Lexical decision task applications to study stereotype activation.

This paper attempts to systemize the knowledge about some effects obtained with the lexical decision task and to provide a critical analysis of some applications of this method in the domain of social cognition. The sources of this procedure residing in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics research on word recognition and lexical access are emphasized. The possible variations of the lexical decision procedure (as part of the semantic priming paradigm and as a separate procedure) are presented, together with an analysis of it's adaptations in research on the accessibility of stereotypes and multiple categories. Results obtained with this procedure indicating a conditional automaticity of stereotype activation processes are presented. Finally, possible limitations of the method are drawn and areas of research on stereotyping that demand the use of methods that go beyond the study of associations between concepts are indicated. peerReviewed publishedVersion