Anderson R B, Garavan H, Rivardo M G, Chadwick R
Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, OH 43403, USA.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 1997 Sep;96(3):155-66. doi: 10.1016/s0001-6918(97)00013-9.
When subjects select a prime from a visual display while leaving a distractor prime unselected, response time (RT) or response accuracy to a subsequent probe may be impeded if the distractor prime and probe are identical, or if they are related to one another. This phenomenon, negative priming (NP), has obvious implications for understanding perceptual selection. However, it is not known whether NP results from other kinds of selection processes. The present studies were designed to investigate whether NP occurs when primes are selected from working memory rather than from a visual display. In the two experiments, the subjects memorized two primes, selected one prime for further processing, and classified the contents of a probe display. Significant NP occurred in both Experiments. In Experiment 2, however, NP occurred only under easy-selection conditions; the effect was reversed under difficult-selection conditions. The findings indicate a role for NP in memory processing, but contrast with the results from perceptual selection studies showing greater NP under difficult-selection than under easy-selection conditions. The present finding suggests a complex and perhaps strategy-dependent relationship between memory selection difficulty and NP.
当受试者从视觉显示中选择一个启动刺激而不选择干扰启动刺激时，如果干扰启动刺激和探测刺激相同，或者它们彼此相关，那么对随后探测刺激的反应时间（RT）或反应准确性可能会受到阻碍。这种现象，即负启动（NP），对于理解知觉选择具有明显的意义。然而，尚不清楚NP是否源于其他类型的选择过程。本研究旨在调查当从工作记忆而非视觉显示中选择启动刺激时是否会出现NP。在这两个实验中，受试者记住两个启动刺激，选择一个启动刺激进行进一步处理，并对探测显示的内容进行分类。两个实验中均出现了显著的NP。然而，在实验2中，NP仅在容易选择的条件下出现；在困难选择的条件下，这种效应则相反。这些发现表明NP在记忆处理中发挥作用，但与知觉选择研究的结果形成对比，后者显示在困难选择条件下比在容易选择条件下有更大的NP。目前的发现表明记忆选择难度与NP之间存在复杂且可能依赖策略的关系。
