Abstract
In a recent debate concerning the origin of the negative priming (NP) effect, evidence for the involvement of retrieval processes during the prime episode has accumulated. Rothermund, Wentura, and De Houwer (2005) explain the effect as a product of a conflict between retrieved and current response. Since specific properties of the involved encoding and retrieval mechanisms were not investigated so far, we extend the response-retrieval framework by asking if encoding during prime processing and retrieval-specific processes during probe processing have a modulating influence on the priming effects. In an overlapping-picture task experiment with an explicit variation of the role of the objects in prime and probe, we reproduce the response-retrieval-specific Response-retrieval × Priming interaction but find a modulation caused by the role of the repeated object in the probe trial. This modulation manifests in a vanishing interaction when the repeated object is a distractor in the probe. We interpret these findings in support of the response-retrieval theory of NP and conclude that the retrieval mechanism is more flexible than previously believed since it is sensitive to relevance of the repeated object regarding the experimental task.
References
2010). Event-related brain potential correlates of identity negative priming from overlapping pictures. Psychophysiology, 47, 921–930.
(1971). Decision and stress. London: Academic Press.
(2001). Negative priming for spatial location? Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55, 24–38.
(1980). Practical nonparametric statistics. New York: Wiley.
(1995). Negative priming from ignored distractors in visual selection: A review. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2, 145–173.
(2007). Distractor repetitions retrieve previous responses to targets. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 1367–1377.
(2006). Negative priming is stronger for task-relevant dimensions: Evidence of flexibility in the selective ignoring of distractor information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 683–693.
(2001). Negative priming and perceptual fluency: More than what meets the eye. Perception & Psychophysics, 63, 1063–1071.
(1979). A simple sequentially rejective multiple test procedure. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 6, 65–70.
(1994). A dynamic model of selective attention. In , Inhibitory mechanism in attention, memory and language (pp. 53–112). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
(1997). Dual mechanisms of negative priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 23, 632–650.
(2008). Priming in visual search: Separating the effects of target repetition, distractor repetition and role-reversal. Vision Research, 48, 1217–1232.
(1988). Towards an instance theory of automatization. Psychological Review, 95, 492–527.
(2002). An instance theory of attention and memory. Psychological Review, 109, 376–400.
(1995). Determinants of negative priming. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 35–54.
(2006). Evidence for episodic retrieval of inadequate prime – Responses in auditory negative priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 932–943.
(2007). Negative priming as a memory phenomenon: A review of 20 years of negative priming research. Journal of Psychology, 215, 35–51.
(1998). Selective attention: A reevaluation of the implications of negative priming. Psychological Review, 105, 203–229.
(1977). Inhibitory and facilitatory processes in selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 3, 444–450.
(1997). Episodic retrieval in negative priming and repetition priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23, 1291–3105.
(2007). Mechanisms of transfer-inappropriate processing. In , Inhibition in cognition (pp. 63–78). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association (APA).
(1998). Transfer-inappropriate processing: Negative priming and related phenomena. In , Psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory, Vol. 38, (pp. 1–44). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
(1992). Persistence of negative priming II: Evidence for episodic trace retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 993–1000.
(1991). Costs and benefits of target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 17, 1136–1145.
(1994). Negative priming for spatial locations: Identity mismatching, not distractor inhibition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20, 613–623.
(2005). Retrieval of incidental stimulus-response associations as a source of negative priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 482–495.
(2007). A computational approach to negative priming. Connection Science, 19, 203–221.
(1985). The negative priming effect: Inhibitory priming by ignored objects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 37, 571–590.
(2001). Does negative priming reflect inhibitory mechanisms? A review and integration of conflicting views. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 321–343.
(1985). Selective attention and priming: Inhibitory and facilitatory effects of ignored primes. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 37, 591–611.
(1994). Behavioural goals determine inhibitory mechanisms of selective attention. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 47, 809–840.
(2008). A reassessment of negative priming within the inhibition framework of cognitive aging: There is more in it than previously believed. Experimental Aging Research, 34, 340–366.
(1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–73.
(