Effect of Prime and Target Repetition on Lexical Decision Time

On a prime-target lexical decision task we manipulated the relatedness between prime and target (semantically related or unrelated), the number of repetitions (from 1 to 5), the type of the repeated stimulus (only the prime, only the target, or both), and the stimulus onset asynchrony (within a range of automatic activation from 60 to 400 msec.) to find whether semantic and repetition priming are additive (or interact), and whether there is episodic priming in an automatic, nonconscious way. Analysis showed repetition and semantic priming were additive rather than interactive. No episodic automatic priming was found. Results are discussed in terms of the predictions made from the main theoretical positions about the repetition effect.