Pure Mediated Priming: A Retrospective Semantic Matching Model

Mediated priming refers to the activation of a target (e.g., stripes) by a prime (e.g., lion) that is related indirectly via a connecting mediator (e.g., tiger). In previous mediated priming studies (e.g., McNamara & Altarriba, 1988), the mediator was associatively related to the prime. In contrast, pure mediated printing (e.g., spoon -> can) lacks it strong association between prime and mediator (e.g., spoon -> soup) and between mediator and target (e.g., soup -> can). This study establishes the existence of pure mediated priming and assesses which semantic priming model (spreading activation, compound-cue, or semantic matching) accounts for the results. Pure mediated priming occurred in 3 experiments across double and standard lexical decision tasks. However, such priming did not occur in a continuous lexical decision task, which precludes strategic processing. Overall, results indicate that a modified retrospective semantic matching model provides the best theoretical explanation of pure mediated priming.