False memories arising from associatively related lists are a robust phenomenon that resists many efforts to prevent it. However, a few variables have been shown to reduce this form of false memory. Explanations for how the reduction is accomplished have focused on either output monitoring processes or constraints on access, but neither idea alone…

Six lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine the influence of complex structure on the processing speed of English compounds. All experiments revealed that semantically transparent compounds (e.g., "rosebud") were processed more quickly than matched monomorphemic words (e.g., "giraffe"). Opaque compounds (e.g., "hogwash") were also…

In the present study we analyze how the cognitive system deals on-line with number agreement mismatches and whether this on-line process influences the off-line interpretation of the sentence. In two ERP experiments we monitored the on-line processing consequences of subject-verb agreement mismatches, focusing on the integration of a following…

Retrieval demand, as implemented through test format and retrieval instructions, was varied across two misinformation experiments. Our goal was to examine whether increasing retrieval demand would improve the relationship between confidence and memory performance, and thereby reduce misinformation susceptibility. We hypothesized that improving the…

We tested a cue-based retrieval model that predicts how similarity between discourse entities influences the speaker's choice of referring expressions. In Experiment 1, speakers produced fewer pronouns (relative to repeated noun phrases) when the competitor was in the same situation as the referent (both on a horse) rather than in a different…

This study investigated the nature of the retrieval architecture of Semitic morphemic entities in word production in Hebrew, a language with a non-concatenated morphology. By taking advantage of the potential for dissociation of form and meaning in Hebrew, we explored the relative contribution of word-form and semantics to morphological…

Recent masked priming experiments have brought to light a morphological level of analysis that is exclusively based on the orthographic appearance of words, so that it breaks down corner into corn- and -er, as well as dealer into deal- and -er (Rastle, Davis, & New, 2004). Being insensitive to semantic factors, this morpho-orthographic…

Two experiments using a sentence recall task tested the effect of animacy on syntactic processing in Japanese sentence production. Experiment 1 and 2 showed that when Japanese native speakers recalled transitive sentences, they were more likely to assign animate entities earlier positions in the sentence than inanimate entities. In addition,…

Listeners of various languages tend to perceive an illusory vowel inside consonant clusters that are illegal in their native language. Here, we test whether this phenomenon arises after phoneme categorization or rather interacts with it. We assess the perception of illegal consonant clusters in native speakers of Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese,…

Three experiments examine whether a naturalistic reading task can induce long-lasting changes of syntactic patterns in memory. Judgment of grammatical acceptability is used as an indirect test of memory for sentences that are identical or only syntactically similar to those read earlier. In previous research (Luka & Barsalou, 2005) both sorts of…

In one form of category-based induction, people make predictions about unknown properties of objects. There is a tension between predictions made based on the object's specific features (e.g., objects above a certain size tend not to fly) and those made by reference to category-level knowledge (e.g., birds fly). Seven experiments with artificial…

Two experiments examined decay and additivity of semantic priming produced by DRM false memory lists on a naming task. Subjects were presented with study lists containing 14 DRM items that were either all 14 related, the first 7 related, the second 7 related, or all 14 unrelated to the non-presented critical item. Priming was measured on a naming…

Readers of the Roman script must "unlearn" some forms of mirror generalization when processing printed stimuli (i.e., herb and herd are different words). Here we examine whether the suppression of mirror generalization is a process that affects all letters or whether it mostly affects reversible letters (i.e., b/d). Three masked priming lexical…

Four masked priming experiments are reported investigating the effect of inserting an unrelated word between the masked prime and the target. When the intervening word is visible, identity priming is reduced to the level of one-letter-different form priming, but form priming is largely unaffected. However, when the intervening word is itself…

The effect of knowledge on memory generally is processing. However, both conceptual and empirical reasons exist to suspect that the organizational account is incomplete. Recently a revised version of that account has been proposed under the rubric of distinctiveness theory (Rawson & Van Overschelde, 2008). The goal of the experiments reported…