Phonological activation during reading: Time-course or Conscious Awareness?

Past studies have shown that nonwords homophonic to words can produce phonological priming (klip -CLIP), even when the primes are presented in a masked fashion (Ferrand & Grainger, 1992). This suggests that phonological codes are automatically activated and used in written word recognition. Here, we raise the possibility that in these experiments, subjects might have occasionally been aware of the primes, and that prime awareness is a necessary condition for phonological priming to arise. Across a large range of prime duration (43ms to 100ms), and a total of 238 subjects, we found phonological priming to be restricted to subjects who were consciously aware of the prime, whatever the prime duration. In contrast, we uncovered a small but statistically reliable nonword repetition priming effect, which was not dependant on prime awareness, and increased as a function of prime duration. We discuss these findings in terms of current models of written word recognition and general issues regarding the distinction between automatic and strategic processes.