A retrieval theory of priming in memory.

and the familiarity of this compound cue is determined by the strengths of connections between the cue and items in memory. The familiarity of the compound cue is assessed by direct access or by parallel comparisons to all items in memory (depending on the way the theory is implemented), and it is assumed that the greater the familiarity, the faster the response time (specific models for latency assumptions are described below). In this article, the retrieval theory is applied to priming phenomena and is shown to be capable of explaining the same empirical findings as spreading activation theories. Two new experiments are also presented in which data are successfully predicted by the retrieval model but that require modification of current models of spreading activation. In the latter part of this article, implementation of the compound cue mechanism for priming within several different models is evaluated.