Developmental dissociation between visual and auditory repetition priming: The role of input lexicons

Contrasting theories posit the source of verbal repetition priming in the activation of preexisting memory representations in the input lexicons or, alternatively, in the formation of new episodic memory traces. The two hypotheses predict different outcomes from the comparison of developmental rates of visual and auditory verbal repetition priming. The activation theory predicts a developmental dissociation between the early maturation of auditory priming and the later maturation of visuo-verbal priming, contingent upon the discrepant acquisition rates of the auditory and visual input lexicons. The episodic theory, instead, does not make such an assumption. We administered visual and audito…