Where is the syllable priming effect in visual word recognition

Recent studies using the masked priming paradigm have reported facilitating effects of syllable primes in French and English word naming (Ferrand, Segui, & Grainger, 1996; Ferrand, Segui, & Humphreys, 1997). However, other studies have not been able to replicate these effects in Dutch and English (Schiller, 1998, 1999, 2000). In Experiment 1, using the same stimuli and procedure as Ferrand et al. (1996), we did not replicate the syllable priming effect in French. In Experiments 2a and 2b, when prime duration was increased (from 30 to 45 and 60 ms), we did not obtain a syllable priming effect. In Experiment 3, with 60 participants and exactly the same procedure as Ferrand et al. (1996), we again failed to replicate the syllable priming effect. We conclude that the syllable priming effect is not a reliable effect and should be considered cautiously in the elaboration of models of word reading.