Dual mechanisms of negative priming.

Abstract

Three experiments examined whether negative priming is a dually determined effect produced by inhibitory mechanisms and by a memorial process. Younger adults (Experiment 1) and older adults (Experiments 1-3) were tested in procedures that varied the likelihood of inducing retrieval of the prior trial. This was done by making test-trial target decoding difficult (Experiments 1 & 2) or by making prior information useful on some nonnegative priming trials (Experiment 3). Younger adults demonstrated negative priming under retrieval and nonretrieval conditions, with patterns of performance indicating different sources of negative priming effects. Older adults showed negative priming only under retrieval-inducing conditions, consistent with the view of deficient inhibitory mechanisms for older adults. The data suggest that contextual variables critically determine whether negative priming is largely due to inhibition or to episodic retrieval.As evidenced by two recent volumes dedicated entirely to inhibitory theories of attention, memory, and language (Dagenbach & Carr, 1994a;Dempster & Brainerd, 1995), the role of inhibition in cognitive functioning is a current focus of investigation in mainstream psychology. Indeed, inhibitory mechanisms are now a prominent explanatory construct in a number of cognitive domains, including selective attention (e.g

Similar behaviour, different brain patterns: Age-related changes in neural signatures of ignoring

“…In this paradigm, a previously ignored item is responded to more slowly and less accurately when it subsequently becomes a target (May et al, 1995). This is attributed to the carry-over to the following trial of suppression applied to a distracter on the preceding trial, older adults may thus have weaker suppression of irrelevant distracters (Kane et al, 1997;Milliken et al, 1998). Third, whilst for young adults, activation in sensory regions for attended items increases and to ignored items decreases (compared to a neutral baseline), older adults show only the increases in activation for attended items (Gazzaley et al, 2005a,b).…”

Threat processing in obsessive-compulsive disorder: Evidence from a modified negative priming task

“…There is a large body of research establishing the NP effect (Dalrymple-Alford & Budayr, 1966;Neill, 1977;Tipper, 1985; for reviews, see Fox, 1995;May, Kane, & Hasher, 1995;Kane, May, Hasher, Rahhal, & Stoltzfus, 1997;Tipper, 2001). However, disagreements over interpretation of the finding persist (e.g., Frings & Wentura, 2006;MacLeod, Chiappe, & Fox, 2002;Tipper, 2001).…”

Distractors of low activation can produce negative priming

“…Kane et al (1997) and May et al (1995) proposed a dual-mechanism account and stated that there are two sources of negative priming: inhibition and memory retrieval, either of which can lead to negative priming. When the list context contains novel items, memory retrieval is not instigated, because it provides little utility for novel items.…”

“…Kane, May, Hasher, Rahhal, and Stoltzfus (1997) used perceptually degraded probe targets to encourage memory retrieval and observed a larger negative priming effect. Thus, the magnitude of negative priming can be enhanced when the test context encourages processing of the probe target by memory retrieval.…”