title: Influence of probe-trial selection on the location negative priming effect.
abstract: Using the location variant of the typical negative priming procedure, participants were cued (100% reliable) before (Experiment 1) or after (Experiment 2) the prime trial as to whether a distractor would or would not accompany the target on the probe trial. The crucial results were that on cued trials, the predictable absence, produced the removal of the negative priming effect (disengagement), and that this disengagement of the priming process, motivated by the predictable absence of a probe-trial distractor, could take place on-line. These findings demonstrated the "selection-state" dependency (probe trial) of the location negative priming process, supporting inhibition-based and episodic retrieval models in their contention that the ultimate function of this process is to enhance the efficiency of future distractor processing, and hence selection. The disengagement results revealed an adaptive feature of a process that can be detrimental or irrelevant to upcoming processing.
authors.affiliation: Thames Hall, School of Kinesiology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 3K7. ebuckolz@uwo.ca
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Buckolz
authors.forename: Angelo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boulougouris
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D011897:Random Allocation; D013028:Space Perception; D014796:Visual Perception