Inhibition through incremental fragment cuing with primed items.

Completing a word fragment (e.g., r-i--rop) that is revealed gradually (e.g., r------p; r----r-p; r-i--r-p; r-i--rop) was shown to be more difficult than completing the same fragment revealed all at once, but this was true only for words that had been presented beforehand (Peynircioğlu & Watkins, 1986). In the present study a similar inhibitory effect demonstrated under certain conditions in which words are not presented beforehand. Fragments of words belonging to a specific semantic category (Experiments 1 and 2) as well as those belonging to a newly learned language (Experiment 3) are less likely to be completed when they are revealed gradually than when they are revealed all at once. Thus, priming the test items, whether it be through presentation for study or otherwise, appears to be a significant factor in promoting this inhibitory effect.