The Role of Non-Spatial Features in Location Negative Priming
Date Issued
2008
Date
2008
Author(s)
Lin, Szu-Hung
Abstract
Using static displays, we investigated the role of non-spatial features in the location negative priming effect. Participants responded to the location of a pre-defined color while ignoring a distractor on screen. Identity was irrelevant to the task. A small set of stimuli was presented repetitively in Experiment 1 so that the activation of each stimulus identity was high and competition from the distractor was strong. Location positive and negative priming effects were observed. A large set of non-repeated stimuli was used in Experiment 2 to reduce the competition imposed by the distractor. Location negative priming was not found, although positive priming was still observed. Experiment 3 used a small set of repeated stimuli, but the target and the distractor colors were randomly defined in each trial while the stimulus colors in the probe trials were unrelated to those of the prime stimuli. Negative location effects were observed, but identity priming effects were not observed. The results showed that identity and location are processed independently. Strong competition based on the whole object including the task-irrelevant identity feature is important to activate the inhibitory mechanisms. Once instigated, inhibition operated selectively on the goal-relevant feature of location. Color, the task-defining feature for selection, influences how location is processed but is inessential in triggering the retrieval of location information.
Subjects
selective attention
non-spatial object features
location positive and negative priming effects
the inhibitory mechanisms
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-97-R95227103-1.pdf
Size
23.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):745ee621a01fb04bd59d1710aefaad7b