Conceptual versus Perceptual Priming in Incomplete Picture Identification

This paper examined conceptual versus perceptual priming in identification of incomplete pictures by using a short-term priming paradigm, in which information that may be useful in identifying a fragmented target is presented just prior to the target’s presentation. The target was a picture that slowly and continuously became complete and the participants were required to press a key as soon as they knew what it was. Each target was preceded by a visual prime. The nature of this prime varied from very conceptual (e.g., the name of the picture’s category) to very perceptual (e.g., a similar-shaped pictorial prime from a different category). Primes also included those that combined perceptual and conceptual information (e.g., names or images of the target picture). Across three experiments, conceptual primes were effective while the purely perceptual primes were not. Accordingly, we conclude that pictures in this type of task are identified primarily by conceptual processing, with perceptual processing contributing relatively little.     

Repetition Priming Follows Spontaneous but not Prompted Recognition of Familiar Faces

Reaction times to make a familiarity decision to the faces of famous people were measured after recognition of the faces in a pre-training phase had occurred spontaneously or following prompting with a name or other cue. At test, reaction times to familiar faces that had been recognized spontaneously in the pre-training phase were significantly facilitated relative to an unprimed comparison condition. Reaction times to familiar faces recognized only after prompting in the pre-training phase were not significantly facilitated. This was demonstrated both when a name prompt was used (Experiments 1 and 3) and when subjects were cued with brief semantic information (Experiment 2).

Repetition priming was not found to depend on prior spontaneous recognition per se. In Experiment 3, spontaneously recognizing a familiar face did not prime subsequent familiarity judgements when the same face had only been identified following prompting on a prior encounter. In Experiment 4, recognition memory for faces recognized after cueing was found to be over 90% accurate. This indicates that prompted recognition does not yield repetition priming, even though subjects can remember the faces. A fusion of “face recognition unit” and “episodic record” accounts of the repetition priming effect may be more useful than either theory alone in explaining these results.     

启动和重复抑制:启动神经机制的研究述评

启动是经验对当前任务的易化作用.重复抑制是刺激重复导致的皮层神经活动减少.大量研究表明启动与重复抑制密切相关.该文以理论假设对启动研究结果的解释效力为依据,对近期认知领域内有关启动和重复抑制的研究进行梳理,评介三种理论解释启动神经机制的适用性和局限性.指出未来研究可以考虑细化启动成分和重复抑制的具体关系,并尝试在此基础上建立神经元、重复抑制和行为启动的整合理论.这将对启动神经机制的理解具有重要意义.     

Self Priming: A Short term Benefit of Repetition

Burton, Bruce, and Johnston (1990) developed an interactive activation and competition (IAC) model of person recognition that gives a parsimonious account of semantic and repetition priming effects with seen faces and names. This model predicts that a familiarity decision to a person's name should be facilitated if the name is immediately preceded by the same person's face (or vice versa); Burton et al. (1990) called this effect 'self priming'. In three experiments, we explored properties of self priming predicted from Burton et al.'s (1990) IAC model. When each stimulus is seen on only one trial, the Burton et al. (1990) model predicts that within-domain self priming (e.g. name prime-name target) should produce more facilitation than cross-domain self priming (e.g. face prime-name target). This prediction was investigated in Experiments 1 and 2; results were consistent with it. Two further predictions from the Burton et al. (1990) model are that the amounts of withinand cross-domain self priming should not differ when subjects are primed to recognize the targets by prior encounters during the experiment, and that self priming should produce more facilitation than semantic priming. Results of Experiment 3 were again consistent with both predictions. We conclude that the Burton et al. (1990) IAC model stands the test of further rigorous examination.     

Auditory Long term Memory: Repetition Priming of Voice Recognition

Two experiments examined repetition priming in the recognition of famous voices. In Experiment 1, reaction times for fame decisions to famous voice samples were shorter than in an unprimed condition, when voices were primed by a different voice sample of the same person having been presented in an earlier phase of the experiment. No effect of voice repetition was observed for non-famous voices. In Experiment 2, it was investigated whether this priming effect is voice-specific or whether it is related to post-perceptual processes in person recognition. Recognizing a famous voice was again primed by having earlier heard a different voice sample of that person. Although an earlier exposure to that person's name did not cause any priming, there was some indication of priming following an earlier exposure to that person's face. Finally, earlier exposure to the identical voice sample (as compared to a different voice sample from the same person) caused a considerable bias towards responding 'famous'-i.e. performance benefits for famous but costs for nonfamous voices. The findings suggestthat (1) repetition priming invoice recognition primarily involves the activation of perceptual representations of voices, and (2) it is important to determine the conditions in which priming causes bias effects that need to be disentangled from performance benefits.     

Seeing the Whole Picture

Much of what we need to plan for our survival is already known, but what we know, how we know, and who knows is divided up between disciplines. Thus much of the problem of ensuring our survival is a matter of learning across the disciplines. We identify four modes through which we bring disciplinary knowledge together: the unity of science, integrated assessment, heuristic models, and distributed learning networks. Although none of them are perfect, we can learn how to put our knowledge together across the disciplines much better than we do.     

Repetition Priming of the Recognition of Familiar Proper Names

Three experiments examined repetition priming of the recognition of printed proper names of familiar people by the prior exposure of those names in their correct form or with their letters re-arranged as anagrams. Experiment 1 found that, compared with response times to previously unseen names, name familiarity decisions were made more rapidly if the subject had seen and identified the famous name in the pre-training stage, irrespective of whether they saw the intact name or an anagram. Priming was not demonstrated if the name was not recognized in the pre-training stage. The results of Experiment 2 suggested that if anagrams were not solved spontaneously in the pre-training stage, being prompted to their identity by the experimenter would not yield reliable priming at test, a result that reflected previous work using face stimuli (Brunas-Wagstaff, Young, & Ellis, 1992; Johnston, Barry, & Williams, 1996). In Experiment 3, prompts were given for all names and anagrams presented at pretraining. Subsequent priming was demonstrated only for names identified spontaneously, which showed that, as with face recognition, it was the situation in which the prime was given that was critical in determining whether priming of name recognition occurred. The findings are used to develop proposed extensions of the Bruce and Young (1986) model such as that offered by Burton, Bruce, and Johnston (1990).     

长时重复启动范式下言语理解中的信息表征

采用长时重复启动范式进一步探讨言语理解中信息表征的方式.实验1探讨听力理解中的信息表征,学习阶段采用句子理解任务,测验阶段进行图片判断任务,结果发现匹配和不匹配的图片的反应时和正确率没有显著差异,学过和未学过的图片的反应时和正确率也没有显著差异,说明听力理解中的信息表征是命题符号表征,而非知觉符号表征.实验2探讨阅读理解中的信息表征,结果同实验1,说明阅读理解中的信息表征也是命题符号表征,而非知觉符号表征.实验3在学习阶段和测验阶段都采用句子理解任务,结果发现学过的句子的反应时快于未学过的句子的反应时,学过的句子的正确率高于未学过的句子的正确率,说明前两个实验中没有出现学习效应是因为两个阶段任务类型差异较大造成的.综合3个实验的结果,可以初步得出结论,排除策略影响后,言语理解中没有产生知觉符号表征,先前句图匹配范式下的知觉符号表征很可能是一种策略性的表征.     

Show Me the Argument: Empirically Testing the Armchair Philosophy Picture

Many philosophers subscribe to the view that philosophy is a priori and in the business of discovering necessary truths from the armchair. This paper sets out to empirically test this picture. If this were the case, we would expect to see this reflected in philosophical practice. In particular, we would expect philosophers to advance mostly deductive, rather than inductive, arguments. The paper shows that the percentage of philosophy articles advancing deductive arguments is higher than those advancing inductive arguments, which is what we would expect from the vantage point of the armchair philosophy picture. The results also show, however, that the percentages of articles advancing deductive arguments and those advancing inductive arguments are converging over time and that the difference between inductive and deductive ratios is declining over time. This trend suggests that deductive arguments are gradually losing their status as the dominant form of argumentation in philosophy.     

Repetition of Lexicalization Across Languages: A Further Test of the Locus of Priming

Wheeldon and Monsell (this issue) found that production of a word in response to a definition had a large and long-lasting facilitatory effect on latency for later production of the same word to name a pictured object, and that this priming effect was not due to repeated production of the phonological word-form per se. This paper reports a further test of the locus of the effect. Welsh-English bilinguals named pictured objects in Welsh. Half the words were primed either by their earlier production in Welsh in response to Welsh definitions or by production of their equivalents in English in response to English definitions. Substantial facilitation resulted from prior production in the same language, none from prior production in the other language—provided that the equivalents differed in phonological form. Given that priming results neither from repeated activation of a meaning when different phonological forms are produced, nor from repetition of the same phonological form in response to different meanings, the priming effect must be localized in the connection between a word's meaning and its phonological form. We also put forward an account of bilingual lexicalization that accommodates this result together with some evidence indicating that production of words in one language is not wholly insulated from the “availability” of words in the other.     

Gender Priming in Picture Naming: Modality and Baseline Effects

Gender priming in speech production relates to the issue of whether retrieval of a noun is facilitated by preactivation of its grammatical gender. Such gender-to-lexical entry priming has been considered the mechanism underlying the gender-identity effect in word substitution errors (i.e., a substituted word tends to have the same gender as the target word.) Gender priming was explored in two primed picture-naming experiments with German participants. Primes were presented either visually or auditorily and differed in whether they carried grammatical gender information or not. Unlike inhibition from a gender-incongruent prime, facilitation from a gender-congruent prime was weak, not reliable, and dependent on the baseline and prime modality. Implications for the interpretation of the gender-identity effect are discussed.     

熟练中-英双语者跨语言长时重复启动效应

采用跨语言长时重复启动范式探讨熟练中-英双语者的记忆表征模型。实验结果表明,在词义决定任务条件下,发现了跨语言重复启动效应（实验一）;在词汇决定任务条件下,没有发现跨语言重复启动效应（实验二）;在学习阶段完成概念任务、测验阶段完成词汇任务的条件下,没有发现跨语言重复启动效应（实验三）。总的实验结果表明,熟练中-英双语者可以不需经由汉语对等词而从英语单词直接获得概念表征,这一结果支持了概念调节模型的观点。     

技能学习与重复启动基本机制问题的探讨

关于技能学习与重复启动的基本机制问题在学术界存有很大的争议．对其进行探讨将会对从整体上考察程序性记忆的性质产生重要的影响。此文主要从函数形式、相关性和增减模式的理论分析,数字输入任务的计算模型．程序性记忆和学习的观点几个方面探讨了有关问题,说明技能学习与重复启动是程序性记忆的不同表现形式,它们有着相同的基本机制。     

不同愉悦度面孔阈下情绪启动效应:来自ERP的证据

采用事件相关电位技术,研究阈下情绪启动效应。实验中的因素是阈下呈现的情绪启动面孔的愉悦度,分为高、低两个水平。被试的任务是对中性靶刺激面孔进行情绪判断。结果发现:被试在对靶刺激进行情绪判断时出现与启动刺激愉悦度趋于一致的启动效应;低愉悦度面孔作启动刺激条件下N1和P2的波幅显著大于高愉悦度面孔作为启动刺激的条件;不同愉悦度情绪面孔的阈下启动效应是由于启动刺激影响了对靶刺激的知觉加工所致。     

Not Only Whites: Racial Priming Effect for Black Faces in Black People

Black people are widely negatively stereotyped. The presence of unconscious stereotypes can be effectively assessed with the administration of “racial priming tasks.” An ethnically diverse group was subjected to a priming paradigm to test whether racial cues could bias the identification of target objects. Participants were asked to categorize objects (either as dangerous or nondangerous) after the presentation of Black/White faces as primes. Results show that both Black and White participants were faster in categorizing dangerous objects when primed with Black faces compared to the control condition (i.e., scrambled faces). One possible explanation for this effect is that Black faces are generally associated with a feeling of danger, which ultimately leads to faster responses.     

Age-Related Influences on Repetition Priming in the Verb Generation Task: Examining the Role of Response Competition

ABSTRACT

The identification-production framework suggests that aging is associated with a decline in production forms of repetition priming, particularly under test conditions that maximize response competition. The present study examined this prediction by testing young and healthy older adults in a single-encoding version of the verb generation task in which some items had one dominant verb response (low competition) or had no such dominant response (high competition). Further analyses examined whether priming and error rates were related to performance on neuropsychological tests purported to measure frontal lobe functioning. Priming was invariant across age groups and was not related to frontal lobe status in older adults, but frontal lobe status did predict task performance: low-frontal older adults made more errors than high-frontal older adults, particularly for high-competition items and items with high association strength. These results are not consistent with the identification-production framework, but are consistent with the conclusions that (a) aging is associated with invariance in the processes that support repetition priming in the verb generation task and (b) frontal lobe status in aging is related to verb generation performance.     

Effects of Material Emotional Valence on the Time Course of Massive Repetition Priming

Learning through repetition is a fundamental form and also an effective method of language learning critical for achieving proficient and automatic language use. Massive repetition priming as a common research paradigm taps into the dynamic processes involved in repetition learning. Research with this paradigm has so far used only emotionally neutral materials and ignored emotional factors, which seems inappropriate given the well-documented impact of emotion on cognitive processing. The present study used massive repetition priming to investigate whether the emotional valence of learning materials affects implicit language learning. Participants read a list of Chinese words and made speeded perceptual judgments about the spatial configuration of the two characters in a word. Each word was repeated 15 times in the whole learning session. There were three types of words, negative, positive, or neutral in their emotional valence, presented in separate blocks. Although similar levels of asymptotic performance were reached for different valence conditions showing comparable total effects of learning, learning of the positive words was found to be associated with fewer plateaus of shorter durations and to reach saturation earlier, compared with neutral and negative words. The results showed for the first time that the emotional valence of learning materials has significant effects on the time course of learning so that positive materials are learned faster and more efficiently, relative to negative and neutral materials. The study indicates the importance to explicitly consider the role of emotional factors in implicit language learning research.     

Real Men Don't Look Down: Direction of Gaze Affects Sex Decisions on Faces

Classifying a face as male or female was shown to be reliably affected by the direction in which the face was looking—a variable apparently unrelated to reported features of the face that show sexual dimorphism. Decisions were slower when gaze was averted downwards. Furthermore, masculinity ratings were lower for men's faces looking down than for the same faces looking ahead. One high-level (configurational) face feature that varies with the sex of the face and with direction of gaze was identified. The vertical upper-lid-to-brow distance is smaller in men than in women and becomes less salient when eyes are averted down. This display feature may have evolved to signal gender quickly and reliably, especially in alert male faces.     

Repetition priming and face processing: Priming occurs within the system that responds to the identity of a face

A familiar stimulus that has recently been recognized will be recognized a second time more quickly and more accurately than if it had not been primed by the earlier encounter. This is the phenomenon of “repetition priming”. Four experiments on repetition priming of face recognition suggest that repetition priming is a consequence of changes within the system that responds to the familiarity of a stimulus. In Experiment 1, classifying familiar faces by occupation facilitated subsequent responses to the same faces in a familiarity decision task (Is this face familiar or unfamiliar?) but not in an expression decision task (Is this face smiling or unsmiling?) or a sex decision task (Is this face male or female?). In Experiment 2, familiar faces showed repetition priming in a familiarity decision task, regardless of whether a familiarity judgment or an expression judgment had been required when the faces were first encountered. Expression decisions to familiar faces again failed to show repetition priming. In Experiment 3, familiar faces showed repetition priming in a familiarity decision task, regardless of whether a familiarity judgment or a sex judgment had been asked for when the faces were first encountered. Sex decisions to familiar faces again failed to show repetition priming. In Experiment 4, familiarity decisions continued to show repetition priming when a brief presentation time with encouragement to respond while the face was displayed reduced response latencies to speeds comparable to those for sex and expression judgments in Experiments 1 to 3. The results are problematic for theories that propose that repetition priming is mediated by episodic records of previous acts of stimulus encoding.