未知の語の学習について : プライミング・パラダイムを用いた検討

An experiment was conducted to investigate the process in which new information was being set into prior knowledge through learning of unknown words. In each experimental session, participants were presented twelve unknown words of Uchinaaguchi (Okinawan dialect of Japanese language) and learned their meanings through one of three learning methods (i.e. learning by reading three example sentences, learning in their own way, and learning by generating a related sentence). After each learning session, priming tasks (lexical decisions with Uchinaaguchi words as primes and common words as targets) were performed. Priming effects were found only in matched word condition (with corresponded words as targets) when participants were informed that final recognition tests would be given immediately after priming tasks. On the other hand, priming eff ects were found in both matched word and semantically related word conditions when participants were informed that final recognition tests would be given after a week. These results indicated that anticipation of delayed tests could enhance the activities to make broader activation toward the related word concepts.