Early interference in a priming task with brief masked targets.

Priming effects were examined in two experiments using either a pronunciation or lexical decision task. The prime, either a strong associate of the target, an unrelated word, or a neutral prime, was presented for 200 ms. After an SOA of 200, 400, or 800 ms, a masked target was presented for 33.3, 50, or 66.7 ms. Attention was manipulated by varying the probability that prime and target would be strongly associated. Both experiments showed significant interference in the low attention condition and at the 200-ms SOA, presumably before the onset of consciously directed processing. Two subsequent experiments using a short SOA and the low attention condition attempted to determine the conditions under which this interference will occur by varying the interstimulus interval, target duration, and the mask. It was found that interference occurred only when targets were brief and masked. These results are discussed in terms of a model involving lateral inhibition between nodes in semantic memory. It is suggested that when the target is brief and masked, the node in memory corresponding to the target is much less strongly activated and therefore more susceptible to the inhibitory effects of other activated nodes.