An imagery-induced reversal of intertrial priming in visual search.

Abstract

Maljkovic and Nakayama (1994) found that pop-out search performance is more efficient when a singleton target feature repeats rather than switches from 1 trial to the next-an effect known as priming of pop-out (PoP). They also reported findings indicating that the PoP effect is strongly automatic, as it was unaffected by knowledge of the upcoming target color. In the present study, we examined the impact of visual imagery on the PoP effect. Participants were instructed to imagine a target color that was opposite that of the preceding trial (e.g., if the prior target was red, then imagine green). Under these conditions, responses were faster for targets that matched the imagined color than for targets that matched the previous target color, reversing the typical PoP effect. There was no such reversal of the PoP effect for participants asked to verbalize rather than imagine an upcoming target color. In Experiment 3, we explored whether the PoP effect was indeed eliminated in the prior experiments, or instead obscured by the opposing visual imagery effect. Two conditions were compared, 1 in which a PoP effect could oppose the visual imagery effect, and another in which no such effect was possible, allowing inferences about whether a PoP effect was present. The results indicated that the PoP effect was present, but obscured by the larger visual imagery strategy effect that pushed performance in the opposite direction. Overall, the results suggest that the PoP effect is sensitive to top-down strategies that involve visual representations. (PsycINFO Database Record

Imagined event files: An interplay between imagined and perceived objects

“…In some ways, this finding fits with the literature, and in other ways not. Prior studies have shown that verbal representations sometimes have only a modest influence on visual search performance (Cochrane, Nwabuike, Thomson, & Milliken, 2018a;Theeuwes, Reimann, & Mortier, 2006). On the other hand, there are also theoretical accounts that posit semantic information is represented in the same brain networks that represent perceptual information (Amsel, Urbach, & Kutas, 2014;Barsalou, 2008;Tomasello et al, 2017).…”

“…If vision and visual imagery have common underlying representations (Ishai et al, 1999;Kosslyn, Thompson, & Ganis, 2006;O'Craven & Kanwisher, 2000), then it seems possible that event file binding could occur for representations that support visual imagery. In line with this idea, several recent studies have shown that visual imagery can influence visual search (Cochrane, Nwabuike, Thomson, & Milliken, 2018a;Cochrane, Zhu, & Milliken, 2018b;Reinhart, McClenahan & Woodman, 2015), binocular rivalry (Chang, Lewis, & Pearson, 2013), and visual identification (Wantz, Borst, Mast, & Lobmaier, 2015; though see Cochrane, Siddhpuria, & Milliken, 2018c). Together, the theory of event encoding and the empirical work cited above constitute a solid basis for examining whether representations that support visual imagery can contribute to event file binding.…”

Re-examining Maljkovic and Nakayama (1994): Conscious expectancy does affect the Priming of Pop-out effect

“…Given the potential shortfalls in Maljkovic and Nakayama (1994) and the recent contradictory findings (Cochrane, Nwabuike, et al, 2018;Shurygina et al, 2019), we reexamined the conclusion that conscious expectancy does not influence the PoP effect by replicating the original study. Specifically, the two experiments of the present study evaluated whether the knowledge of the probability of a color change and vocalizing the upcoming target color produced the same results as those reported by Maljkovic and Nakayama's second and fourth experiments, respectively.…”

“…Recent findings cast further doubt on the conclusions of Maljkovic and Nakayama (1994). One such study investigated whether color imagery could override the PoP effect (Cochrane, Nwabuike, Thomson, & Milliken, 2018; see also Cochrane, Zhu, & Milliken, 2018). Participants performed a color singleton search task similar to that described previously.…”

Keeping it real: Looking beyond capacity limits in visual cognition

“…Similar to attentional performance, VWM is influenced by recent experiential history (Carlisle & Kristjánsson, 2018 ; Cochrane, Nwabuike, Thomson, & Milliken, 2018 ; Cunningham & Egeth, 2016 ; Kristjánsson, Saevarsson, & Driver, 2013 ). For example, Carlisle and Kristjánsson et al ( 2018 ) showed how priming and WM can affect one another and argued that implicit short-term memory and explicit VWM interact when they provide conflicting attentional instructions.…”