Effects of dividing attention during encoding on perceptual priming of unfamiliar visual objects

Abstract

According to the distractor-selection hypothesis (Mulligan, 2003), dividing attention during encoding reduces perceptual priming when responses to non-critical (i.e., distractor) stimuli are selected frequently and simultaneously with critical stimulus encoding. Because direct support for this hypothesis comes exclusively from studies using familiar word stimuli, the present study tested whether the predictions of the distractor-selection hypothesis extend to perceptual priming of unfamiliar visual objects using the possible/impossible object decision test. Consistent with the distractor-selection hypothesis, Experiments 1 and 2 found no reduction in priming when the non-critical stimuli were presented infrequently and non-synchronously with the critical target stimuli, even though explicit recognition memory was reduced. In Experiment 3, non-critical stimuli were presented frequently and simultaneously during encoding of critical stimuli; however, no decrement in priming was detected, even when encoding time was reduced. These results suggest that priming in the possible/impossible object decision test is relatively immune to reductions in central attention and that not all aspects of the distractor-selection hypothesis generalise to priming of unfamiliar visual objects. Implications for theoretical models of object decision priming are discussed.

Keywords:

• Perceptual priming
• Possible and impossible figures
• Divided attention
• Unfamiliar objects

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by a National Institute on Aging grant RO1 AG16714 to Yaakov Stern and Lynn A. Cooper, a National Institute of Mental Health grant R21 066129 to Jennifer A. Mangels and a W. M. Keck Foundation grant to Columbia University (sponsoring J. A. Mangels). This research is part of the doctoral dissertation of Anja Soldan and conducted under the supervision of Jennifer A. Mangels and Lynn A. Cooper. We thank Tahmid Chowdhury, Mariely Hernandez, and Anna Zubkina for their help in collecting the data, and John H. Hilton and Tomislav Pavlicic for their useful suggestions.