Long-Term Positive and Negative Identity Priming: Evidence for Episodic Retrieval
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Memory & Cognition 1998.26 (3),435-443 Long-term positive and negative identity priming: Evidence for episodic retrieval DOUG LOWE Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada An episodic retrieval account of negative priming (Neill, 1997;Neill & Valdes, 1992)was evaluated in three experiments. Duringpractice, regular word pairs were presented to subjects differing num bers 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 thatthe words had been attended. Test responses for distractor words exhibited either positive priming (Experi ment 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 deter mined by several contextual similarities between the practice environment, in which distractors were ignored initially, and the test environments, in which they were processed subsequently. Neg ative 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. The deployment ofselective attention permits subjects (1985) termed transfer effects ofthis type negativepriming to respond optimally to target aspects ofstimulation while (NP). Subsequent research has shown the wide applica ignoring distractor aspects. There is now substantial evi bility ofNP to a broad range ofstimuli and tasks (see Fox, dence that selectingfor, or facilitation of, target information 1995; Houghton & Tipper, 1994; May, Kane, & Hasher, entails selecting against, or inhibition of, distractor infor 1995; Neill, Valdes, & Terry, 1995, for reviews). mation. Distractor inhibition has been inferred from the In considering the meaning ofNp' Neill (1977) specu findings ofpriming procedures during which the distractor lated that inhibition ofdistractor representations resulted item for a leading, or priming, stimulus becomes the tar in reduction oftheir activation below base levels. The "de get item for a trailing, or probe, stimulus. According to the activated" representations lingered into the probe trial, and logic ofthe procedure, ignoring an item by means ofits in performance was impaired because the appropriate re hibition on the prime trial will make the same item diffi sponses were temporarily unavailable. Neumann and De cult to process on the subsequent probe trial. Schepper (1991) proposed that inhibition resulted in a raised Dalrymple-Alford and Budayr (1966) first demonstrated threshold ofactivation for distractor representations. Tipper a distractor inhibition effect in a list ofStroop (1935) color and Cranston (1985) subsequently modified Neill's (1977) words. When each distractor color word in the list named proposal by arguing that inhibited representations re the next ink color, color-naming responses were slower and mained activated, but were "blocked" from access to re less accurate than when adjacent color wordswere unrelated. sponse mechanisms. However,to come full circle, Houghton Neill (1977) confirmed the finding in a discrete trials ver and Tipper (1994) proposed that, at prime offset, there are sion ofthe task, and made the important interpretation that negative levels ofactivation for distractor representations. the distractor representations for the prime had been se Clearly, there are shifting opinions on the meaning ofNP. lectively inhibited. To contrast the processing impairment Yet despite this absence ofa theoretical consensus, the for ignored stimuli with the facilitated processing, or pos different accounts agree that the direction ofNP effects is itive priming (PP), produced for attended stimuli, Tipper temporally "forward" from the prime, via lingering persis tence ofa weakened distractor representation, into the probe trial. Recent findings, however, suggest that NP may nei ther index selective processing ofthe prime, nor reflect ac This research was conducted from 1986 to 1989 while the author was funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of tive inhibition ofthe distractor. Canada (Grant AO 284), I am indebted to Mike Masson, Bruce Milliken, While investigating the duration of'Nl; Neill and his col Tramm Neill, and Bruce Whittlesea for many insightful comments on an leagues (Neill & Valdes, 1992; Neill, Valdes, Terry,& Gor earlier version ofthis manuscript. Correspondence should be addressed fein, 1992) discovered that although NP can last up to sev to D. Lowe, Department ofPsychology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON. Canada K9J 7B8 (e-mail: [email protected]). eral seconds, the dissipation ofNP was greatly reduced when the temporal interval between the response to the prime and -Accepted by previous editor, Geoffrey R. Loftus the onset ofthe probe matched the interval that preceded 435 Copyright 1998 Psychonomic Society, Inc. 436 LOWE the prime. In contrast, when the intervals surrounding the retrieved from memory before they can be provided by the prime were not constant, greater dissipation ofNP was ob algorithm. served (see also Hasher, Zacks, Stolzfus, Kane, & Con To apply the theory to NP, Neill and Valdes (1992) ar nelly, 1996; Neill, 1997). Since events preceding the gued that information about ignored events is also en prime affect the duration ofNP, it cannot be assumed that coded into memory; presumably, in the NP task, attributes probe performance is a direct index of selective process for the prime distractor are coded as "to-be-ignored" or ing ofthe prime or the activation state ofdistractor repre "nonreportable." Presentation of ignored items as probe sentations. Moreover, the observation that NP is affected targets cues retrieval ofthe priming episodes, and perfor by events that surround the prime and possibly by events mance is impaired because of interference between the that surround the probe suggests that NP may be deter available"response" and the retrieved"nonresponse" attrib mined by broader types ofprime-probe relationships be utes that are concurrently associated with the target. yond those involving prime distractors and probe targets. Alternatively, the distractor having been ignored, it may Toaccount for their findings, Neill (Neill & Valdes, 1992; be that no response information for the distractor gets Neill et aI., 1992) attributed NP to memory retrieval ofthe stored, and responses may be delayed because there is no priming episode, during which the probe target was ig appropriate response information available. By this ac nored. Baddeley's (1976) proposal that the success ofre count, NP depends on the differential processing of tar trieving an episode depends on its temporal discriminabil gets and distractors during selective attention to the prime. ity from other episodic memories explains the near identity However, in contrast to the logic ofthe priming procedure, ofNP at constant short and long intervals. When applied the direction of NP is temporally "backward" when the to the NP task, temporal discriminability of the priming probe cues retrieval ofmemory for past processing ofthe episodewould depend on the ratio ofthe most recent prime distractor. Accordingly, the processing impairments dur probe delay to the delay between the prime and previous ing NP trials do not reflect distractor inhibition during se trials. When the current prime-probe delay is short, and the lective attention to the prime. interval before the prime is long, the probability of re Despite its apparent promise, Logan's (1988) theory trieving the priming episode is high, yielding NP. Con may be problematic when applied to the NP task. Typical versely,when the current prime-probe interval is long, and NP studies use a few stimuli that are balanced to serve the delay before the prime is short, the probability ofre equally as targets and distractors and that are presented re trieving the priming episode is low, yielding reduced NP. peatedly throughout the experiment. Malley and Strayer When the intervals surrounding the prime are constant, (1995) have shown that NP is stimulus specific, restricted despite their durations, the ratio is the same. Consequently, to highly familiar stimuli experienced before. They found there is equal discriminability of the priming episodes, that NP occurred only when an ignored distractor was a and retrieval probability is unaffected, yielding equal de stimulus that had been repeated often throughout the ex grees of NP. More recently, Neill (1997) has directly periment. Pp, and not NP, occurred when a distractor was shown the importance oftemporal discriminability for re novel and had not been experienced before the prime. trieval ofthe priming episode, and for NP. By manipulat Thus, when the same stimuliare used repeatedly through ing the target-distractor onset interval for both prime and out the experiment, in principle, on any given NP probe probe trials, it was shown that NP was dependent on the trial, a retrieved episode could contain the "reportable" at identity ofdistractor onset conditions between primes and tribute as often as it contained the "nonreportable" attribute.