CONTRIBUTIONS OF PROCESSING FLUENCY TO REPETITION EFFECTS IN MASKED WORD IDENTIFICATION

Prior exposure to a word is shown to improve its later identification in a brief, masked display when a free report task is used, but not in two-alternati ve forced choice or single-probe matching tasks that eliminate certain bias effects and provide an assessment of discriminability. Modified forced choice and single-probe tasks were also used, in which subjects attempted to identify the target before presentation of the probe(s). This modification produced a discriminabili ty advantage for old words, but only in the single-probe task. We argue that prior exposure does not enhance sensory processing of a target word; rather, it increases the fluency with which the target comes to mind when presented under difficult viewing conditions. In forced choice and single-probe tasks, fluency associated with processing the target may be ignored in deference to discriminatin g among or evaluating the processing of the probe(s).

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