title: Long-term priming of visual search prevails against the passage of time and counteracting instructions.
abstract: Studies on intertrial priming have shown that in visual search experiments, the preceding trial automatically affects search performance: facilitating it when the target features repeat and giving rise to switch costs when they change-so-called (short-term) intertrial priming. These effects also occur at longer time scales: When 1 of 2 possible target colors is more frequent during an experiment block, this results in a prolonged and persistent facilitation for the color that was biased, long after the frequency bias is gone-so-called long-term priming. In this study, we explore the robustness of such long-term priming. In Experiment 1, participants were fully informed of the bias and instructed to prioritize the other unbiased color. Despite these instructions, long-term priming of the biased color persisted in this block, suggesting that guidance by long-term priming is an implicit effect. In Experiment 2, long-term priming was built up in 1 experimental session and was then assessed in a second session a week later. Long-term priming persisted across this week, emphasizing that long-term priming is truly a phenomenon of long-term memory. The results support the view that priming results from the automatic and implicit retrieval of memory traces of past trials. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors: Cognitive Psychology Group, Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
authors: Wouter
authors: 0000-0001-6358-7468
authors: W
authors: Kruijne
authors: Cognitive Psychology Group, Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
authors: Martijn
authors: M
authors: Meeter
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult