The influence of semantic primes on the typing of word targets

Typing is a complex activity involving identifying and encoding the to-be-typed word, planning, and executing the keystrokes. Different mechanisms have been proposed to explain how contextual information about meaning influences the processing of a target word (for example, semantic priming), and it is unclear how this information influences the typing output of the target word. When the interval between the prime and target is short, the prime is thought to automatically activate the target. With a longer interval, the facilitation may be more strategic. The influence of the prime on the output of the target may thus depend on the interval between the two. We found that at both short and long intervals, related semantic primes facilitated the speed of the first keystroke of the target word. However, there was no effect on how quickly the non-initial letters of the target were entered, suggesting that information from semantic primes influences the planning and initiation of typing, but not the execution of remaining keystrokes. Interestingly, the initial and non-initial keystrokes were faster when the interstimulus interval was long, suggesting participants encode the letters of the prime which could interfere with encoding and typing the target if the interval between them is short.