Roles of object-file review and type priming in visual identification within and across eye fixations.

Dynamic visual identification was investigated in 4 experiments. In Exps 1 and 2, 2 perceptual objects (2 frames, each containing a letter or 1 containing a letter and the other a plus sign) were previewed in the periphery. A saccade brought these objects to central vision. During the saccade the display was changed so that 1 frame contained a letter and the other a plus sign, and the S identified the letter by naming it aloud as rapidly as possible. In Exp 3, the retinal events of Exps 1 and 2 were simulated. In Exp 4, both the preview and the target were presented centrally within a single fixation. In all experiments both object specific and nonspecific preview benefits were observed. These results support a theory in which the preview benefits observed during visual identification arise from 2 processes, object file review and type priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the (un)conditionality of automatic attitude activation: The valence proportion effect.

Affective priming studies have shown that participants are faster to pronounce affectively polarized target words that are preceded by affectively congruent prime words than affectively polarized target words that are preceded by affectively incongruent prime words. We examined whether affective priming of naming responses depends on the valence proportion (i.e., the proportion of stimuli that are affectively polarized). In one group of participants, experimental trials were embedded in a context of filler trials that consisted of affectively polarized stimulus materials (i.e., high valence proportion condition). In a second group, the same set of experimental trials was embedded in a context of filler trials consisting of neutral stimuli (i.e., low valence proportion condition). Results showed that affective priming of naming responses was significantly stronger in the high valence proportion condition than in the low valence proportion condition. We conclude that (a) subtle aspects of the procedure can influence affective priming of naming responses, (b) finding affective priming of naming responses does not allow for the conclusion that affective stimulus processing is unconditional, and (c) affective stimulus processing depends on selective attention for affective stimulus information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of stimulus repetition on negative priming.

Potential age-related differences in the influence of stimulus repetition on negative and positive priming were investigated in a same-different picture comparison task. Forty-eight young adults and 48 old adults compared a target picture of a familiar object with a standard picture of a familiar object to determine if they were the same or different, while ignoring an overlapping distractor picture presented in a different color. Negative priming effects increased in magnitude with the repetition of the experimental stimuli in a similar fashion for both young and old adults. Conversely, positive priming effects decreased in magnitude with increases in stimulus repetition for both young and old adults. These data suggest that identity-based inhibition develops in a similar fashion from young adulthood to old age. Furthermore, these data add to the growing body of studies that suggest age invariance in the ability to inhibit task-irrelevant information on the basis of stimulus identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structural analysis of oligosaccharide-alditols released by reductive beta-elimination from oviducal mucins of Rana dalmatina

An episodic retrieval account of negative priming (Neill, 1997; Neill & Valdes, 1992) was evaluated in three experiments. During practice, regular word pairs were presented to subjects differing numbers of times. The subjects named specific target words while they ignored specific distractor words. Following a 5-min retention interval, memory for practice was revealed: Test responses for target words exhibited positive priming that increased with increases in the number of times that the words had been attended. Test responses for distractor words exhibited either positive priming (Experiment 1) or negative priming (Experiments 2-3) that also increased with increases in the number of times that the words had been ignored. The type of priming that distractors exhibited was determined by several contextual similarities between the practice environment, in which distractors were ignored initially, and the test environments, in which they were processed subsequently. Negative priming that spanned a 5-min interval, increased with increases in the number of times that a distractor was ignored, and was sensitive to contextual changes indicated that the direction of the effect was temporally backward because the test probe cued memory for earlier processing of the priming stimulus when the distractor had been ignored.     

Vowel processing during silent reading: Evidence from eye movements.

Two eye movement experiments examined whether skilled readers include vowels in the early phonological representations used in word recognition during silent reading. Target words were presented in sentences preceded by parafoveal previews in which the vowel phoneme was concordant or discordant with the vowel phoneme in the target word. In Experiment 1, the orthographic vowel differed from the target in both the concordant and discordant preview conditions. In Experiment 2, the vowel letters in the preview were identical to those in the target word. The phonological vowel was ambiguous, however, and the final consonants of the previews biased the vowel phoneme either toward or away from the target's vowel phoneme. In both experiments, shorter reading times were observed for targets preceded by concordant previews than by discordant previews. Implications for models of word recognition are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of enantiomorphic transformation on transsaccadic object integration.

Two experiments investigated whether the left–right orientation of an object is retained and integrated across a saccade during object identification. In Experiment 1, participants moved their eyes to the target object and named it as quickly as possible. In Experiment 2, participants looked through an array of 4 target objects in preparation for an immediate recognition test. In both experiments, a peripheral preview of the target object was presented before fixation. The preview stimulus was identical to the target object, the enantiomorph of the target object, or a control stimulus. Naming latencies were faster (Experiment 1) and gaze durations were shorter (Experiment 2) when the preview was identical to the target than when it was an enantiomorph of the target, suggesting that left–right orientation was retained and integrated across saccades. The results constrain models of transsaccadic integration and object identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mechanisms of unconscious priming: I. Response competition, not spreading activation.

Four experiments were conducted to replicate and expand upon A. G. Greenwald, S. C. Draine, and R. L. Abram's (1996) demonstration that unconsciously perceived priming words can influence judgments of other words. The present experiments manipulated 2 types of relationships between priming and target stimuli: (a) whether priming and target stimuli possess a preexisting semantic relationship (an affective relationship in Experiments 1, 2, and 4; an associative relationship in Experiment 3; and an animacy relationship in Experiment 4) and (b) whether the primes and targets produce the same response. Large priming effects were found only when the primes and targets possessed response compatibility. No residual effects for affective, animacy, or semantic relatedness were observed. Although these results strongly support the conclusion that word meaning can be unconsciously activated, they do not support the claim that the unconscious perception effects obtained in Greenwald et al.'s (1996) paradigm are caused by automatic spreading activation of word meaning. Instead, the results reported here are consistent with a claim that unconsciously perceived words automatically trigger response tendencies that facilitate or interfere with target responding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective priming with subliminally presented pictures.

Affective priming studies have demonstrated that subliminally presented prime words can exert an influence on responses towards positive or negative target stimuli. In the present series of experiments, it was investigated whether these findings can be extended to pictorial stimuli. Ideographically selected positive, neutral, and negative picture primes that were sandwich-masked immediately preceded positive or negative target pictures (Experiment 1) or words (Experiments 2 & 3). Evaluative categorization responses to these target stimuli were significantly influenced by the valence of the prime. First, it was demonstrated that high anxious participants were selectively slowed when the subliminally presented prime was negative (Experiments 1 & 2). Second, the affective congruence between primes and targets also exerted an influence on the responses, but in a direction that is opposite to what is typically observed in affective priming research. These reverse priming effects are situated within a series of recent similar findings, and implications for theories of affective priming are discussed. (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)     

Effects of color and pattern on implicit and explicit picture memory.

The degree to which repetition priming is perceptually specific is informative about the mechanisms of implicit memory as well as of perceptual processing. In 2 sets of experiments with pictures as stimuli, we tested the effects of color and pattern manipulations between study and test on implicit memory (i.e., naming facilitation) and explicit memory (i.e., 2 forms of recognition). These manipulations did not affect priming. However, participants were able to explicitly detect stimulus changes at above-change levels. changes in color also produced small decrements in participants' ability to judge that repeated stimuli were old on a recognition tests. Experiment 2 showed diminished priming with changes in the stimulus exemplar (i.e., a different picture of the same named object) from study to test, which demonstrated that the picture-naming paradigm is sensitive to changes in physical attributes. The results suggest that physical attributes that are not essential to the formation of a shape representation do not influence repetition priming in a basic identification paradigm. Suggestions for how priming may be mediated are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rhyme priming of pictures and words: A lexical activation account.

Orthographically/phonologically related primes have typically been found to facilitate processing of target words. This phenomenon is usually explained in terms of spreading activation between nodes for orthographically/phonologically similar words in lexical memory. The phenomenon was explored in a series of studies involving the manipulations of prime and target type (word or picture) and prime and target task (naming or categorization). Generally, the results support the lexical activation explanation. Named primes, which activate lexical memory, facilitate processing in all target tasks involving lexical access (word and picture naming and word categorization), independent of prime type. Categorized primes show the expected Prime Type?×?Relatedness interaction with word primes, which activate lexical memory, producing much more facilitation than picture primes. Finally, unlike in semantic priming studies, increased depth of processing of a word prime decreased the size of the priming effects. Apparently, initial activation levels in lexical memory are not maintained when semantic processing of the prime is required. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Categorizing chairs and naming pears: category differences in object processing as a function of task and priming

Four experiments are reported examining the locus of structural similarity effects in picture recognition and naming with normal subjects. Subjects carried out superordinate categorization and naming tasks with picture and word forms of clothing, furniture, fruit, and vegetable exemplars. The main findings were as follows: (1) Responses to pictures of fruit and vegetables ("structurally similar" objects) were slowed relative to pictures of clothing and furniture ("structurally dissimilar" objects). This structural similarity difference was greater for picture naming than for superordinate categorization of pictures. (2) Structural similarity effects in picture naming were reduced by repetition priming. Repetition priming effects were equivalent from picture and word naming as prime tasks. (3) However, superordinate categorization of the prime did not produce the structural similarity effects on priming found for picture naming. Furthermore, such priming effects did not arise for picture or word categorization or for reading picture names as target tasks. It is proposed that structural similarity effects on priming object processing are located in processes mapping semantic representations of pictures to name representations required to select names for objects. Visually based competition between fruit and vegetables produces competition in name selection, which is reduced by priming the mappings between semantic and name representations.     

Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Evidence from masked phonological priming.

Bilingual written language representation was investigated with the masked phonological priming paradigm. Pseudohomophonic and control primes of French target words were used to show that Dutch–French bilinguals exhibit the same pattern of phonological and orthographic priming as native French speakers, which suggests that the same processes underlie first- and second-language processing. It was also found that for bilinguals, but not monolinguals, it is possible to prime a target word of the second language with a homophonic stimulus (either word or nonword) of the first language. This interlingual phonological priming effect was of the same size as the intralingual priming effect. Implications for theories of bilingual written language representation and for the interpretation of the masked phonological priming paradigm are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of imagery on perceptual implicit memory tests.

Four experiments demonstrate that imagery can promote priming on perceptual implicit memory tests. When Ss were given words during a study phase and asked to form mental images of corresponding pictures, more priming was obtained on a picture fragment identification test than from a study condition in which Ss performed semantic analyses of words. Imaginal priming of picture fragment identification occurred for recoverable fragments, but not for nonrecoverable fragments. The imagery effect was restricted to the imaged type of material: Imagining pictures (when presented with words) enhanced priming on a picture fragment identification test but not on word fragment completion. Similarly, when pictures were presented, imagining the corresponding words increased priming on word fragment completion but not on picture fragment identification. Overall, results support the hypothesis that imagining engages some of the same mechanisms used in perception and thereby produces priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological priming in auditory word recognition.

Used a priming technique to test specific predictions regarding cohort activation in 3 experiments involving 170 undergraduates. Ss identified target words embedded in noise at different signal-to-noise ratios. The target words were either presented in isolation or preceded by a prime item that shared phonological information with the target. In Exp I, primes and targets were English words that shared 0, 1, 2, 3, or all phonemes from the beginning of the word. In Exp II, nonword primes preceded word targets and shared initial phonemes. In Exp III, word primes and word targets shared phonemes from the end of a word. Reliable phonological priming was observed in all experiments. Results of Exps I and II support the assumption of activation of lexical candidates based on word-initial information, as proposed in cohort theory; however, results of Exp III, which showed increased probability of correctly identifying targets that shared phonemes from the end of words, did not support the predictions derived from the theory. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstract phonological structure in language production: Evidence from Spanish.

In this study, 4 experiments were carried out to investigate if segmental and structural information are represented separately in phonological encoding in speech production. In Experiments 1 and 2, a picture-word interference paradigm was used. Participants had to name a picture while a word was auditorily presented 150 ms after the onset of the target. In Experiments 3 and 4, participants had to read aloud lists of printed words (inductors) and then had to name a picture. Results of the first 3 experiments indicate that naming latencies are faster when target and interfering stimulus (in the first 2 experiments) and inductors (in the 3rd) share the same abstract phonological structure. The 4th experiment showed that the priming effect observed previously is due to facilitation of the first-syllable structure, supporting the notion that an abstract syllabic structure is used in phonological encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Immediate priming and cognitive aftereffects.

Three forced-choice perceptual word identification experiments tested the claim that transitions from positive to negative priming as a function of increasing prime duration are due to cognitive aftereffects. These aftereffects are similar in nature to perceptual aftereffects that produce a negative image due to overexposure and habituation to a stimulus. Each experiment tested critical predictions that come from including habituation in a dynamic neural network with multiple levels of processing. The success of this account in explaining the dynamics of repetition priming, associative-semantic priming, and forward masking effects suggests that habituation is a useful mechanism for reducing source confusion between successively presented stimuli. Implications are considered for visible persistence, repetition blindness, attention-based negative priming, attentional blink, inhibition of return, the negative compatibility effect, affect priming, and flanker preview effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Picture fragment completion: Priming in the pigeon.

It has been suggested that the system behind implicit memory in humans is evolutionarily old and that animals should readily show priming. In Experiment 1, a picture fragment completion test was used to test priming in pigeons. After pecking a warning stimulus, pigeons were shown 2 partially obscured pictures from different categories and were always reinforced for choosing a picture from one of the categories. On control trials, the warning stimulus was a picture of some object (not from the S+ or S– category), on study trials the warning stimulus was a picture to be categorized on the next trial, and on test trials the warning stimulus was a randomly chosen picture and the S+ picture was the warning stimulus seen on the previous trial. Categorization was better on study and test trials than on control trials. Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that the priming effect was caused by the pigeons' responding to familiarity by using warning stimuli from both S+ and S– categories. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of the priming effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic interference effects on naming using a postcue procedure: Tapping the links between semantics and phonology with pictures and words.

Five experiments are reported in which a new technique for assessing the processes involved in mapping semantic representations onto name information in simple naming tasks was used. This technique, the postcue naming procedure, requires participants to name 1 of 2 potential target stimuli after they receive a relevant selection cue. Naming performance is slowed when the 2 potential targets are semantically related, relative to when they are unrelated. Effects on picture and word targets are of equal magnitude, providing these 2 types of stimulus are intermingled in the experiment. When words are presented alone, semantic interference is abolished (although evidence for lexical processing of words can be demonstrated). The effect on picture naming is also eliminated when the interfering stimulus has to be categorized rather than named. These results suggest that the locus of the interference is in the processes mapping semantic information onto names. These processes seem to be shared by pictures and words when the semantic processing of words is induced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)