Effects of Semantic Congruence on Negative Priming
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2014-09-26
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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The human attentional system can be used to both facilitate and inhibit the processing of environmental information. The current study investigated the inhibitory mechanism known as negative priming, whereby something previously ignored in the environment slows subsequent processing of a related item (e.g., ignoring a dog results in slower subsequent processing of a leash). Laboratory demonstrations involved presenting two superimposed pictures (in different colors) and required participants to name one of the pictures. In subsequent trials, naming latencies for pictures that are related to items that had previously been ignored are slower. Here, the semantic relationship between the ignored and target images in a given trial was systematically manipulated such that it was intended to either have no bearing on the next trial (control), increase naming latency (negative priming), or decrease naming latencies (mitigation). In theory, a semantic relationship between a target and an ignored picture in the same trial should eliminate or at least mitigate negative priming because a semantic category cannot be negatively primed within the same trial that it is activated for selection. Partial support for this hypothesis was found, with naming latencies for the negative priming mitigation condition being significantly shorter than the negative priming condition. However, and unexpectedly, the negative priming condition also lead to shortened response latencies when compared with the control condition. These results are discussed in relation to current theories on attentional priming and inhibition.
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Negative priming, semantic congruence, cognitive sciences
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iv, 25 pages
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