The locus and modulation of the location negative priming effect

Abstract

Responding to the location of a target is slower when it appears at a recent distractor location [ignored-repetition (IR) trial] than when it arises at a new position [control (CO) trial], defining the location negative priming (NP) effect. On IR trials, both the distractor location and response are from the prior trial, and the locus question asks whether the delayed responding that arises is caused by the reused distractor position (i.e., a location locus) or the need to execute a distractor output (i.e., a response locus). A location NP procedure was used, incorporating a many:1 location-to-response mapping design, along with a response cue on some trials. A response locus for the location NP effect was indicated. Distractor-turned-target responses took longer to initiate than new outputs (many:1 paradigm), and valid response cues reduced distractor response interference and the location NP effect. Importantly, a possible S-R compatibility problem within the many:1 S-R paradigm was not supported.

Target localization among concurrent sound sources: No evidence for the inhibition of previous distractor responses

“…Comparing response control with control trials revealed that the need to execute a prior distractor response did not affect response latency. This result contradicts the prediction derived from the response inhibition account that has been put forward to explain visual spatial negative priming Guy & Buckolz, 2007;Guy et al, 2006).…”

“…To test the response inhibition account of spatial negative priming, Buckolz et al (2004;for replications, see Fitzgeorge, Buckolz, & Khan, 2011;Guy & Buckolz, 2007;Guy, Buckolz, & Khan, 2006) isolated the influence of reexecuting a previously irrelevant response in a spatial negative priming task by modifying the location-response assignment. Participants had to locate a dark blue rectangle by manually pressing a locationassigned response key while ignoring a light blue distractor rectangle.…”

The negative priming paradigm: An update and implications for selective attention

“…Neill, 2007). In particular, in spatial NP tasks, NP can be found even when targets and distractors are presented with a spatial separation of up to 12°of visual angle (Chao & Yeh, 2005; see also Guy & Buckolz, 2007, for evidence showing that targetdistractor distance seems to play no role in spatial NP), whereas in identity NP tasks, NP usually starts to diminish when the target and distractor are separated by no more than 3°of visual angle (e.g., Fox, 1994;Ruthruff & Miller, 1995). In addition, in identity NP tasks, the selection of a target object in the prime displays often seems to be a precondition for NP to occur (though, see Joordens et al, 2006, for an exception; see also the work by Milliken and colleagues, 1998) whereas, in spatial NP tasks, no selection of a target location is needed for NP to occur (Guy, Buckolz, & Pratt, 2004;Park & Kanwisher, 1994).…”

Spatial and identity negative priming in audition: Evidence of feature binding in auditory spatial memory

“…This finding can be exclusively explained by assuming distractor location inhibition or the retrieval of inconsistent prime episode information attached to the previous distractor location. What is more, feature mismatching is frequently regarded to be an irrelevant or, at most, a very subordinate factor in visuospatial negative priming, which is indicated by the fact that many recent visuospatial priming studies have not even excluded or controlled feature mismatching as an explanation of their spatial priming effects (Buckolz, Avramidis, & Fitzgeorge, 2008;Buckolz et al, 2004;Gibbons, 2006;Guy & Buckolz, 2007;Guy, Buckolz, & Khan, 2006;Guy, Buckolz, & Pratt, 2004). It has been assumed that a process that detects mismatching features between the current probe target and the previous prime distractor object comes into play only under very specific circumstances that have not been investigated thoroughly Tipper et al, 1995).…”