Negative priming

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As negative priming or negative facilitation in which is psychology the slower reaction referred to a previously ignored stimulus. The previous presentation of a stimulus (the primer ) influences the processing time of a subsequent target stimulus (the target ). In contrast to positive priming , the processing of the subsequent stimulus is delayed (positive priming leads to improved processing). In previous rounds, the target stimulus was a distractor stimulus, which the subject should ignore.

The negative priming effect (NPE) has long been considered an important paradigm in attention research, but recently it has also been used in memory research.

discovery

The NPE was discovered in 1966 by Dalrymple-Alford and Budayr in their study of the Stroop effect . In the Stroop test, the test subjects see colored words (e.g. “green”, “red”) that are written in different font colors (e.g. the letters of the word “green” are written in yellow). Dalrymple-Alford and Budayr checked whether test subjects could name the color in which a word was written more slowly if it corresponded to the previously presented color word. The color word, a stimulus to be ignored in the task, is also known as a distractor or disturbance stimulus. It was found that the naming of a color was slower if it corresponded to the distractor word previously presented in the list. Colors whose names had not previously served as a distractor could be named comparatively faster.

Paradigms

Visual negative priming

Tipper demonstrated the NPE in 1985 when using line drawings as stimulus material . The test persons were presented with two superimposed line drawings on a screen. The line drawings represented various nameable objects, such as a rabbit and a flower. The drawing of the target stimulus was shown in red, the drawing of the distractor stimulus in green. Each run consisted of a prime screen and a subsequent sample screen. A target and a distractor stimulus were displayed on the screens. The test subjects' task was to name the target stimulus as quickly as possible. If the target stimulus of the trial run corresponded to the distractor stimulus on the Prime screen, it was found that the naming of the trial target stimulus was slower than in the control runs, in which the target stimulus of the trial run in the prime run did not have to be ignored.

Acoustic negative priming

The NPE is not limited to just one sensory modality. It could also be proven in the acoustic area. Mayr and Buchner, for example, showed this with the following paradigm: The test subjects heard two words presented simultaneously through headphones, but were only asked to pay attention to one word and name it. It turned out that she could not name words that had to be ignored in the previous round as quickly as words that had not been presented in the previous round.

Theoretical models

Distractor Inhibition Theory

The first approach to explaining the NPE is the distractor inhibition theory. It was initially proposed by Neill, but has been revised and expanded over time. Tipper assumes an inhibiting influence of attention processes: During the presentation of two stimuli, a simultaneous analysis of the presented target and distractor stimuli takes place. Internal categorical representations of both stimuli are activated. Only then is the relevant stimulus selected, which is used to select and execute the reaction. The representation of the ignored stimulus is actively inhibited. If the internal representation of a stimulus in the prime passage is associated with inhibition, this built-up inhibition lasts for a certain time. The processing of the same stimulus is then hindered in the following trial run, since the inhibition still present must first be overcome when processing the object. Thus, this model postulates a mechanism that draws attention to a target stimulus by actively inhibiting the distractor. This inhibition process can be observed through the NPE.

Episodic Retrieval Model

Based on Logan's instance theory of automation, Neill and Valdes explain the NPE through memory processes: During the prime run, the stimulus is stored in the memory. In addition, information about the stimulus is saved. For the distractor stimulus, a memory trace is created over the stimulus in the prime passage, which also contains the information that the stimulus is irrelevant. If the same stimulus is presented again in the trial run, it serves as a reference stimulus for the prime run, which also contains the "inhibit" information. This information contradicts the task (namely, not to ignore the stimulus, but to process it). The time that is required to resolve this contradiction is expressed as NPE.

Other models

Other theories that try to explain the NPE are the feature mismatch hypothesis and the temporal discrimination model . However, neither are as influential as the theories detailed above. The models make different predictions that can be empirically investigated. The overview article by Mayr and Buchner gives an overview of the model and its evidence.

Application / current research

Recent research sheds light on how the NPE comes about. Frings and Spence were able to show, for example, that no distractor stimulus is necessary in the trial run to generate an NPE.

As de Fockert, Mizon and D'Ubaldo showed, the NPE levels out with high cognitive control. This suggests that the NPE is dependent on cognitive control resources. The NPE is used as an indicator of executive control functions. A weaker NPE was found in physically active young adults than in those who did not exercise. The authors conclude from these results that physical activity has a positive effect on mental agility and flexibility. The NPE is also used in the clinical-psychological area, often for research into the causes of various mental disorders . For example, no NPE could be found in schizophrenia patients, and they also show a changed neural activation pattern compared to a healthy control group. This indicates that the information processing of schizophrenia patients is already changed at the neuronal level. However, the findings have remained inconsistent, and it has been argued that in some studies people with schizophrenia were penalized by short prime presentation times (100 ms) because their greater slowing would have prevented the NPE from collecting prime information, which is important for the NPE.

The NPE is often seen as an effect of selective attention processes. In order to be able to focus attentively on a certain stimulus, a disturbance (or distractor) stimulus must be inhibited. It is precisely these cognitive processes that are impaired in patients with depression . They pay special attention to negative things and cannot focus their attention on positive things. The same applies to patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder . They pay special attention to their obsessive thoughts or actions and cannot divert their attention away from them. Therefore, the NPE was researched in these patient groups, but so far with inconsistent results.

literature

  • Susanne Mayr, Axel Buchner (2007). Negative Priming as a Memory Phenomenon: A Review of 20 Years of Negative Priming Research. Journal of Psychology, 215 (1), pp. 35-51.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ EC Dalrymple-Alford, B. Budayer (1966) Examination of some aspects of the Stroop Color-Word Test. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 23 (3), pp. 1211-4.
  2. ^ SP Tipper (1985) The negative priming effect: Inhibitory priming by ignored objects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 37A, pp. 571-590.
  3. ^ S. Mayr, & A. Buchner (2006). Evidence for episodic retrieval of inadequate prime responses in auditory negative priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, pp. 932-943.
  4. ^ W. Neill (1977). Inhibition and facilitatory processes in selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 3, pp. 444-450.
  5. ↑ G. Houghton, SP Tipper, B. Weaver, DI Shore (1996). Inhibition and interference in selective attention: Some tests of a neural network model. Visual Cognition, 3, pp. 119-164.
  6. ^ SP Tipper (2001). Does negative priming reflect inhibitory mechanisms? A review and integration of conflicting views. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 54A, pp. 321-343.
  7. ^ DG Logan (1988). Toward an instance theory of automatization. Psychological Review, 95, pp. 492-527.
  8. ^ W. Neill, LA Valdes (1992). Persistence of negative priming: Steady state or decay? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 565-576.
  9. ↑ Susanne Mayr, Axel Buchner (2007). Negative Priming as a Memory Phenomenon: A Review of 20 Years of Negative Priming Research. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 215 (1), pp. 35–51.
  10. ^ Christian Frings, Charles Spence (2011). Increased Perceptual and Conceptual Processing Difficulty Makes the Immeasurable Measurable: Negative Priming in the Absence of Probe Distractors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Volume 37 (1), pp. 72-84.
  11. ↑ Jan W. de Fockert, Guy A. Mizon, Mariangela D'Ubaldo (2010). No Negative Priming Without Cognitive Control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36 (6), pp. 1333-1341.
  12. ^ Keita Kamijo, Yuji Takeda (2009). General physical activity levels influence positive and negative priming effects in young adults. Clinical Neurophysiology, 120 (3), pp. 511-519.
  13. ^ Lida Ungar, Paul G. Nestor, Margaret A. Niznikiewicz, Cynthia G. Wible, Marek Kubicki (2010). Color Stroop and negative priming in schizophrenia: An fMRI study. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 181 (1), pp. 24-29.
  14. ^ S. Moritz, D. Jacobsen, K. Mersmann, M. Kloss, B. Andresen: Negative priming in schizophrenia: no evidence for reduced cognitive inhibition . In: The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease . tape 188 , no. 9 , 2000, pp. 624-627 .
  15. ^ S. Moritz, C. Ruff, U. Wilke, B. Andresen, M. Krausz: Negative priming in schizophrenia: effects of masking and prime presentation time . In: Schizophrenia Research . tape 48 , no. 2-3 , 2001, pp. 291-299 .
  16. ↑ Steffen Moritz, Martin Kloss, Lena Jelinek (2010). Negative priming (cognitive inhibition) in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 41 (1), pp. 1-5.
  17. ↑ Kwok-Keung Leung, Tatia MC Lee, Paul Yip, Leonard SW Li, Michael MC Wong (2009). Selective attention biases of people with depression: Positive and negative priming of depression-related information. Psychiatry Research, 165 (3), pp. 241-251.