Attention modulates the contextual similarity effect in negative priming: evidence from task demand and attentional capture

Negative priming refers to the delayed response to a probe target that was previously a prime distractor. Memory retrieval has been proposed as one critical mechanism for the manifestation of negative priming. This perspective perpetuates that the contextual similarity between prime and probe trials should modulate memory retrieval, and therefore, affect negative priming. However, evidence for the contextual similarity effect in negative priming is mixed. The present study tested the hypothesis that attended contextual cues are more likely to be encoded into a distractor representation, and thus, are more likely to modulate the negative priming effect. By manipulating whether the contextual cues were relevant to the task demand in Section 1, and by manipulating whether cues had an abrupt or simultaneous onset, and by analysing reaction time (RT) distributions of the data in Section 2, our results demonstrated that attended cues produced the contextual similarity effect in negative priming, especially when RTs were long.

Merkmalsintegration und Abruf als wichtige Prozesse der Handlungssteuerung – eine Paradigmen-übergreifende Perspektive

Zusammenfassung. Die Kognitionspsychologische Grundlagenforschung zur Handlungskontrolle hat inzwischen eine große Zahl sehr spezifischer Aspekte von Handlungen in diversen Experimentalparadigmen isoliert und beleuchtet, sodass der gegenwärtige Forschungsstand durch eine kaum übersehbare Flut unverbundener Phänomene und paradigmen-spezifischer Modellvorstellungen gekennzeichnet ist. In dem hier vorgeschlagenen Rahmenmodell ( Binding and Retrieval in Action Control, BRAC) werden die für Handlungen wichtigsten Prozesse paradigmen-übergreifend beschrieben, systematisch eingeordnet und in ein Rahmenmodell transferiert, bei dem Merkmalsintegration und Merkmalsabruf als wichtige Mechanismen der Handlungssteuerung dienen. Wir zeigen exemplarisch auf, wie das Rahmenmodell etablierte, aber bislang unabhängig voneinander untersuchte Phänomene der Handlungs-Forschung mithilfe derselben Mechanismen erklärt. Dieses Modell birgt neben seiner Ordnungs- und Integrationsfunktion die Möglichkeit, Phänomen auch aus anderen Forschungskontexten in der Sprache des Modells zu reformulieren. Das Modell soll Wissen aus der Kognitionsforschung bzw. Allgemeinen Psychologie innovativ kondensieren und anderen Disziplinen zur Verfügung stellen.

The negative priming paradigm: An update and implications for selective attention

Negative Priming (NP) is an influential paradigm in cognitive psychology that was originally developed to measure attentional selection. Yet, up to the mid-1990s, a large number of experimental reports questioned whether the NP effect is based on attentional inhibition and/or episodic retrieval processes. In this review, we summarize findings since the mid-1990s and discuss new and old theoretical approaches to Negative Priming. We conclude that more than one process contributes to NP and that future research should analyze the conditions under which a particular process contributes to NP. Moreover, we argue that the paradigm--although it does not measure a single cognitive process alone--is still a useful tool for understanding selection in cognition. In fact, it might be a virtue of the paradigm that several cognitive processes work here together as selection in nonexperimental contexts is surely a multidimensional process. From this perspective, research on NP is relevant for all research fields analyzing selection. We therefore close our review by discussing the implications of the new evidence on NP for theories of selective attention.

Long-term response-stimulus associations can influence distractor-response bindings

Strong associations between target stimuli and responses usually facilitate fast and effortless reactions. The present study investigated whether long-term associations between distractor stimuli and responses modulate behavior. In particular, distractor stimuli can affect behavior due to distractor-based stimulus-response retrieval, a phenomenon called distractor-response binding: An ignored stimulus becomes temporarily associated with a response and retrieves it at stimulus repetition. In a flanker task, participants ignored left and right pointing arrows and responded to a target letter either with left and right (strongly associated) responses or with upper and lower (weakly associated) responses. Binding effects were modulated in dependence of the long-term association strength between distractors and responses. If the association was strong (arrows pointing left and right with left and right responses), binding effects emerged but only in case of compatible responses. If the long-term association between distractors and responses was weak (arrows pointing left and right with upper and lower responses), binding was weaker and not modulated by compatibility. In contrast, sequential compatibility effects were not modulated by association strength between distractor and response. The results indicate that existing long-term associations between stimuli responses may modulate the impact of an ignored stimulus on action control.

You Better Stop! Binding “Stop” Tags to Irrelevant Stimulus Features

We investigated whether the basic process of integrating stimuli (and their features) with simultaneously executed responses transfers to situations in which one does not respond to a stimulus. In three experiments, a stop-signal task was combined with a sequential priming paradigm to test whether irrelevant stimulus features become associated with a “stop” tag. Stopping a simple response during the prime trial delayed responding and facilitated stopping in the probe if the same irrelevant stimulus feature was repeated in the probe. These repetition priming effects were independent of the relation between the to-be-executed (or to-be-stopped) responses in the prime and probe, indicating that “stop” tags are global (“stop all responses!”) rather than being response-related (e.g., “stop left response!”).

Retrieval of event files can be conceptually mediated

Distractor-based retrieval of event files was assessed with a sequential priming experiment using a four-choice identification task. Pictures or sounds of four different animals (frog, chicken, lamb, singing bird) had to be categorized by pressing one of four keys. On each trial, a target and a distractor stimulus were presented simultaneously in different modalities. The relevant modality switched randomly between trials. Distractor repetition effects were modulated by the response relation between the prime and probe: Repeating the prime distractor in the probe produced facilitation if the response repeated, but not if a different response had to be given in the prime and probe. Repeating the prime distractor in the probe led to an automatic retrieval of the prime response. Importantly, this distractor-based response retrieval effect also emerged for those sequences in which the modality of the repeated distractor was switched between the prime and probe. This cross-modal priming effect indicates that distractors were integrated into event files on a conceptual level and that response retrieval processes were mediated by conceptual codes of the distractor stimuli.

Intact episodic retrieval in older adults: evidence from an auditory negative priming task

BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: The negative priming effect has been traditionally interpreted as the inhibitory aftereffect of distractor processing. According to inhibitory deficit theory, older adults should be more impaired by auditory distractors. Recent studies have shown that episodic retrieval processes are involved in the effect. However, so far there is no direct evidence that this is true for older adults.

METHODS

In an auditory four-alternative identification task, young adults (18-30 years), younger seniors (60-67 years), and older seniors (68-78 years) identified target sounds while ignoring distractor sounds. In ignored repetition trials, the prime distractor was repeated as the probe target, whereas there was no stimulus repetition in control trials. Reaction times and errors were analyzed.

RESULTS

Negative priming was present in all age groups. Senior groups showed increased negative priming in reaction times. All age groups revealed a comparable increase of probe errors with the former prime response in ignored repetition compared with control trials. There was no age difference in the frequency of responding with the former prime response in control trials.

CONCLUSION

An increase in prime response errors in ignored repetition trials is consistent with the involvement of episodic retrieval processes in negative priming in younger and older adults. Inconsistent with both an inhibitory account of negative priming and the inhibitory deficit theory of cognitive aging, older adults neither showed evidence of reduced negative priming nor of impaired restraint control.

Auditory spatial negative priming: what is remembered of irrelevant sounds and their locations?

The categorization and identification of previously ignored visual or auditory stimuli is typically slowed down--a phenomenon that has been called the negative priming effect and can be explained by the episodic retrieval of response-inadequate prime information and/or an inhibitory model. A similar after-effect has been found in visuospatial tasks: participants are slowed down in localizing a visual stimulus that appears at a previously ignored location. In the auditory modality, however, such an after-effect of ignoring a sound at a specific location has never been reported. Instead, participants are impaired in their localization performance when the sound at the previously ignored location changes identity, a finding which is compatible with the so-called feature-mismatch hypothesis. Here, we describe the properties of auditory spatial in contrast to visuospatial negative priming and report two experiments that specify the nature of this auditory after-effect. Experiment 1 shows that the detection of identity-location mismatches is a genuinely auditory phenomenon that can be replicated even when the sound sources are invisible. Experiment 2 reveals that the detection of sound-identity mismatches in the probe depends on the processing demands in the prime. This finding implies that the localization of irrelevant sound sources is not the inevitable consequence of processing the auditory prime scenario but depends on the difficulty of the target search process among distractor sounds.

On the robustness of prime response retrieval processes: evidence from auditory negative priming without probe interference

Visual negative priming has been shown to depend on the presence of probe distractors, a finding that has been traditionally seen to support the episodic retrieval model of negative priming; however, facilitated prime-to-probe contingency learning might also underlie this effect. In four sound identification experiments, the role of probe distractor interference in auditory negative priming was investigated. In each experiment, a group of participants was exposed to probe distractor interference while another group ran the task in the absence of probe distractors. Experiments 1A, 1B, and 1C varied in the extent to which fast versus accurate responding was required. Between Experiments 1 and 2, the spatial cueing of the to-be-attended ear was varied. Whereas participants switched ears from prime to probe in Experiment 1, they kept a stable attentional focus throughout Experiment 2. For trials with probe distractors, a negative priming effect was present in all experiments. For trials without probe distractors, the only ubiquitous after-effect of ignoring a prime distractor was an increase of prime response errors in ignored repetition compared to control trials, indicating that prime response retrieval processes took place. Whether negative priming beyond this error increase was found depended on the stability of the attentional focus. The findings suggest that several mechanisms underlie auditory negative priming with the only robust one being prime response retrieval.

Differences in the strength of distractor inhibition do not affect distractor-response bindings

Distractor inhibition and distractor-response binding were investigated in two experiments by analyzing distractor repetition benefits and their interaction with response repetition effects in a sequential-priming paradigm. Distractor repetition benefits were larger for distractors that were incompatible with the to-be-executed response (task-related distractors) than for distractors that were not assigned to a response (neutral distractors), indicating that the strength of distractor inhibition was a function of response interference for the distractors. In contrast, the distractor-response bindings were found to be of equal strength for both task-related and neutral distractors. Thus, differences in the strengths of distractor inhibition did not affect the integration of distractors with responses into event files. Instead, our results suggest that distractor-response binding and distractor inhibition are independent mechanisms that are recruited for the automatization of behavior and action control.

Integrating the Irrelevant Sound

A distractor can be integrated with a target response and the subsequent repetition of the distractor can facilitate or hamper responding depending on whether the same or a different response is required, a phenomenon labeled distractor-response binding. In two experiments we used a priming paradigm with an identification task to investigate influences of stimulus grouping on the binding of irrelevant stimuli (distractors) and responses in audition. In a grouped condition participants heard relevant and irrelevant sounds in one central location, whereas in a non-grouped condition the relevant sound was presented to one ear and the irrelevant sound was presented to the other ear. Distractor-based retrieval of the prime response was stronger for the grouped compared to the non-grouped presentation of stimuli indicating that binding of irrelevant auditory stimuli with responses is modulated by perceptual grouping.

Evidence of vocal and manual event files in auditory negative priming

Negative priming with auditory as well as with visual stimuli has been shown to involve the retrieval of prime response information as evidenced by an increase of prime response errors to the probes of ignored repetition trials compared to control trials. We investigated whether prime response retrieval processes were also present for response modalities other than manual responding. In an auditory four alternative forced choice task participants either vocally or manually identified a target sound while ignoring a distractor sound. Negative priming was of equal size in both response modalities. What is more, for both response modalities, there was evidence of increased prime response errors in ignored repetition trials compared to control trials. The findings suggest that retrieval of event files of the prime episode including prime response information is a general mechanism underlying the negative priming phenomenon irrespective of stimulus or response modality.

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.

Affective matching moderates S-R binding

We investigated the moderating influence of affective matching on S-R binding processes in a sequential priming study in which positive and negative nouns had to be categorised as referring to a person or to an object. Irrelevant positive and negative distractor words (adjectives) were integrated with responses into S-R episodes if they had the same valence as the target (affective match condition). In this case, repeating the prime distractor in the probe led to a retrieval of the prime response, which facilitated performance for response repetition sequences but had no effect on performance when responses changed between prime and probe. However, if target and distractor had different valences (affective mismatch condition), no interaction of distractor relation and response relation occurred, indicating that distractors were less likely to be associated with responses into event files during the prime trial episode. Findings reveal that affective mismatches are detected automatically and modulate a binding of irrelevant information with responses.

Binding targets' responses to distractors' locations: distractor response bindings in a location-priming task

Responses to target stimuli can be encoded together with distracting objects accompanying these targets into a single stimulus-response episode or a single event file. Repeating any object of such an episode can trigger the response encoded in this episode. Hence, repeating a distractor may retrieve the response given to the target that was accompanied by this distractor. In the present experiments, we analyzed whether the binding of target responses to the distractor can be generalized even to the location of a distractor. In two experiments, we used a location-based prime-probe task and found that repeating the location of a distractor triggered the response to the target that had previously been accompanied by a distractor in the repeated location, even if the identity of the distractor changed from the prime to the probe.

Auditory negative priming endures response modality change; prime response retrieval does not

Two auditory identification experiments were run to test a specific hypothesis about the prime response retrieval mechanism of negative priming. This mechanism operates in ignored repetition trials where the prime distractor repeats as the probe target and leads to an increase of probe errors with the former prime response (Mayr & Buchner, 2006). Participants identified target sounds while ignoring distractor sounds. They changed from verbal (prime) to manual (probe) responding. Concomitant manual prime responses were prevented right from the start in Experiment 1 ( N = 72) but not in Experiment 2 ( N = 49). Experiment 1 revealed a negative priming effect in response speed but no prime response retrieval effect—that is, there was no increase in prime errors to the probes of ignored repetition trials. This pattern of results implies that retrieval of prime responses takes place at the level of motor responses (e.g., retrieval of the motor programme of a right index finger key press) but not at the level of task-specific response codes (e.g., retrieval of the “piano” response alternative). Experiment 2 replicated the negative priming effect across response modalities and helped to clarify the importance of prime response processes for finding a negative priming effect in overall error rates.

Multinomial Processing Tree Models

Multinomial processing tree (MPT) models have become popular in cognitive psychology in the past two decades. In contrast to general-purpose data analysis techniques, such as log-linear models or other generalized linear models, MPT models are substantively motivated stochastic models for categorical data. They are best described as tools (a) for measuring the cognitive processes that underlie human behavior in various tasks and (b) for testing the psychological assumptions on which these models are based. The present article provides a review of MPT models and their applications in psychology, focusing on recent trends and developments in the past 10 years. Our review is nontechnical in nature and primarily aims at informing readers about the scope and utility of MPT models in different branches of cognitive psychology.