title: A habituation account of change detection in same/different judgments.
abstract: We investigated the basis of change detection in a short-term priming task. In two experiments, participants were asked to indicate whether or not a target word was the same as a previously presented cue. Data from an experiment measuring magnetoencephalography failed to find different patterns for "same" and "different" responses, consistent with the claim that both arise from a common neural source, with response magnitude defining the difference between immediate novelty versus familiarity. In a behavioral experiment, we tested and confirmed the predictions of a habituation account of these judgments by comparing conditions in which the target, the cue, or neither was primed by its presentation in the previous trial. As predicted, cue-primed trials had faster response times, and target-primed trials had slower response times relative to the neither-primed baseline. These results were obtained irrespective of response repetition and stimulus-response contingencies. The behavioral and brain activity data support the view that detection of change drives performance in these tasks and that the underlying mechanism is neuronal habituation.
authors: Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, UK. eddy.davelaar@gmail.com
authors: Eddy J
authors: EJ
authors: Davelaar
authors: Xing
authors: X
authors: Tian
authors: Christoph T
authors: CT
authors: Weidemann
authors: David E
authors: DE
authors: Huber
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult