title: Spatial primes produce dissociated inhibitory effects on saccadic latencies and trajectories.
abstract: In masked priming, a briefly presented prime can facilitate or inhibit responses to a subsequent target. In most instances, targets with an associated response that is congruent with the prime direction speed up reaction times to the target (a positive compatibility effect; PCE). However, under certain circumstances, slower responses for compatible primes are obtained (a negative compatibility effect; NCE). NCEs can be found when a long pre-target delay is used. During the delay, inhibition is assumed to take place, and therefore an effect on saccade trajectories may also be expected. In a previous study, we found the effects of inhibition on response times and trajectories to be dissociated, but this experiment varied the timing of several aspects of the stimulus sequence and it is therefore unclear what caused the dissociation. In the present study, we varied only one aspect of the timing, but replicated the dissociation. By varying just the pre-target delay, we found a PCE for a short delay, and an NCE for a long delay, but saccade trajectories deviated away from prime directions in both conditions. This suggests dissociated inhibitory effects of primes on response times and saccade trajectories.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK. Electronic address: e.misirlisoy.11@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Erman
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Misirlisoy
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK; School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3FX, UK.
authors.forename: Frouke
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hermens
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stavrou
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pennells
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK.
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Walker
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Inhibition; Negative compatibility effect; Priming; Saccade