Facilitating and inhibiting effects of priming and selection criteria in a sequence of dichotic listening trials

Abstract

Competing models of attention make different predictions of how priming from recent stimulus processing could interact with intended selection. The present experiment examined the interaction between exogenous attention and endogenous priming across trial sequences. A sound cue directed attention to left, right or both sides before a dichotic syllable pair was presented. Participants were asked to report one syllable from each trial. Results showed that responses were slower on trials where one of the presented syllables had also been presented on the previous trial. Within these trials, the repeated syllable was selected less frequently, and the responses doing so were slower. Examined according to response choice on the preceding trial, syllables that had been ignored on the preceding trial tended to be ignored on the current trial (negative priming), while syllables that had been selected on the preceding trial tended to be selected on the current trial (positive priming). Responses that followed these selection biases were faster than responses that did not. Response selection was also influenced by the attention direction cue for the current trial, but not by the cue presented on the preceding trial. The results support an attentional model where traces from the preceding processing are retained, and current selection is biased to minimize cognitive conflict between recent and current processing. Negative priming appears to be due to after-effects of preceding processing, independently of the intentions behind that processing. The study accounts for positive and negative priming of dichotic listening sequences within an established, computationally viable biased competition framework.

Proactive and reactive sequential effects on selective attention

“…Research on trial-to-trial modulation of responses has shown that subtle changes in a task context or task behavior can influence subsequent response times, response choices and activated brain regions (Saetrevik & Specht, 2009, 2012Weissman, Roberts, Visscher, & Woldorff, 2006). There are converging findings from different experimental settings, including task switching (Kiesel et al, 2010;Monsell, 2003;Yeung, Nystrom, Aronson, & Cohen, 2006), negative priming (de Fockert, Mizon, & D'Ubaldo, 2010;Egner & Hirsch, 2005) and conflict adaptation (Danielmeier & Ullsperger, 2011;King, Korb, von Cramon, & Ullsperger, 2010;Ullsperger, Bylsma, & Botvinick, 2005), although the exact mechanisms might vary across paradigms.…”

“…To account for sequential effects, it may be assumed that cognitive control's network modulation endures after the initial processing is complete, so that network weights are retained at the onset of new stimuli, and thus influence the baseline for further processing (Saetrevik, 2012). In more detail, the sequential effect may instantiate through proactive mechanisms, reactive mechanisms or a combination of the two.…”