Abstract
Reports of negative priming in the absence of flanker effects (Fox, 1995) provide support for the notion that unattended stimuli are identified. I evaluated the hypothesis that such results are the outcome of attentional leakage to the flanker location. In Experiment 1, I assessed flanker effects and negative priming as a function of target-flanker proximity (.9° and 2.7° for near and far flankers, respectively) and of attention cuing to the target location (precued vs. uncued) on the prime trials. I report larger flanker effects in uncued than in precued conditions, and larger effects for near than for far flankers. More critically, when attention was precued, both flanker effects and negative priming vanished for far flankers. In Experiment 2, I show that the latter result was not linked to prime-probe contextual similarity (Neill, 1997). These results demonstrate that selective target processing is possible when attention is optimally focused to the target location.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allport, D. A. (1989).Visual attention. In M. I. Posner (Ed.),Foundations of cognitive science (pp. 631–682). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Baylis, G. C., &Driver, J. (1992). Visual parsing and response competition: The effect of grouping factors.Perception & Psychophysics,51, 145–162.
Broadbent, D. E. (1982). Task combination and selective intake of information.Acta Psychologica,50, 253–290.
Castiello, U., &Umiltà, C. (1990). Size of the attentional focus and efficiency of processing.Acta Psychologica,73, 195–209.
Cheal, M. L. &Lyon, D. R. (1991). Central and peripheral precuing of forced-choice discrimination.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,43A, 859–880.
Driver, J., &Tipper, S. P. (1989). On the nonselectivity of selective seeing: Contrasts between interference and priming in selective attention.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,15, 304–314.
Duncan, J. (1989). Boundary conditions on parallel processing in human vision.Perception,18, 457–469.
Eriksen, B. A., &Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task.Perception & Psychophysics,16, 143–149.
Fox, E. (1994). Interference and negative priming from ignored distractors: The role of selection difficulty.Perception & Psychophysics,56, 565–574.
Fox, E. (1995). Pre-cuing target location reduces interference but not negative priming from visual distractors.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,48, 26–40.
Fox, E., &de Fockert, J. W. (1998). Negative priming depends on prime-probe similarity: Evidence for episodic retrieval.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,5, 107–113.
Kramer, A. F., Humphrey, D. G., Larish, J. F., Logan, G. D., &Strayer, D. L. (1994). Aging and inhibition: Beyond a unitary view of inhibitory processing in attention.Psychology & Aging,9, 491–512.
Lowe, D. G. (1979). Strategies, context, and the mechanism of response inhibition.Memory & Cognition,7, 382–389.
Milliken, B., Joordens, S., Merikle, P. M., &Seiffert, A. E. (1998). Selective attention: A reevaluation of the implications of negative priming.Psychological Review,105, 203–229.
Moore, C. M. (1994). Negative priming depends on probe-trial conflict: Where has all the inhibition gone?Perception & Psychophysics,56, 133–147.
Neill, W. T. (1997). Episodic retrieval in negative priming and repetition priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,23, 1291–1305.
Neill, W. T., &Mathis, K. M. (1998). Transfer-inappropriate processing: Negative priming and related phenomena. In D. L. Medin (Ed.),The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 38, pp. 1–44). San Diego: Academic Press.
Neill, W. T., &Valdes, L. A. (1996). Facilitatory and inhibitory aspects of attention. In A. F. Kramer, M. G. H. Coles, & G. D. Logan (Eds.),Converging operations in the study of visual selective attention (pp. 77–106). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Paquet, L., &Craig, G. L. (1997). Evidence for selective target processing with a low perceptual load flankers task.Memory & Cognition,25, 182–189.
Ruthruff, E., &Miller, J. (1995). Negative priming depends on ease of selection.Perception & Psychophysics,57, 715–723.
Strayer, D. L., &Grison, S. (1999). Negative identity priming is contingent upon stimulus repetition.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,25, 24–38.
Tipper, S. P., &Cranston, M. (1985). Selective attention and priming: Inhibitory and facilitatory effects of ignored primes.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,37A, 581–611.
van der Heijden, A. H. C. (1992).Selective attention in vision. London: Routledge.
Yantis, S., &Johnston, J. C. (1990). On the locus of visual selection: Evidence from focused attention tasks.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,16, 135–149.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Grant OGP0001247 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada supported this research.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Paquet, L. Eliminating flanker effects and negative priming in the flankers task: Evidence for early selection. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 8, 301–306 (2001). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196165
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196165