread of activation. This means that for a continuous change in spread of activation, response time bears an inverse proportionate change. Hypothesis 3 Inter stimulus interval effect is effective on related words but not effective on non-related words. The study’s scope, through the hypotheses to be tested identifies three independent variables as discussed bellow. Independent variable 1: Lexical status of the target word, occur in two levels, word and non-word. Independent variable 2: Inter stimulus interval, refers to the period between the end of the prime word and the beginning of the target word. It has three levels, 300ms, 600ms, and 900ms. Independent variable 3: Semantic relationship between prime word and the target word, exists in two levels, related and unrelated. Two dependent variables will be considered in the study. Dependent variable 1: Response score, applies to each test indicates whether a participant is correct or not. The variable has a random probability distribution number of levels that relies on the binomial responses for each trial. Dependent variable 2: Response time, refers to the time within which each participant decides on a response. The response time has numeric scale with multiple levels. Methods Experimental design The study applied repeated measures design that uses same participants for each test trial. The design was suitable for the study because of its advantages that include application of fewer research participants undergo the different treatment in the study. Multiple interactions with the few participants also increase efficiency in implementation of a study through increased familiarity. The scope of the study that investigates same participants over time also is also suitable for learning and cognitive processes such as the study’s objective. Using same participants for different treatments also eliminates possible differences that could arise from personalities (Gravetter 2012, p. 328). The study was of order 2*2*3 implemented with 12 conditions under three independent variables, lexical status, response time, and semantic relationship. First year and second year psychology students from University of Huddersfield participated in the study and underwent the 12 conditions. Opportunity sampling was applied and students recruited during their laboratory session. The sampling approach is easy and simple to achieve but is weak (Jupp 2006, 205; Vogt, Gardner and Haeffele 2012, 346). Procedure Opportunity sampling identified the sample that was informed of the research’s scope and each participant’s consent sought. Orientation was then done to the participants and Tcl/Tk used offered on computer screen as stimuli source. A pair of strings was then offered to the participants who used either the A or L keys to respond on whether the target was a word or not. Each participant was subjected to 72 trials under four categories. 18 trials involved participants’ exposure to target words that were related to the prime, 18 trials in which the target was a word that bore no association to the prime, and 18 trials in which the string was a not word that was derived from a related word to the prime. The last set of 18 trials, also on the same participants involved exposure to a non-word that was derived from a non-related word to the prime. Results The following table shows the means and standard deviations for each of pair of words. Table 1: Summary of mean and standard deviation for the conditions Related Unrelated Words Non – words Words Non - words ISI M SD M SD M SD M SD 300 ms 857 370 1073 593 865 363 1003 465 600 ms 825 405 1114 412 862 330 1005 418 900 ms 799 396 1145 459 853 306 995 459 Related words reported shorter response time (300ms. = 857; 600ms. = 825; 900ms. = 799) than the mean for unrelated words (300ms. = 865; 600ms. = 862; 900ms. = 853). Multiple level analysis of variance identifies a significant difference between in response time between related words and unrelated words and the hypothesis 1 is not rejected. The low p value, p< 0.05 for F= (1, 285), 5.52 shows this. There is however no significant difference in the inter stimulus interval between related and unrelated words as observed from high p value, p>0.05, F= (2, 370). Further, there was no significant interaction between word association and inter stimulus interval because of high p-value, p>0.05. The mean response time for related words was lower than the mean for unrelated non-words at the different inter stimulus interval as shown in the table 1. Analysis of variance identified a significant difference in response time between related non-words and unrelated non-words F = (1, 285), 63.93, p < 0.05, and hypothesis 2 is not rejected. There was however no significant effect of inter stimulus time between on related and unrelated non-words, F = (2, 570, .94, p > 0.05, with absence of significant interaction between association and inter stimulus interval, F = (2, 570), 2.56, p > 0.05. With exception of unrelated non-word treatments, response time means of each conditions decreased with increased inter stimulus interval. For non-word conditions, response time was directly proportional to inter stimulus interval while the mean increased from 300 to 600ms before decreasing from 600ms to 900ms. Analysis of variance results indicate lack of significant effect in all the relationships and these establishes ground for rejection of hypothesis 3. Discussion The results accept the first and the second hypothesis but reject the third hypothesis. The study’s findings are consistent with the Spreading-activation theory of semantic processing that supports positive effects of connectedness of words to priming. The participants were therefore able retrieve the words and their meanings from long-term memory towards faster response. Longer time that participants took to respond non-related words implies the role of the brain in conceptualizing the words. Being familiar with words requires little effort and processes and therefore little time as compared to cases of non-words. This observation is also consistent with the Spreading-activation theory of semantic processing because non-words lack networks or may have weak networks for faster pairing response. The study’s approach to developing non-words is also likely to have contributed to the longer time, relative to times for response to words, because interchanging a letter in a word to generate a non-word is likely to confuse between the original word and the product because of the closeness. Participants would therefore be expected to take even longer times than if very strange words were used (Healy, Weiner and Protctor 2010, p. 448; Kruger 2000, p. 34). The study faces three limitations. Its sampling technique is non-representative and cannot be generalized to other populations. The sample space was also narrow, considered only two academic years in a single institution and therefore undermines reliability. The sample space, being a set of university students, is also likely to be biased because of the intellect level of the research participants. Conclusion The study aimed at exploring semantic priming and factors that affect it. It explored three theories to determine effects of semantic relationships, spread of activation, and inter stimulus interval on response rate. Results established significant associations between response rate and both semantic association and spread of activation but no significant relationship between inter stimulus interval and response rate. The study’s findings are therefore consistent with Spreading-activation theory of semantic processing and Compound que theory, which associates priming with background information on factors. Its limitations however suggest father research with more appropriate sampling. Works cited Copland, D et l. 2006, ‘Neutral correlates of semantic priming for ambiguous words: An event-related fMRI study,’ Brain Research, 1131, pp. 163-172. Accessed from EBSCOhost library. Gravetter, F 2012, Essentials of statistics for behavioral sciences, Cengage Learning, Mason. 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