What determines the direction of subliminal priming

• Authors: Piotr Jaśkowski , Rolf Verleger

Abstracts

EN

Masked stimuli (primes) can affect the preparation of a motor response to subsequently presented target stimuli. Reactions to the target can be facilitated (straight priming) or inhibited (inverse priming) when preceded by a compatible prime (calling for the same response) and also when preceded by an incompatible prime. Several hypotheses are currently under debate. These are the self-inhibition (SI) hypothesis, the object-updating (OU) hypothesis, and mask-triggered inhibition (MTI) hypothesis. All assume that the initial activation of the motor response is elicited by the prime according to its identity. This activation inevitably leads to straight priming in some cases and the mechanisms involved are undisputed. The hypotheses differ, however, as to why inverse priming occurs. The self-inhibition (SI) hypothesis assumes that the motor activation elicited by a prime is automatically followed by an inhibition phase, leading to inverse priming if three conditions are fulfilled: perceptual evidence for the prime has to be sufficiently strong, it has to be immediately removed by the mask, and the delay between the prime and target has to be long enough for inhibition to become effective. The object-updating (OU) hypothesis assumes that inverse priming is triggered by the mask, provided that it contains features calling for the alternative response (i.e. the one contrasting with the response induced by the prime). The MTI hypothesis assumes that the inhibitory phase is triggered by each successive stimulus which does not support the perceptual hypothesis provided by the prime. Based mostly on our own experiments, we argue that (1) attempts to manipulate the three factors required by the SI hypothesis imply changes of other variables and that (2) indeed, other variables seem to affect priming: prime-mask perceptual interaction and temporal position of the mask. These observations are in favor of the MTI hypothesis. A limiting factor for all three hypotheses is that inverse priming is larger for arrows than for other shapes, making it doubtful as to what extent the majority of studies on inverse priming, due to their use of arrows, can be generalized to other stimuli.

Keywords

EN

subliminal priming; inverse and straight priming; backward masking

• Publisher: Wyższa Szkoła Finansów i Zarządzania w Warszawie
• Journal: Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 181-192

Contributors

author

Piotr Jaśkowski

• Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Finance and Management, Warszawa, Poland

author

Rolf Verleger

• Department of Neurology, University of Luebeck, Germany

References

• Breitmeyer, B. G., Öğmen, H., Ramon, J., & Chen, J. (2005). Unconscious and conscious priming by forms and their parts.Visual Cognition, 12, 720-736.
• Breitmeyer, B. G., Ro, T., & Singhal, N. S. (2004). Unconscious color priming occurs at stimulus- not percept-dependent levels of processing.Psychological Science, 15, 198-202.[PubMed]
• Burle, B., Bonnet, M., Vidal, F., Possamai, C.-A., & Hasbroucq, T. (2002). A transcranial magnetic stimulation study of information processing in the motor cortex: Relationship between the silent period and the reaction time delay.Psychophysiology, 39, 207-217.[PubMed]
• Dehaene, S., Naccache, L., Cohen, L., Le Bihan, D., Mangin, J.-F., Poline, J.-B., & Riviére, D. (2001). Cerebral mechanisms of word masking and unconscious repetition priming.Nature Neuroscience, 4, 752-758.[PubMed]
• Di Lollo, V., & Enns, J. T. (2000). Competition for consciousness among visual events: The psychophysics of reentrant visual processes.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 481-501.[PubMed]
• Draine, S. C., & Greenwald, A. G. (1998). Replicable unconscious semantic priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 286-303.[PubMed]
• Eimer, M. (1999). Facilitatory and inhibitory effects of masked prime stimuli on motor activation and behavioural performance.Acta Psychologica, 101, 293-313.[PubMed]
• Abrams, R. L., & Greenwald, A. G. (2000). Parts outweigh the whole (word) in unconscious analysis of meaning.Psychological Science, 11, 118-124.[PubMed]
• Ansorge, U., Klotz, W., & Neumann, O. (1998). Manual and verbal responses to completely masked (unreportable) stimuli: Exploring some conditions for the metacontrast dissociation.Perception, 27, 1177-1189.[PubMed]
• Ansorge, U., & Neumann, O. (2005). Intentions determine the effect of invisible metacontrast-masked primes: evidence for top-down contingencies in a peripheral cuing task.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31, 762-777.[PubMed]
• Bartlett, N. R., & MacLeod, S. (1954). Effect of flash and field luminance upon human reaction time.Journal of Optical Society of America, 44, 306-311.
• Bowman, H., Schlaghecken, F., & Elmer, M. (2006). A neural network model of inhibitory processes and cognitive control.Visual Cognition, 13, 401-480.
• Breitmeyer, B. G. (1984).Visual masking: An integrative approach.Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press.
• Eimer, M., & Schlaghecken, F. (1998). Effects of masked stimuli on motor activation: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1737-1747.[PubMed]
• Eimer, M., & Schlaghecken, F. (2002). Links between conscious awareness and response inhibition: Evidence from masked priming.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9, 514-520.[PubMed]
• Fehrer, E., & Raab, D. (1962). Reaction time to stimuli masked by metacontrast.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 143-147.[PubMed]
• Fellows, S., Tabaza, R., Heumann, M., Klotz, W., Neumann, O., Schwarz, M., Noth, J., & Töpper, R. (2002). Modification of a functional motor task by not consciously perceived sensory stimuli.NeuroReport, 13, 637-640.
• Jaśkowski, P. (1985). The effect of visual adaptation on simple motor reaction time. Part I.Studia Psychologica, 27, 191-201.
• Jaśkowski, P. (2007). The effect of nonmasking distractors on the priming of motor responses.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 33, 456-468.[PubMed]
• Jaśkowski, P., Białuńska, A., Tomanek, M., & Verleger, R. (in press). Mask- and distractor-triggered inhibitory processes in the priming of motor responses. An EEG study.Psychophysiology.
• Jaśkowski, P., & Przekoracka-Krawczyk, A. (2005). On the role of mask structure in subliminal priming.Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis, 65, 409-417.[PubMed]
• Jaśkowski, P., Skalska, B., & Verleger, R. (2003). How the self controls its "automatic pilot" when processing subliminal information.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 911-920.[PubMed]
• Jaśkowski, P., & Ślósarek, M. (2007). How important is prime's gestalt for subliminal priming?Consciousness and Cognition, 16, 485-497.[PubMed]
• Jaśkowski, P., van der Lubbe, R., Schlotterbeck, E., & Verleger, R. (2002). Traces left on visual selective attention by stimuli that are not consciously identified.Psychological Science, 13, 48-54.[PubMed]
• Kiefer, M., & Spitzer, M. (2000). Time course of conscious and unconscoius semantic brain activation.NeuroReport, 11, 2401-2407.[PubMed]
• Kiesel, A., Kunde, W., & Hoffmann, J. (2007). Mechanisms of subliminal response priming.Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 3, 307-315.http://www.ac-psych.org/index.php?id=2&rok=2007&issue=1-2#article_56
• Klapp, S. T., & Haas, B. W. (2005). Nonconscious influence of masked stimuli on response selection is limited to concrete stimulus-response associations.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31, 173-209.[PubMed]
• Klapp, S. T., & Hinkley, L. B. (2002). The negative compatibility effect: Unconscious inhibition influences reaction time and response selection.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131, 255-269.[PubMed]
• Klotz, W., & Neumann, O. (1999). Motor activation without conscious discrimination in metacontrast masking.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25, 976-992.
• Klotz, W., & Wolff, P. (1995). The effect of a masked stimulus on the response to the masking stimulus.Psychological Research, 58, 92-101.[PubMed]
• Kunde, W., Kiesel, A., & Hoffmann, J. (2003). Conscious control over the content of unconscious cognition.Cognition, 88, 223-242.[PubMed]
• Leuthold, H., & Kopp, B. (1998). Mechanisms of priming by masked stimuli: Inferences from event-related brain potentials.Psychological Science, 9, 263-269.
• Lingnau, A., & Vorberg, D. (2005). The time course of response inhibition in masked priming.Perception & Psychophysics, 67, 545-557.[PubMed]
• Lleras, A., & Enns, J. T. (2004). Negative compatibility or object updating? A cautionary tale of mask-dependent priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 475-493.[PubMed]
• Lleras, A., & Enns, J. T. (2005). Updating a cautionary tale of masked priming: A reply to Klapp (2005).Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134, 436-440.
• Lleras, A., & Enns, J. T. (2006). How much like a target can a mask be? Geometric, spatial, and temporal similarity in priming. A reply to Schlaghecken and Eimer (2006).Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135, 495-500.[PubMed]
• Mansfield, R. J. W. (1973). Latency function in human vision.Vision Research, 13, 2219-2234.[PubMed]
• Mattler, U. (2003). Priming of mental operation by masked stimuli.Perception & Psychophysics, 65, 167-187.
• Mattler, U. (2005). Inhibition and decay of motor and nonmotor priming.Perception & Psychophysics, 67, 285-300.[PubMed]
• Neumann, O. (1990). Direct parameter specification and the concept of perception.Psychological Research, 52, 207-215.[PubMed]
• Neumann, O., & Klotz, W. (1994). Motor responses to nonreportable, masked stimuli: Where is the limit of direct parameter specification? In C. Umiltá & M. Moscovitch (Eds.),Conscious and unconscious information processing(pp. 123-150). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Praamstra, P., Boutsen, L., & Humphreys, G. W. (2005). Frontoparietal control of spatial attention and motor intention in human EEG.Journal of Neurophysiology, 94, 764-774.[PubMed]
• Praamstra, P., & Seiss, E. (2005). The neurophysiology of response competition: Motor cortex activation and inhibition following subliminal response priming.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 483-493.[PubMed]
• Schlaghecken, F., & Eimer, M. (2000). A central-peripheral asymmetry in masked priming.Perception & Psychophysics, 62, 1367-1382.[PubMed]
• Schlaghecken, F., & Eimer, M. (2002). Motor activation with and without inhibition: Evidence for a threshold mechanism in motor control.Perception & Psychophysics, 64, 148-162.[PubMed]
• Schlaghecken, F., & Eimer, M. (2006). Active masks and active inhibition: A comment on Lleras and Enns (2004) and on Verleger, Jaśkowski, Aydemir, van der Lubbe, and Groen (2004).Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135, 484-494.[PubMed]
• Schlaghecken, F., Rowley, L., Sembi, S., Simmons, R., & Whitcomb, D. (2007). The negative compatibility effect: A case for self-inhibition.Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 3, 227-240.http://www.ac-psych.org/index.php?id=2&rok=2007&issue=1-2#article_51
• Sumner, P. (2007). Negative and positive masked-priming - implications for motor inhibition.Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 3, 275-287.http://www.ac-psych.org/index.php?id=2&rok=2007&issue=1-2#article_57
• Verleger, R., Ewers, T., & Jaśkowski, P. (submitted). On the special role of arrow-masked arrows as flankers: Inverse priming depends on types of stimuli and of masks.
• Verleger, R., Görgen, S., & Jaśkowski, P. (2005). An ERP indicator of processing relevant gestalts in masked priming.Psychophysiology, 41, 677-690.[PubMed]
• Verleger, R., Jaśkowski, P., Aydemir, A., Van der Lubbe, R. H. J., & Groen, M. (2004). Qualitative differences between conscious and non-conscious processing? On negative and positive priming effects induced by masked arrows.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 494-515.[PubMed]
• Verleger, R., Vollmer, C., Wauschkuhn, B., & Wascher, E. (2000). Dimensional overlap between arrows as cueing stimuli and responses? Evidence from contraipsilateral differences in EEG potentials.Cognitive Brain Research, 10, 99-109.[PubMed]
• Vidal, F., Grapperon, J., Bonnet, M., & Hasbroucq, T. (2003). The nature of unilateral motor commands in between-hand choice tasks as revealed by surface Laplacian estimation.Psychophysiology, 40, 796-805.[PubMed]
• Vorberg, D. (2005, April).Ist Hemung oder Bahnung die Grundlage des umgekehrten Priming-Effekte?[Does inhibition or facilitation underlie the inverse priming effect?]. Paper presented at the 47th Congress of Experimental Psychology. Regensburg, Germany.
• Wascher, E., Reinhard, M., Wauschkuhn, B., & Verleger, R. (1999). Spatial S-R compatibity with centrally presented stimuli: An event-related asymmetry study on dimensional overlap.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11, 214-229.[PubMed]

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10053-008-0024-1