Wolkersdorfer Maximilian P, Panis Sven, Schmidt Thomas
Faculty of Social Sciences, Experimental Psychology Unit, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Str. Geb. 57, D-67663, Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2020 Jul;82(5):2581-2602. doi: 10.3758/s13414-020-02010-5.
In response priming experiments, a participant has to respond as quickly and as accurately as possible to a target stimulus preceded by a prime. The prime and the target can either be mapped to the same response (consistent trial) or to different responses (inconsistent trial). Here, we investigate the effects of two sequential primes (each one either consistent or inconsistent) followed by one target in a response priming experiment. We employ discrete-time hazard functions of response occurrence and conditional accuracy functions to explore the temporal dynamics of sequential motor activation. In two experiments (small-N design, 12 participants, 100 trials per cell and subject), we find that (1) the earliest responses are controlled exclusively by the first prime if primes are presented in quick succession, (2) intermediate responses reflect competition between primes, with the second prime increasingly dominating the response as its time of onset is moved forward, and (3) only the slowest responses are clearly controlled by the target. The current study provides evidence that sequential primes meet strict criteria for sequential response activation. Moreover, it suggests that primes can influence responses out of a memory buffer when they are presented so early that participants are forced to delay their responses.
在反应启动实验中，参与者必须尽可能快速且准确地对启动刺激之后呈现的目标刺激做出反应。启动刺激和目标刺激可以映射到相同的反应（一致试验），也可以映射到不同的反应（不一致试验）。在此，我们在一项反应启动实验中研究了两个相继的启动刺激（每个启动刺激要么一致要么不一致）之后接一个目标刺激的效应。我们采用反应发生的离散时间风险函数和条件准确性函数来探究相继运动激活的时间动态。在两项实验中（小样本设计，12名参与者，每个单元格和受试者进行100次试验），我们发现：（1）如果启动刺激相继快速呈现，最早的反应完全由第一个启动刺激控制；（2）中间的反应反映了启动刺激之间的竞争，随着第二个启动刺激开始时间的提前，其对反应的主导作用越来越大；（3）只有最慢的反应明显由目标刺激控制。当前的研究提供了证据，表明相继的启动刺激符合相继反应激活的严格标准。此外，研究表明，当启动刺激呈现得非常早以至于参与者被迫延迟反应时，启动刺激可以影响来自记忆缓冲器的反应。
