Semantic priming

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In psychology and psycholinguistics, semantic priming (less often: semantic facilitation ) is the priming effect that the processing of a word influences the processing of a second subsequent word if a semantic , e.g. B. categorical relationship exists. For example, individuals react more quickly to the word “nurse” if they have processed (for example read) the word “doctor” beforehand. The previous presentation of a stimulus (the prime , e.g. "doctor") thus influences the processing time of a target stimulus (the target , e.g. "nurse"). Semantic priming effects can be demonstrated by means of so-called lexical decision-making tasks, among other things . An associative network, in which words are stored and organized in the form of mental representations, is usually used as an explanation .

Theoretical model: activation propagation in the associative network

Activation Spread

The model of Collins and Loftus for the spreading activation network is used, among other things, in speech psychology and semantic priming and serves as a theoretical model to illustrate the processes that take place in memory when a word is selected. The model is based on a mental lexicon , which is built up as a neural network . In this network, the activation of a word spreads through the stored connections (the so-called associative connections ) in other words.

Spread of activation according to Collins and Loftus

The individual words are imagined as nodes (e.g. “red, heat, fire”, see illustration) within an associative network, they form the so-called concepts . After activating a concept, the activation spreads to other concepts associated with the concept. The spread takes place simultaneously in all available directions, the strength of the activation is influenced by the strength of the association. With semantic priming, it can also be observed that already activated concepts are found faster from the second access (mental cache ).

example

Imagine an associative network as a kind of networked electrical circuit, the individual nodes (words) of the network as lights, the associative connections as "power cables" and the strength of association as the number of connected power cables. If you turn on a lamp, it receives electricity, and this current is passed on to other lamps (other concepts) via the power cables that are connected to the lamp, which then also light up. The more consumers are connected to this activated lamp or are enabled, the more this second lamp also seems to light up (in relation to the originally brighter lamps). If, for example, the doctor lamp is receiving power, the nurse lamp is brighter than the lamp, e.g. B., "Dog" on ("Dog" is perceived worse. "Dog" appears less bright at the moment because it receives less power or less attention than the doctor / nurse). An independent observer would thus, if the "doctor" lamp lights up, also recognize the "nurse" lamp relatively quickly.

The lexical decision-making task

Experimental setup

The lexical decision-making task usually follows the following scheme: The test subject is given a categorization task, e.g. E.g .: to make a lexical decision, d. That is , it has to decide whether the word presented is a real word (e.g. nurse) or a pseudo word (e.g. Knakenschwester). The so-called prime is shown before the word to which the person is supposed to react . The Prime will i. d. Usually processed automatically, i.e. that is, the mental representation of the word is automatically activated in memory. The second word to which the person should react (e.g. by means of a categorization) is called target . This target is also activated due to the association with the Prime. The reaction time of the person to the target is used as a measure of the semantic association in memory.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AM Collins, EF Loftus: A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing . (PDF; 3.0 MB). In: Psychological Review , 82, 1975, pp. 407-428.
  2. ^ DE Meyer, RW Schvaneveldt: Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: Evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations . (PDF; 715 kB) In: Journal of Experimental Psychology , 90, 1971, pp. 227-234.