Individual Differences in Lexical Repetition Priming: The Combined Influence of Language, Mood, and Working Memory Capacity

The current research investigatedwhether individual differences inworkingmemory capacity (WMC) and affective states have differential effects on lexical-semantic repetition priming outcomes based on whether participants were first- or second-language English speakers. Individual differences in priming effects have often been overlooked in the priming literature. Using logistic mixed-effects models to account for withinsubject variation, the current paper investigated a three-way interaction betweenWMC, negative affect (NA) score, and language primacy on lexicalsemantic repetition priming outcomes. The results indicate that a statistically significant three-way interaction exists between language primacy, WMC, andNA scores. No significant interaction effectwas found for positive affect scores. Wepresent an argumentwhich posits that an individuals primary language and subsequent familiarity with the primed concepts, in conjunction with individual differences in WMC and mood, plays an important role in determining themost effective strategy used to complete aword-stemcompletion task. The implications of the findings presented highlight that second-language English speakers aremore susceptible to priming effectswhen prime-inducing stimuli are constructed using English lexicon; however, larger WMC and heighted negative affective states help to mitigate these priming effects.