Mediated priming of associative responses: The effect of time lapse and interpolated activity

Abstract

The present study was designed to test the effect of mediated priming on associative responses under four conditions. In the first condition, the priming words were followed immediately by the cue-stimulus word. In the other three conditions, there was a 15-sec interval between priming and cue-stimulus. These intervals were either unfilled, filled with meaningless nonverbal activity, or filled with meaningful verbal activity, respectively. The number of desired responses was tabulated for each stimulus for each condition and was compared with normative data. The results showed that the probability of occurrence of the desired response significantly increased in the first three of the four conditions. Furthermore, it was found that neither the time lapse nor activity per se decreased the priming effect. However, when meaningful verbal activity intervened between priming and association test, the priming effect was not manifest.