Four lexical decision experiments were conducted to analyze whether the previous presentation of a syllabic "neighbor" (e.g., boca and bono; which share the first syllable in Spanish) influences recognition performance using a masked priming paradigm. The results showed an inhibitory effect of more frequent syllabic primes (boca-BONO; Experiment 1) and some facilitation of nonword syllabic primes (bofa-BONO; Experiments 2-3). Further, when monosyllabic pairs were used (ziel-ZINC; Experiment 3), no priming effects of the two first letters were found. Finally, by using only syllables as primes (ca**** vs. cas***), latencies to CV and CVC words were faster when preceded by primes that corresponded to the first syllable than by primes that contained one letter more or less than the first syllable (Experiment 4). The results are interpreted in the context of activation models that take into account a syllabic level of representation.

The relationships between repetition/form priming effects and neighborhood density were analyzed in two masked priming experiments with the lexical decision task. Given that form priming effects appear to be influenced by a word's orthographic neighborhood, it is theoretically important to find out whether or not repetition priming also differs as a function of the words orthographic neighborhood. Within an activation framework, repetition and form priming effects are just quantitatively different phenomena, whereas the two effects are qualitatively different in a serial-ordered model of lexical access (the entry-opening model). The results show that repetition and form priming effects were stronger for hermit words than for words with many neighbors. These results pose some problems for both activation and serial-ordered models. The implications of these results for determining how neighbors affect the identification of a word are discussed.

A number of studies have shown that syllables play an important role in visual word recognition in Spanish. We report three lexical decision experiments with a masked priming technique that examined whether syllabic effects are phonological or orthographic in nature. In all cases, primes were nonwords. In Experiment 1, latencies to CV words were faster when primes and targets shared the first syllable ( ju.nas-JU.NIO) than when they shared the initial letters but not the first syllable ( jun.tu-JU.NIO). In Experiment 2, this syllabic overlap could be phonological þ orthographical (vi.rel-VI.RUS) or just phonological (bi.rel-VI.RUS). A syllable priming effect was found for CV words in both the phonological þ orthographical and the phonological condition. In Experiment 3 we compared a ‘‘phonologicalsyllable’’ condition (bi.rel-VI.RUS) with two control conditions (fi.rel-VI.RUS and vir.ga-VI.RUS). We found faster latencies for the phonological-syllabic condition than for the control conditions. These results suggest that syllabic effects are phonological in nature.

This paper reviews recent research on the effects of "orthographic neighbors" (i.e., words that can be created by changing one letter of the stimulus item, preserving letter positions, see Coltheart et al., 1977) on reading and laboratory word identification tasks. We begin this paper with a literature review on the two basic "neighborhood" effects (neighborhood size and neighborhood frequency). This review shows that the number of higher frequency neighbors is inhibitory in reading. We also examine the influence of orthographic structure in form- and repetition-priming effects, which again suggests that orthographic neighbors seem to play an inhibitory role in the selection process. Finally, we discuss the empirical evidence in the context of current models of visual word recognition and reading.

Can regular and irregular verb forms be accommodated by a single representational mechanism or is a dual mechanism account required? In a first experiment, we used a cross-modal repetition priming paradigm to investigate the mental representation of regular and irregular verb forms in French. Subjects heard a spoken prime (such as aimons) immediately followed by lexical decision to a visual probe (such as aimer).

The presence of stronger masked repetition/form priming effects for words with few orthographic neighbors than for words withmany orthographic neighbors has been called the density constraint (Forster et al., 1987; Perea & Rosa, in press). Previous research suggests that, when target words are presented for long enough to allow complete retrieval and conscious identification, form-priming effects with masked and unmasked primes may qualitatively differ (Forster & Veres, 1998; Segui & Grainger, 1990). Toanaly3 this possibility the relationships between repetition/form priming effects and neighborhood density were analyal in a lexical decision experiment with visible, unmasked primes at a 300-ms stimulus-onset asy nchrony The results show that repetition and form priming effects are smaller for words withmany orthographic neighbors. The implications of these results for determining how neighbors affect the identification of a word are discussed. Key(079 : Masked-priming, orthographic-nei...