The suffix priming effect: Further evidence for an early morpho orthographic segmentation process independent of its semantic content
This work presents the results of a masked lexical decision experiment in which we explore the morphological parsing of Spanish suffixed or pseudosuffixed words through the suffix priming effect. Priming the bases or pseudobases with their suffixed or pseudosuffixed forms is the standard process in experiments aimed at understanding the processes underlying morphological parsing in visual word recognition with masked priming lexical decision (e.g. darkness DARK; corner CORN) We, however, compare the effect of suffix priming on the lexical decision of suffixed (ero JORNALERO) and pseudosuffixed words (ero CORDERO) as well as the effect of orthographic priming on nonsuffixed words (eba PRUEBA) The results show that in the case of suffixed and pseudosuffixed words, related primes (ero JORNALERO; ero CORDERO) significantly accelerated response latencies in comparison to unrelated primes (ista JORNALERO; ura CORDERO) while for simple words there was no facilitation from the orthographically related prime in comparison to the unrelated prime (eba PRUEBA; afo PRUEBA) These results are consistent with the so called morpho orthographic segmentation process in the course of visual word recognition, which might also be independent of orthographic and purely semantic factors. Our results also support the view that morphological parsing takes place regardless of whether a stem is present in a word. These results complement findings from studies dealing with CORNER and BROTHEL like stimuli.
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology