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Priming

Priming is a newer method of showing connections between words. Priming refers to a group of methods in which information preceding a test stimulus facilitates responding to the test stimulus. The preceding information is called the prime. One kind of priming is called semantic (~meaning) priming (D. Meyer & R. Schvaneveldt. Meaning, memory structure, and mental processes. Science, 1976, 192, 27-33. In this kind of priming, the prime improves performance on the test stimulus if the prime and the test stimulus are related in meaning. One example of semantic priming is the lexical (~dictionary) decision experiment. In this kind of experiment, observers see two strings of letters. The first string (the prime) is always a word. The second (the test stimulus) is sometimes a word, sometimes not. The observer's task is to report whether the test stimulus is a word as quickly and accurately as possible. If the second is a word and the first is semantically related to it, then observers respond faster than if the first word is semantically unrelated. For example, the prime WATER helps observers report faster that the letter string D R I N K is a word, whereas the prime NURSE does.