Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: Evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations.

Two experiments are reported in which 5s were presented two strings of letters simultaneously, with one string displayed visually above the other. In Exp. I, 5s responded yes if both strings were words, otherwise responding no. In Exp. II, 5s responded same if the two strings were either both words or both nonwords, otherwise responding different. Yes responses and same responses were faster for pairs of commonly associated words than for pairs of unassociated words. Same responses were slowest for pairs of nonwords. No responses were faster when the top string in the display was a nonword, whereas different responses were faster when the top string was a word. The results of both experiments support a retrieval model involving a dependence between separate successive decisions about whether each of the two strings is a word. Possible mechanisms that underlie this dependence are discussed.