Picture naming: An investigation of the nature of categorical priming.

Although there are numerous theories of the structure of semantic memory, a notion central to many of these theories is that of semantic category membership. The present studies represent an investigation of the effects of a semantic category relation between prime and target in a picture-naming task. Because picture naming is presumed to require access to semantic memory, category priming effects were anticipated even when associative and phonetic effects were eliminated. This expectation was verified in Experiment 1. Experiments 2 and 3 were attempts to specify the nature and locus of this categorical priming effect. In particular, it was suggested that one locus would be an entry-level memory system for pictures. Results suggest that this system plays little role in categorical priming of picture naming. Rather, a better explanation would be one based on processing within semantic memory. The possibility of lexical memory acting as an additional locus is also considered. Since first reported in the early 1970s (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971; Meyer, Schvaneveldt, & Ruddy, 1975), priming paradigms have been used to investigate a number of issues in cognitive psychology. In the more standard technique, two stimuli are presented sequentially. The initial, or prime stimulus is presented to create a particular context. A response may or may not be required. A second or target stimulus is then presented to which the subject must make a timed response. Empirically, the question being asked is whether the context created by the prime affects the speed of target