Wednesday Workshop
Priming methods in word recognition
Facilitators: Adam Ussishkin & Jonathan Geary (University of Arizona)
Date: June 26, 2019
Time: 12-4:30pm
Location: Olson Hall (See Orbund)
Abstract: Work in word recognition has been built to a large extent using the priming paradigm, whereby a target stimulus is preceded by a prime to study the extent to which processing of the prime might influence processing of the target. By hiding the prime from conscious perception, masked priming allows us to study early and automatic processing. The workshop will be divided into two components, the first focusing on priming in the visual modality and the second on priming in the auditory modality.
For well-studied languages with literate participant populations, visual masked priming is an ideal way to examine how native readers of a language process the words of their language. While more work has historically been carried out in the visual modality, many languages lack a writing system, or a reliably literate native speaker population. As a result, working in the auditory modality may be of greater relevance to researchers working with populations of speakers of understudied, endangered, and/or indigenous languages. Only recently, however, has an analog for masking been available in the auditory modality. The workshop will encompass tutorials in programming both visual and auditory priming experiments using DMDX, and in creating stimuli for both types of experiments.
Requirements: Participants will need to bring their own laptop computer, with DMDX (on Windows machines) and Praat (both freely available for download) installed.