"Visual priming of inverted and rotated objects": Correction to Knowlton et al. (2009).

Reports an error in "Visual priming of inverted and rotated objects" by Barbara J. Knowlton, Sean P. McAuliffe, Chase J. Coelho and John E. Hummel (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2009[Jul], Vol 35[4], 837-848). In the article, there was an error in the sixth sentence of the abstract. The sentence should read “Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that although identification was sensitive to orientation, visual priming was relatively invariant with image inversion (i.e., an image visually primed its inverted counterpart approximately as much as it primed itself).” (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2009-09620-008.) Object images are identified more efficiently after prior exposure. Here, the authors investigated shape representations supporting object priming. The dependent measure in all experiments was the minimum exposure duration required to correctly identify an object image in a rapid serial visual presentation stream. Priming was defined as the change in minimum exposure duration for identification as a function of prior exposure to an object. Experiment 1 demonstrated that this dependent measure yielded an estimate of predominantly visual priming (i.e., free of name and concept priming). Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that although priming was sensitive to orientation, visual priming was relatively invariant with image inversion (i.e., an image visually primed its inverted counterpart approximately as much as it primed itself). Experiment 4 demonstrated a similar dissociation with images rotated 90° off the upright. In all experiments, the difference in the magnitude of priming for identical or rotated–inverted priming conditions was marginal or nonexistent. These results suggest that visual representations that support priming can be relatively insensitive to picture-plane manipulations, although these manipulations have a substantial effect on object identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-term repetition priming of briefly identified objects.

The authors provide evidence that long-term memory encoding can occur for briefly viewed objects in a rapid serial visual presentation list, contrary to claims that the brief presentation and quick succession of objects prevent encoding by disrupting a memory consolidation process that requires hundreds of milliseconds of uninterrupted processing. Subjects performed a search task in which each item was presented for only 75 ms. Nontargets from the search task generated priming on 2 subsequent indirect memory tests: a search task and a task requiring identification of visually masked objects. Additional experiments revealed that information encoded into memory for these nontargets included perceptual and conceptual components, and that these results were not due to subjects maintaining items in working memory during list presentation. These results are consistent with recent neurophysiological evidence showing that stimulus processing can occur at later stages in the cognitive system even when a subsequent new stimulus is presented that initiates processing at earlier stages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can “pure” implicit memory be isolated? A test of a single-system model of recognition and repetition priming.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 65(1) of Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale (see record 2011-05804-006). In the article there was an error in Equation B2 in Appendix B.] Implicit memory is widely regarded as an unconscious form of memory. However, evidence for what is arguably a defining characteristic of implicit memory—that its contents are not accessible to awareness—has remained elusive. Such a finding of “pure” implicit memory would constitute evidence against a single-system model of recognition and priming that predicts that priming will not occur in the (true) absence of recognition. In three experiments, using a rapid serial visual presentation procedure at encoding, we tested this prediction by attempting to replicate some previous studies that claimed to obtain pure implicit memory. We found no evidence of priming in the absence of recognition; instead, priming and recognition were associated across experiments: when priming was absent, recognition was also absent (Experiments 1 and 2), and when priming was reliably greater than chance, recognition was similarly greater than chance (Experiment 3). The results are consistent with the prediction of a single-system model, which was fit to the data from all the experiments. The results are also consistent with the notion that the memory driving priming is accessible to awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correction to Berry et al. (2010).

Reports an error in "Can “pure” implicit memory be isolated? A test of a single-system model of recognition and repetition priming" by Christopher J. Berry, David R. Shanks, Selina Li, Luke Sheridan Rains and Richard N. A. Henson (Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2010[Dec], Vol 64[4], 241-255). In the article there was an error in Equation B2 in Appendix B. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2010-26226-002.) Implicit memory is widely regarded as an unconscious form of memory. However, evidence for what is arguably a defining characteristic of implicit memory—that its contents are not accessible to awareness—has remained elusive. Such a finding of “pure” implicit memory would constitute evidence against a single-system model of recognition and priming that predicts that priming will not occur in the (true) absence of recognition. In three experiments, using a rapid serial visual presentation procedure at encoding, we tested this prediction by attempting to replicate some previous studies that claimed to obtain pure implicit memory. We found no evidence of priming in the absence of recognition; instead, priming and recognition were associated across experiments: when priming was absent, recognition was also absent (Experiments 1 and 2), and when priming was reliably greater than chance, recognition was similarly greater than chance (Experiment 3). The results are consistent with the prediction of a single-system model, which was fit to the data from all the experiments. The results are also consistent with the notion that the memory driving priming is accessible to awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-lasting effects of briefly flashed words and pseudowords in ultrarapid serial visual presentation.

Our ability to identify even complex scenes in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) is astounding, but memory for such items seems lacking. Rather than pictures, we used streams of more than 200 verbal stimuli, rushing by on the screen at a rate of more than 12 items per second while participants had to detect infrequent names (Experiments 1 and 2) or words written in capitals (Experiment 3). By direct and indirect tests, we investigated what is remembered of these masses of task-irrelevant distractor words and pseudowords embedded in an RSVP stream. Lexical decision, the indirect test applied either immediately after each stimulus train or with a delay, revealed strong long-term priming effects. Relative to stimuli not shown before, lexical decisions were faster and more accurate to words but slower to pseudowords. The size of these effects mirrored how often words and pseudowords had occurred in a stream, suggesting that memory traces are strengthened with successive presentations and survive for several minutes at least. Moreover, in a direct test (old–new categorization), words as well as pseudowords benefited from prior occurrence in an RSVP stream if they had occurred more than once. These findings parallel recent physiological and behavioral evidence for memory consolidation of distractor pictures in RSVP and highlight that, despite huge numbers of interfering stimuli, distractor words and pseudowords exhibit long-lasting memory effects. Consolidation seems to progress at higher cognitive levels at the same time that subsequent stimuli are perceptually processed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Phonological priming from the second to the first language.

In this study, the authors show that cross-lingual phonological priming is possible not only from the 1st language (L1) to the 2nd language (L2), but also from L2 to L1. In addition, both priming effects were found to have the same magnitude and to not be related to differences in word naming latencies between L1 and L2. The findings are further evidence against language-selective access models of bilingual word processing and are more in line with strong phonological models of visual word recognition than with the traditional dual-route models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Priming of familiar and unfamiliar visual objects over delays in young and older adults.

Although priming of familiar stimuli is usually age invariant, little is known about how aging affects priming of preexperimentally unfamiliar stimuli. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of aging and encoding-to-test delays (0 min, 20 min, 90 min, and 1 week) on priming of unfamiliar objects in block-based priming paradigms. During the encoding phase, participants viewed pictures of novel objects (Experiments 1 and 2) or novel and familiar objects (Experiment 3) and judged their left–right orientation. In the test block, priming was measured using the possible–impossible object-decision test (Experiment 1), symmetric–asymmetric object-decision test (Experiment 2), and real–nonreal object-decision test (Experiment 3). In Experiments 1 and 2, young adults showed priming for unfamiliar objects at all delays, whereas older adults whose baseline task performance was similar to that of young adults did not show any priming. Experiment 3 found no effects of age or delay on priming of familiar objects; however, priming of unfamiliar objects was only observed in the young participants. This suggests that when older adults cannot rely on preexisting memory representations, age-related deficits in priming can emerge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explicit and implicit memory for rotating objects.

Although both the object and the observer often move in natural environments, the effect of motion on visual object recognition has not been well documented. The authors examined the effect of a reversal in the direction of rotation on both explicit and implicit memory for novel, 3-dimensional objects. Participants viewed a series of continuously rotating objects and later made either an old-new recognition judgment or a symmetric-asymmetric decision. For both tasks, memory for rotating objects was impaired when the direction of rotation was reversed at test. These results demonstrate that dynamic information can play a role in visual object recognition and suggest that object representations can encode spatiotemporal information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of Orthographic and Phonological Word Length on Memory for Lists Shown at RSVP and STM Rates.

This article reports 3 experiments in which effects of orthographic and phonological word length on memory were examined for short lists shown at rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) and short-term memory (STM) rates. Only visual-orthographic length reduced RSVP serial recall, whereas both orthographic and phonological length lowered recall for STM lists in Experiment 1. Word-length effects may arise from output processes or from the temporal duration of output in recall. In 2 further experiments, output demands were reduced through the use of a recognition test. Recognition accuracy was impaired only by orthographic length for RSVP lists and by phonological length for STM lists in both experiments. The results demonstrate 2 item length effects not simply attributable to increased output time in recall, and implications for theories of STM are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Binding objects to locations: The relationship between object files and visual working memory.

The relationship between object files and visual working memory (VWM) was investigated in a new paradigm combining features of traditional VWM experiments (color change detection) and object-file experiments (memory for the properties of moving objects). Object-file theory was found to account for a key component of object-position binding in VWM: With motion, color memory came to be associated with the new locations of objects. However, robust binding to the original locations was found despite clear evidence that the objects had moved. This latter binding appears to constitute a scene-based component in VWM, which codes object location relative to the abstract spatial configuration of the display and is largely insensitive to the dynamic properties of objects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constructing Visual Representations of Natural Scenes: The Roles of Short- and Long-Term Visual Memory.

A "follow-the-dot" method was used to investigate the visual memory systems supporting accumulation of object information in natural scenes. Participants fixated a series of objects in each scene, following a dot cue from object to object. Memory for the visual form of a target object was then tested. Object memory was consistently superior for the two most recently fixated objects, a recency advantage indicating a visual short-term memory component to scene representation. In addition, objects examined earlier were remembered at rates well above chance, with no evidence of further forgetting when 10 objects intervened between target examination and test and only modest forgetting with 402 intervening objects. This robust prerecency performance indicates a visual long-term memory component to scene representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generation and perceptual implicit memory: Different generation tasks produce different effects on perceptual priming.

The generation manipulation has been critical in delineating differences between implicit and explicit memory. In contrast to past research, the present experiments indicate that generating from a rhyme cue produces as much perceptual priming as does reading. This is demonstrated for 3 visual priming tasks: perceptual identification, word-fragment completion (WFC), and word-stem completion (WSC). This result occurred regardless of the mode of study response (written or spoken) or whether the generation condition was compared with reading words in or out of context. Rhyme generation did not produce priming on the letter height task (Masson & MacLeod, 2002), implying that the effect was not mediated by covert visualization. Nor was the effect due to the mere presence of the rhyme cue. Semantic generation (from definitions) produced a different pattern, exhibiting a reverse generation effect on WFC and WSC but full (read-level) priming on perceptual identification. The present results were not consistent with accounts based on the standard transfer-appropriate processing view, covert visualization, explicit contamination, or conceptual contributions to nominally perceptual tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decomposition of repetition priming processes in word translation.

Translation in fluent bilinguals requires comprehension of a stimulus word and subsequent production, or retrieval and articulation, of the response word. Four repetition-priming experiments with Spanish–English bilinguals (N = 274) decomposed these processes using selective facilitation to evaluate their unique priming contributions and factorial combination to evaluate the degree of process overlap or dependence. In Experiment 1, symmetric priming between semantic classification and translation tasks indicated that bilinguals do not covertly translate words during semantic classification. In Experiments 2 and 3, semantic classification of words and word-cued picture drawing facilitated word-comprehension processes of translation, and picture naming facilitated word-production processes. These effects were independent, consistent with a sequential model and with the conclusion that neither semantic classification nor word-cued picture drawing elicits covert translation. Experiment 4 showed that 2 tasks involving word-retrieval processes—written word translation and picture naming—had subadditive effects on later translation. Incomplete transfer from written translation to spoken translation indicated that preparation for articulation also benefited from repetition in the less-fluent language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theoretical and computational analysis of skill learning, repetition priming, and procedural memory.

This article analyzes the relationship between skill learning and repetition priming, 2 implicit memory phenomena. A number of reports have suggested that skill learning and repetition priming can be dissociated from each other and are therefore based on different mechanisms. The authors present a theoretical analysis showing that previous results cannot be regarded as evidence of a processing dissociation between skill learning and repetition priming. The authors also present a single-mechanism computational model that simulates a specific experimental task and exhibits both skill learning and repetition priming, as well as a number of apparent dissociations between these measures. These theoretical and computational analyses provide complementary evidence that skill learning and repetition priming are aspects of a single underlying mechanism that has the characteristics of procedural memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multisensory recognition of actively explored objects.

Shape recognition can be achieved through vision or touch, raising the issue of how this information is shared across modalities. Here we provide a short review of previous findings on cross-modal object recognition and we provide new empirical data on multisensory recognition of actively explored objects. It was previously shown that, similar to vision, haptic recognition of objects fixed in space is orientation specific and that cross-modal object recognition performance was relatively efficient when these views of the objects were matched across the sensory modalities (Newell, Ernst, Tjan, & Bülthoff, 2001). For actively explored (i.e., spatially unconstrained) objects, we now found a cost in cross-modal relative to within-modal recognition performance. At first, this may seem to be in contrast to findings by Newell et al. (2001). However, a detailed video analysis of the visual and haptic exploration behaviour during learning and recognition revealed that one view of the objects was predominantly explored relative to all others. Thus, active visual and haptic exploration is not balanced across object views. The cost in recognition performance across modalities for actively explored objects could be attributed to the fact that the predominantly learned object view was not appropriately matched between learning and recognition test in the cross-modal conditions. Thus, it seems that participants naturally adopt an exploration strategy during visual and haptic object learning that involves constraining the orientation of the objects. Although this strategy ensures good within-modal performance, it is not optimal for achieving the best recognition performance across modalities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nature of codes extracted during the attentional blink.

This set of 6 experiments used a 2-target rapid serial visual presentation paradigm to address 2 main questions: (a) What is the nature of the code retrieved from nontarget (i.e., unselected) items? and (b) How do the processing demands of the target affect the nature of the codes extracted from its proximate distractors? There were 3 main results: First, unless a nontarget receives attentional processing, its codes remain dormant. The type of activated codes depends on the perceptual load imposed by the other items that also underwent processing. Second, the item trailing the target invariably gets processed, but those farther downstream are excluded. If target selection is exacting, the codes of the item leading the target may also be enhanced. Third, the magnitude of the attentional blink increases with target selection difficulty; it is, however, unaffected by the perceptual load imposed by the target. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intact perceptual and conceptual priming in temporal lobe epilepsy: Neuroanatomical and methodological implications.

Explicit memory appears to be supported by medical temporal lobe structures, whereas separate neocortical regions may mediate perceptual and conceptual implicit memory. Children and adults with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and matched controls were administered experimental verbal memory tests. Performance on implicit tests--word identification and word generation--was contrasted with explicit recognition and recall. Encoding conditions emphasized either conceptual or perceptual aspects of study words and were crossed with presentation modality. The priming performance of participants with TLE did not differ from controls, but participants with TLE did show deficits on recognition and recall measures. Thus, intact left temporal cortex does not appear to be necessary for normal implicit memory performance, even when conceptual processing is emphasized at study or test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the frontal lobe functioning hypothesis of age deficits in production priming.

Older adults have been hypothesized to show reduced priming relative to younger adults on implicit memory tests that require production of a response because these tasks place high demands on attentional processes associated with frontal lobe function, which are often reduced with age (see D. A. Fleischman & J. D. E. Gabrieli, 1998). The current study directly tested this frontal lobe hypothesis of age effects in production priming. Younger adults and older adults who differed in their attentional abilities as measured by a battery of neuropsychological tests were given two production priming tasks, word stem completion and category production, followed by explicit free recall tests. Results showed that explicit memory performance was reduced by age and older adults' frontal functioning. Age and frontal functioning influenced category production priming but not word stem completion priming. Results failed to support the frontal account of age reductions in production priming. Instead, results implicate the influence of other processes often involved in production priming tasks, such as explicit memory strategies and response competition, as critical for understanding age effects in implicit memory performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual attention and the perception of features and objects.

Feature integration theory (Treisman & Gelade, 1980) suggested that simple features are coded in parallel in a number of specialized feature maps, but that focussed attention is required to ensure the correct integration of features to specify objects. This is done by a serial scan through a master-map of locations, giving access to the features currently occupying the attended location. These are then integrated to form a representation of the object in the selected location. The present paper reviewed new evidence that has accrued since 1980 and elaborated the model to accommodate the recent findings. The proposal is that four different mechanisms may be involved in different conditions: selection of locations, directed by an externally controlled window of attention; selection by features through preattentive grouping; selection of objects; and selection for access to responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)