The Effects of Cueing Target Location and Response Mode on Interference and Negative Priming Using a Visual Selection Paradigm

Two experiments are reported that examine the effects of cueing the location of a target in the prime display on interference and subsequent negative priming. The prime and probe displays comprised two words, a target and a distractor. In the prime display, the two words were either the same (response compatible) or different (response incompatible). The target in the probe display was unrelated to the prime distractor (control), the same word as the distractor (ignored repetition), or semantically related to the distractor (ignored semantic repetition). In Experiment 1, cueing the location of the prime target significantly reduced the interference effect but not the subsequent identity negative priming (NP) effect. In contrast, not cueing the prime target resulted in the elimination of the identity NP. There was no evidence of semantic NP in this experiment. In Experiment 2, where a categorization response was required, significant interference was obtained in the prime display that was not influenced by cueing the location of the target. Although there was significant semantic NP, identity NP failed to reach significance. The two experiments were analysed together, and findings are discussed in relation to current models of negative priming.