Context-specific control and the Stroop negative priming effect

Abstract

The present study highlights the utility of context-specific learning for different probe types in accounting for the commonly observed dependence of negative priming on probe selection. Using a Stroop priming procedure, Experiments 1a and 1b offered a demonstration that Stroop priming effects can differ qualitatively for selection and no-selection probes when probe selection is manipulated between subjects, but not when it is manipulated randomly from trial to trial within subject (see also Moore, 1994). In Experiments 2 and 3, selection and no-selection probes served as two contexts that varied randomly from trial to trial, but for which proportion repeated was manipulated separately. A context-specific proportion repeated effect was observed in Experiment 2, characterized by modest quantitative shifts in the repetition effects as a function of the context-specific proportion repeated manipulation. However, with a longer intertrial interval in Experiment 3, a context-specific proportion repeated manipulation that focused on the no-selection probes changed the repetition effect qualitatively, from negative priming when the proportion repeated was .25 to positive priming when the proportion repeated was .75. The results are discussed with reference to the role of rapid, context-specific learning processes in the integration of prior experiences with current perception and action.

Keywords:

• Negative priming
• Context
• Attention
• Memory

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by an NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Discovery Grant awarded to B.M. We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Notes

¹ Several sets of data from other experiments in our lab (including the 25/75 group in Experiment 2) converge on the conclusion that the context-specific proportion repeated manipulation on its own, with the relatively short intertrial interval used in Experiments 1a, 1b, and 2, will not produce opposite repetition effects for selection and no-selection probes. Across these experiments, 52 participants have been tested, in all of whom the proportion repeated was .25 for Stroop probes and .75 for coloured rectangle probes, and the mean repetition effect for the coloured rectangle probes was –2 ms.