Depth of associated activation in the cerebral hemispheres: mediated versus direct priming.

This study investigated the depth of associative activation in the cerebral hemispheres. Semantic priming was assessed for direct (WATER-DRINK) and indirect (mediated: SOAP-DRINK) associates presented to the left and right visual fields across stimulus-onset-asychronies (SOAs) of 50, 250 and 750 msec. Priming for both the direct and indirect associates was found in both visual fields at all SOAs. Our results imply that activation via associated relations in semantic memory is early and extensive in both hemispheres. We relate our findings to the previous suggestion [5, 9, 14] that meaning activation is more narrow in the left hemisphere (LH) than in the right hemisphere (RH).