Priming methods, so common in first-language (L1) psycholinguistic research, have been gaining prominence in second-language (L2) processing and acquisition studies. With this book, McDonough and Trofimovich have paved the way for SLA researchers interested in conducting priming research and have helped to ensure that future L2 priming studies be conducted with a clear understanding of previous priming research and in accordance with the best psycholinguistic and applied linguistic research methods.
The book is organized around three types of priming research: auditory, semantic, and syntactic. Following an introduction to priming methods, these three types of priming are each described in a chapter. Each chapter is organized into sections that, for each type of priming, describe (a) what it is, (b) how it has been used in L1 processing and acquisition research, (c) its relevance to L2 processing and learning, (d) some of the questions asked in L2 research, (e) tasks commonly used, (f) issues to consider, (g) a sample L2 study, and (h) additional uses of that type of priming. At the end of each chapter are a summary and a section with follow-up questions and activities. These individual chapters on auditory, semantic, and syntactic priming are followed by a final general chapter on analysis and reporting of priming data, which describes in detail priming research methods and how to carry out specific statistics commonly used in priming research.
A strength of this book is the clear definition of terms in each chapter. The entire book is presented in a clear, easy-to-follow way, making priming research accessible to SLA researchers who have no previous experience with priming. Particularly useful for researchers new to priming are the step-by-step descriptions of statistical tests and the section on publishing priming research in the final chapter. Even for researchers familiar with priming methods, these sections contain important reminders about the assumptions that need to be met for specific statistics to be properly applied to data as well as a convincing argument for the use of linear mixed model procedures instead of the commonly used general linear model procedures when running repeated-measures analyses, as linear mixed-model procedures do not remove participants for whom data are missing and allow the use of both fixed and random factors.
This book will serve as an invaluable resource for researchers interested in carrying out a L2 priming study. Additionally, it would serve as a useful text for a graduate-level psycholinguistic research methods course. Each chapter has been designed so that it can be used as a stand-alone chapter and so that the chapters can be presented in any order. The authors have ensured that connections are noted between the various chapters (e.g., “… discussed in greater detail in chapter 3 …” [p. 27]) so that interested readers can find more information quickly and easily. The end of the chapter follow-up questions and activities are especially useful for encouraging students to put into action what they have just read. In particular, the questions at the end of the final chapter on analysis and reporting of priming data give potential priming researchers the opportunity to use real data from previous studies (one on auditory priming, one on semantic priming, and one on syntactic priming) to create their statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) spreadsheets and carry out the appropriate statistical analyses on the data. Additionally, in each of the follow-up activities for the chapters on the different kinds of priming, readers are asked to determine appropriate types of tasks for given situations (i.e., for different research questions or target structures). The book fulfills its purpose of helping to “bridge the gap between psycholinguistic studies that use experimental priming methods and L2 processing and acquisition research” (p. xvi).
