Can orthographic rimes facilitate naming?

Abstract

Although the orthographic rime (body) is thought to play an important role in reading English, previous priming experiments found little or no evidence for facilitatory body-priming effects in the naming task. That is, hose primes NOSE no better than does a completely unrelated prime. In the present study, the hypothesis that facilitatory body-priming effects are typically masked by strong inhibitory onset effects was investigated. It was shown that when the onset of a prime was removed, facilitatory body priming could be obtained with stimuli that previously had produced no evidence of facilitation. The present study thus reconciles conflicting patterns concerning facilitation versus inhibition in body priming.