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Age-Related Dynamics of Visual Priming

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With the aim of studying the age-related development of visual priming we compared the properties of the effects of a priori visual information on the identification of objects with different levels of complexity in children aged four (20 children), five (20 children), and six (20 children) years. A priming paradigm was used to analyze the response between the magnitude of the priming effect and the interval between the test and prime stimuli. Test stimuli were lines in different orientations and spatial frequencies, drawings of animals, and blots. Prime stimuli were presented as combined images containing test stimuli as local and global elements. Comparison of test results from children of different ages showed that regardless of the complexity of the visual objects used, the magnitude of the priming effect decreased with age. On line identification, presentation of prime stimuli led to the formation of responses to both the first and second test stimuli in all children. The magnitude of the priming effect decreased with age and the time window in which the response was facilitated narrowed. When drawings of animals were used, children aged four and five years displayed positive priming es on identification of two test objects, while six-year-old children showed acceleration of the response only to the stimulus presenting the prime as a global element. In discrimination of blots, the prime induced an increase in reaction time in four-year-old children and acceleration of reactions in five- and six-year-old children. At the same time, the magnitude of the priming effect was smaller in five-year-old children than six-year-old children and facilitation of the response started at longer interstimulus intervals. These data provide evidence that the mechanisms of visual priming in young children may be mediated by identification of familiar and simple objects for which anticipatory schemes have already been formed.

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  1. St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    L. V. Cherenkova & L. V. Sokolova

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  1. L. V. Cherenkova
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Correspondence to L. V. Cherenkova.

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Translated from Rossiiskii Fiziologicheskii Zhurnal imeni I. M. Sechenova, Vol. 107, No. 9, pp. 1112–1125, September, 2021.

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Cherenkova, L.V., Sokolova, L.V. Age-Related Dynamics of Visual Priming. Neurosci Behav Physi 52, 422–430 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-022-01256-w

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