Susanne Mayr

Evidence for Episodic Retrieval of Inadequate Prime Responses in Auditory Negative Priming

Four experiments are reported in which the mechanisms underlying auditory negative priming were investigated. In Experiments 1A and 1B, preprime-prime intervals and prime-probe intervals were manipulated. The ratio between the 2 intervals determined the size of the negative priming effect. Results are compatible with the episodic retrieval account, according to which the retrieval of inappropriate response information associated with the previous distractor slows down responding when that stimulus becomes the target. Experiment 2 tested a variant of this account, according to which the retrieval of the prime response rather than the retrieval of nonresponse information interferes with responding. Consistent with this variant, participants erroneously responded with the prime response more frequently in the ignored repetition condition than in the control condition. Experiment 3 replicated this finding and generalized it to the visual modality. The authors conclude that the retrieval of the inappropriate prime response is a determinant of the negative priming phenomenon.

Negative Priming as a Memory Phenomenon A Review of 20 Years of Negative Priming Research

Abstract. Reactions to recently ignored stimuli are slowed down or more error prone when compared to reactions to control stimuli. This so-called negative priming effect has been traditionally investigated in the area of selective attention. More recent theory developments conceptualize the negative priming effect as a memory phenomenon. This review presents four models to explain the phenomenon as well as their essential empirical evidence. The review also considers several negative priming characteristics - that is stimulus modality, prime selection and prime response requirement, probe interference, stimulus repetition, aging and thought disorders, and physiological correlates. On these bases, it is concluded that only the distractor inhibition and the episodic retrieval models have survived empirical testing so far. Whereas evidence has increased that negative priming clearly obeys memory retrieval principles, the distractor inhibition model has lost much of its persuasiveness within recent years.

ERP correlates of auditory negative priming

Negative priming refers to slowed down reactions when the distractor on one trial becomes the target on the next. Following two popular accounts, the effect might be due either to inhibitory processes associated with the frontal cortex, or to an ambiguity in the retrieval of episodic information. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to identify the processing stage primarily associated with negative priming. In an auditory categorization task, reactions in negative priming trials were compared to reactions in a standard control (unrelated primes and probes) and a repetition control (attended prime=ignored probe) condition. Reactions were slower for negative priming than for standard control (Delta32 ms) and repetition control trials (Delta64 ms). The corresponding ERP effect was reflected in an attenuation of a sustained parietal positivity extending from 300 to 600 ms. Because corresponding ERP components were found to be sensitive to stimulus recognition and familiarity, the results may be interpreted to support an episodic retrieval account of negative priming.

Prime retrieval of motor responses in negative priming.

Three auditory identification experiments were designed to specify the prime-response retrieval model of negative priming (S. Mayr & A. Buchner, 2006), which assumes that the prime response is retrieved in ignored repetition trials and interferes with probe responding. In Experiment 1, shortly before (in Experiment 1A) or after (in Experiment 1B) the prime, a cue signaled whether participants were to respond (go trials) or not (no-go trials) to the prime. Negative priming was found in either case. A prime-response retrieval effect-an increase in prime response errors to the probe targets of ignored repetition trials-was found for go trials only. In Experiment 2, prime trials with go cues always demanded a response, whereas the response to no-go trials depended on motor discrimination: For left- (right-) hand responses, the response had to be withheld (valid no-go); for right- (left-) hand responses, the response had to be executed (invalid no-go). The prime-response retrieval effect was present only for go and invalid no-go trials. This implies that execution of the prime response is a precondition for prime-response retrieval, whereas a response preparation plan and a response description in task-specific terms are not sufficient.

Auditory, visual, and cross-modal negative priming

Auditory, visual, and cross-modal negative priming was investigated using a task in which participants judged whether stimuli were animals or musical instruments. Negative priming was observed, but only if the attended and the ignored primes evoked different responses. This pattern—negative priming after conflict, but not after nonconflict, primes—was demonstrated with visual stimuli and replicated with auditory stimuli, as well as across modalities, both auditory to visual and visual to auditory. Implications for theories of negative priming are discussed.

Auditory negative priming in younger and older adults.

Two experiments are reported in which performance of old and young adults in an auditory negative priming task was compared. Auditory negative priming was not smaller in old than in young adults. This result was independent of whether or not conditions were present that had previously been assumed to favour episodic retrieval, as opposed to inhibitory processes, as a basis of the negative priming phenomenon. The data from the present auditory negative priming experiments are incompatible with the global assumption that the efficiency of inhibitory attentional processes in general diminishes across the adult life span.

The advantage of positive text-background polarity is due to high display luminance

Reading text from computer screens is better when text is printed in dark letters on light background (positive polarity) than when it is printed in light letters on dark background (negative polarity). An experiment is presented that tests whether this positive polarity advantage is due to the fact that overall display luminance is typically higher for positive than for negative polarity displays. To this end, text-background polarity and display luminance were manipulated independently. No positive polarity advantage was observed when overall display luminance of positive and negative polarity displays was equivalent. There was only an effect of display luminance, with better performance for the higher-luminance displays. This suggests that the positive polarity advantage is in fact due to the typically higher luminance of positive polarity displays. Readability of text presented on computer screens (e.g. on websites) is better when the overall display luminance level is high, as in positive polarity displays (dark letters on light background). Display polarity per se does not affect readability.

ERP correlates of the irrelevant sound effect

The irrelevant sound effect refers to a decrement in serial-recall performance when auditory distractors are played during encoding or retention of the to-be-remembered items. We examined the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) that were elicited in response to the auditory distractors during encoding and retention of visually presented target sequences. Changing-state distractor sequences that consisted of several different distractor items interfered more with serial recall than steady-state sequences that consisted of repetitions of a single distractor item. The ERP responses that were elicited in response to the distractors comprised the exogenous N1 component and were further characterized by a subsequent positive wave, and a late negativity. The changing-state effect was associated with an increased N1 and a P3a. The results support the attention-capture account of the irrelevant sound effect.

Spatial and identity negative priming in audition: evidence of feature binding in auditory spatial memory.

Two experiments are reported with identical auditory stimulation in three-dimensional space but with different instructions. Participants localized a cued sound (Experiment 1) or identified a sound at a cued location (Experiment 2). A distractor sound at another location had to be ignored. The prime distractor and the probe target sound were manipulated with respect to sound identity (repeated vs. changed) and location (repeated vs. changed). The localization task revealed a symmetric pattern of partial repetition costs: Participants were impaired on trials with identity–location mismatches between the prime distractor and probe target—that is, when either the sound was repeated but not the location or vice versa. The identification task revealed an asymmetric pattern of partial repetition costs: Responding was slowed down when the prime distractor sound was repeated as the probe target, but at another location; identity changes at the same location were not impaired. Additionally, there was evidence of retrieval of incompatible prime responses in the identification task. It is concluded that feature binding of auditory prime distractor information takes place regardless of whether the task is to identify or locate a sound. Instructions determine the kind of identity–location mismatch that is detected. Identity information predominates over location information in auditory memory.

Auditory location negative priming: A case of feature mismatch

In an auditory four-alternative forced choice localization task, participants had to localize one of two simultaneously presented sounds while ignoring the location of the second sound. Negative priming—that is, sloweddown responses to a location that had to be ignored in the previous trial—was found only when the sound at the repeated location changed between prime and probe. There was also no increase in prime response errors to the probes of ignored repetition trials. These findings allow for the conclusion that auditory location priming is caused by feature mismatch only and that other mechanisms, such as inhibition of ignored locations or episodic retrieval of transfer-inappropriate prime information, do not play a role. The research reported in this article was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Ma 2610/2-1).