Phonological, Semantic, and Repetition Priming with Homophones

The current study investigated semantic, repetition, and phonological priming using heterographic homonyms (homophones) as stimuli in a lexical decision task. As in previous research, reliable semantic priming and repetition effects were found In addition, the statistical additivity of these two effects was replicated using homophones as stimuli. Using homophones, a reliable phonological priming effect was found when 10-16 intervening trials were used This effect was also statistically independent of semantic priming indicating the independence of the mechanisms responsible for semantic and phonological priming. The magnitude of the phonological priming effect was also significantly less than the magnitude of the repetition effect. This difference in effect magnitude was taken to indicate that the repetition of phonological information is not a primary contributor to the repetition effect.