The Influence of Distractor-Only Prime Trials on the Location Negative Priming Mechanism

Abstract

Abstract. Two experiments were conducted that examined the influence of distractor-only prime trials on the “location” negative priming (NP) effect. In all experiments, the probe trial always lacked a distractor. We showed that the predictable absence of a probe distractor caused the elimination of the location NP effect when the prime trial contained both a target and a distractor event (T + D→T), but not when the prime contained only a to-be-ignored distractor event (D→T) ( Milliken, Tipper, Houghton, & Lupianez, 2000 ). The preservation of the NP effect seen with the distractor-only prime trials (D→T) was not the result of its lacking a prime-trial selection, nor was it the consequence of its representing a higher level of episodic similarity than the T + D→T condition. Finally, the location NP effect observed for the D→T condition is seemingly consistent with the view that location NP and the inhibition-of-return effects share a common underlying process ( Milliken et al., 2000 ).