The Effect of Semantic Distance in Yes/No and Go/No-Go Semantic Categorization Tasks
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2003
Department
Psychology
Abstract
The effect of semantic distance (Lund & Burgess, 1996) was examined in three semantic categorization experiments. Experiment 1, a yes/no task that required participants to make animal/nonanimal judgments by responding to both sets of stimuli (Forster & Shen, 1996), revealed no effect of semantic distance. Experiment 2, a go/no-go task that required participants to respond to only the experimental (i.e., nonanimal) items, revealed a large effect of semantic distance. In addition, response latencies were longer and error rates were lower to the experimental items in Experiment 2 than to those in Experiment 1. These findings were replicated in Experiment 3, in which semantic distance and task condition were manipulated within subjects. We conclude that these results are consistent with (1) the view that the go/no-go tasks elicited more extensive processing of the experimental items and (2) a connectionist account of semantic activation, whereby processing is facilitated by the presence of semantic neighbors.
Publication Title
Memory and Cognition
Volume
31
Issue
1
First Page
100
Last Page
113
Recommended Citation
Siakaluk, P. D.,
Buchanan, L.,
Westbury, C.
(2003). The Effect of Semantic Distance in Yes/No and Go/No-Go Semantic Categorization Tasks. Memory and Cognition, 31(1), 100-113.
Available at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/4497