In conversation or during reading, we sometimes find ourselves making predictions about the identity of an upcoming word or phrase. This phenomenon has been reflected in the results of laboratory experiments that show changes in eye gaze patterns or the Electroencephalogram (EEG) "prior" to encountering a predicted word. However,…

Few studies have compared interference-based forgetting between item versus associative memory. The memory-system dependent forgetting hypothesis (Hardt, Nader, & Nadel, 2013) predicts that effects of interference on associative memory should be minimal because its hippocampal representation allows pattern separation even of highly similar…

Classic approaches to word learning emphasize referential ambiguity: In naming situations, a novel word could refer to many possible objects, properties, actions, and so forth. To solve this, researchers have posited constraints, and inference strategies, but assume that determining the referent of a novel word is isomorphic to learning. We…

This study examined how the two cerebral hemispheres recruit semantic processing mechanisms by combining event-related potential measures and visual half-field methods in a word priming paradigm in which semantic strength and predictability were manipulated using lexically associated word pairs. Activation patterns on the late positive complex…

Three forced-choice perceptual word identification experiments tested the claim that transitions from positive to negative priming as a function of increasing prime duration are due to cognitive aftereffects. These aftereffects are similar in nature to perceptual aftereffects that produce a negative image due to overexposure and habituation to a…