Skip to main content

Binding targets’ responses to distractors’ locations: Distractor response bindings in a location-priming task

Abstract

Responses to target stimuli can be encoded together with distracting objects accompanying these targets into a single stimulus—response episode or a single event file. Repeating any object of such an episode can trigger the response encoded in this episode. Hence, repeating a distractor may retrieve the response given to the target that was accompanied by this distractor. In the present experiments, we analyzed whether the binding of target responses to the distractor can be generalized even to the location of a distractor. In two experiments, we used a location-based prime-probe task and found that repeating the location of a distractor triggered the response to the target that had previously been accompanied by a distractor in the repeated location, even if the identity of the distractor changed from the prime to the probe.

References

  • Christie, J.[J.], &Klein, R. M. (2001). Negative priming for spatial location?Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology,55, 24–38.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Christie, J. J., &Klein, R. M. (2008). On finding negative priming from distractors.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,15, 866–873.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denkinger, B., &Koutstaal, W. (2009). Perceive—decide—act, perceive—decide—act: How abstract is repetition-related decision learning?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,35, 742–756.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frings, C. (in press). On the decay of distractor—response episodes.Experimental Psychology.

  • Frings, C., & Rothermund, K. (2010).To be, or not to be … included in an event file: When are distractors integrated into S—R episodes and used for response retrieval? Manuscript submitted for publication.

  • Frings, C., Rothermund, K., &Wentura, D. (2007). Distractor repetitions retrieve previous responses to targets.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,60, 1367–1377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frings, C., &Wentura, D. (2006). Strategy effects counteract distractor inhibition: Negative priming with constantly absent probe distractors.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,32, 854–864.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frings, C., &Wentura, D. (2008). Separating context and trial-by-trial effects in the negative priming paradigm.European Journal of Cognitive Psychology,20, 195–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frings, C., &Wühr, P. (2007). On distractor repetition benefits in the negative-priming paradigm.Visual Cognition,15, 166–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hommel, B. (1998). Event files: Evidence for automatic integration of stimulus—response episodes.Visual Cognition,5, 183–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hommel, B. (2004). Event files: Feature binding in and across perception and action.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,8, 494–500.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hommel, B. (2005). How much attention does an event file need?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,31, 1067–1082.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hommel, B. (2007). Feature integration across perception and action: Event files affect response choice.Psychological Research,71, 42–63.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hommel, B., &Colzato, L. S. (2009). When an object is more than a binding of its features: Evidence for two mechanisms of visual feature integration.Visual Cognition,17, 120–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hommel, B., Müsseler, J., Aschersleben, G., &Prinz, W. (2001). The theory of event coding (TEC): A framework for perception and action planning.Behavioral & Brain Sciences,24, 849–937.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Houghton, G., &Tipper, S. P. (1994). A model of inhibitory mechanisms in selective attention. In D. Dagenbach & T. H. Carr (Eds.),Inhibitory processes in attention, memory, and language (pp. 53–112). San Diego: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., &Treisman, A. (1984). Changing views of attention and automaticity. In R. Parasuraman & R. Davies (Eds.),Varieties of attention (pp. 29–61). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., &Treisman, A., &Gibbs, B. J. (1992). The reviewing of object files: Object-specific integration of information.Cognitive Psychology,24, 175–219.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Logan, G. D. (1988). Toward an instance theory of automatization.Psychological Review,95, 492–527.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mayr, S., &Buchner, A. (2006). Evidence for episodic retrieval of inadequate prime responses in auditory negative priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,32, 932–943.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mayr, S., Buchner, A., &Dentale, S. (2009). Prime retrieval of motor responses in negative priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,2, 408–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milliken, B., Tipper, S. P., Houghton, G., &Lupiáñez, J. (2000). Attending, ignoring, and repetition: On the relation between negative priming and inhibition of return.Perception & Psychophysics,62, 1280–1296.

    Google Scholar 

  • Park, J., &Kanwisher, N. (1994). Negative priming for spatial location: Identity mismatching, not distractor inhibition.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,20, 613–623.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Posner, M. I., &Cohen, Y. (1984). Components of visual orienting. In H. Bouma & D. G. Bouwhuis (Eds.),Attention and performance X: Control of language processes (pp. 551–556). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pösse, B., Waszak, F., &Hommel, B. (2006). Do stimulus—response bindings survive a task switch?European Journal of Cognitive Psychology,18, 640–651.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rothermund, K., Wentura, D., &De Houwer, J. (2005). Retrieval of incidental stimulus—response associations as a source of negative priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,31, 482–495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruthruff, E., &Miller, J. (1995). Negative priming depends on ease of selection.Perception & Psychophysics,57, 715–723.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spapé, M. M., &Hommel, B. (2008). He said, she said: Episodic retrieval induces conflict adaptation in an auditory Stroop task.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,15, 1117–1121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tipper, S. P., Weaver, B., &Milliken, B. (1995). Spatial negative priming without mismatching: Comment on Park and Kanwisher.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,21, 1220–1229.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Treisman, A. (1992). Perceiving and re-perceiving objects.American Psychologist,47, 862–875.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tukey, J. (1977).Exploratory data analysis. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waszak, F., Hommel, B., &Allport, A. (2003). Task-switching and long-term priming: Role of episodic stimulus—task bindings in task-shift costs.Cognitive Psychology,46, 361–413.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Waszak, F., Hommel, B., &Allport, A. (2005). Interaction of task readiness and automatic retrieval in task switching: Negative priming and competitor priming.Memory & Cognition,33, 595–610.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu, Y. (2006). Understanding the object benefit in visual short-term memory: The roles of feature proximity and connectedness.Perception & Psychophysics,68, 815–828.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian Frings.

Additional information

The research in this article was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to C.F. (FR 2133/1-1).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Frings, C., Möller, B. Binding targets’ responses to distractors’ locations: Distractor response bindings in a location-priming task. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 72, 2176–2183 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196693

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196693

Keywords

  • Negative Priming
  • Response Relation
  • Response Repetition
  • Object File
  • Event File