The two experiments described in this article are focused on semantic priming in the context of lexical ambiguity and hierarchic model of mental lexicon. For both experiments, the verification method was a decision taken in the process of translating a sentence from Polish (L1) to English (L2). The decision was a result of solving dilemma of interpretation of the particular sentence that included homonym. The sentences used in the experiments were prepared in a manner that allowed them to be interpreted in at least two ways – each way being a direct result of interpretation of a ambiguous word meaning included in a sentence. In this study the secondary meanings of the homonyms were primed. In the first experiment the primes were presented in L2 – therefore this part of the study was concentrated on interlingual aspect of semantic priming. The second experiment was focused on intralingual aspect of semantic priming and the primes were presented in L1. The results of both experiments have shown the effect of semantic priming of ambiguous words’ meanings when translating from one language to another. Participants used significantly more often (when translating sentences from Polish to English) those English words the meaning of which was primed in the experimental groups during the first phase of the conducted experiments. We discuss the results in the context of the hierarchic model of mental lexicon in the case of bilingualism and we suggest possible paths for future research.

AIMS: The primary goal of the presented research was to investigate the memory effects of implicit negation, conveyed using implicatures, as compared to explicit negation. We also speculated that implicit negation might require more cognitive effort.

METHODS: Three experiments were conducted (total N = 181), in which participants were presented with a description containing implicit or explicit negation, followed by a memory recognition test of items present, negated or not mentioned in the description. We manipulated the pace at which the description was presented (own pace vs. fixed) and whether participants were informed about the upcoming recognition test.

RESULTS: We found no differences between explicit and implicit negation in the number of false alarms to negated and not mentioned items, response times or time spent reading the source material. Bayesian analyses indicated a 90% probability that there were no differences in the number of false alarms between explicit and implicit negation.

CONCLUSIONS: Implicit and explicit negation lead to a similar quality of recognition, and seem to require a similar amount of time to process, indicating comparable cognitive effort.

The paper investigates the relations between Schwartz’s values and beliefs which may reflect skepticism toward science – specifically vaccine rejection, climate change denial and creationism. Recent research on the causes of anti-science indicates that they may be motivational, pertaining to ideologies, worldviews, and one’s moral codes. Therefore, we postulated that value priority hierarchies hierarchies may be predictors of anti-science. Results (N = 509) indicated that Conservation metatype values were positively associated with anti-science, while Self-Transcendence and Openness to change metatypes were connected with support for science. We also found significant differences in value profiles between participants with lower vs. higher anti-scientific beliefs. We discuss the possible motivational underpinnings of these results.