Emily Harris (2001)

Priming is exposure to information that enhances recall or recognition. There are two main categories of priming: explicit and implicit (Jacoby & Dallas, 1981). The difference between the two different categories is whether the participant knows that the priming information will be important for later testing. Explicit priming takes place when it is known that study and test phases of the experiment are related. Research has shown that different manipulations affect explicit and implicit priming differently. Jacoby and Dallas (1981) found that different levels of processing affected explicit memory tests, but not implicit. This supports the hypothesis that explicit and implicit memory are separate systems in how the brain stores information. Different levels of processing refers to the complexity of processing, which is usually tested through modality of the prime word. There are many different modalities of priming: visual, auditory, semantic, and pictorial. Semantic priming is thought to use the deepest level of priming because cognitive processing of word meaning is utilized (Weldon, 1991). Visual priming is more complex than auditory (Roediger & Blaxton, 1987), because reading a word requires more processing than passively listening to a word.

In the present experiment, different modalities were looked at with respects to picture recognition. The experiment was separated into two phases, study and test. The study phase consisted of either the participant or the experimenter reading out loud a word list. There were twenty trials and half of the word lists related to the test phase and half served as the control. The test phase, created on a MacLaboratory (1994) program, consisted of pictures slowly being uncovered. Reaction time was calculated when the participant stopped the program and identified the picture. For each of the twenty-five participants, a word list was directly followed by a computer trial. Word lists were randomly assigned either a related or non related word list before running began. This was kept constant throughout the study. Whether the participant or the experimenter read the first word list out loud alternated with every participant. The hypothesis was that the related, visual-read pictures would be recognized significantly faster than the auditory, related pictures.

Because the computer program had no way of controlling how much of the picture was uncovered each time, almost every picture had a significantly different average recognition time even within each group. All of the related, visual-read pictures should have related reaction times, F(1,55) = 46.8, p < .0001. A Least Squares Means table, which looks at the individual difference between each of the pictures, showed the great variation in reaction time. Some pictures were easier or harder to recognize than others regardless of what category they were in. Counterbalancing should have been used to make sure that the easier and harder pictures were evenly distributed among the different categories. Taking the mean scores, an ANOVA was calculated and no difference between modalities was found, but there was a significant difference between related and non related groups, F(1, 23) = 32.71, p < .0001. Because of the extensive testing that had to be done, these results could be due to chance. Priming has been shown to speed up reaction time. In future experiments, counterbalancing must be used unless a different program can help control how much of the picture is being uncovered each time.