Auditory negative priming endures response modality change; prime response retrieval does not

Abstract

Two auditory identification experiments were run to test a specific hypothesis about the prime response retrieval mechanism of negative priming. This mechanism operates in ignored repetition trials where the prime distractor repeats as the probe target and leads to an increase of probe errors with the former prime response (Mayr & Buchner, 2006). Participants identified target sounds while ignoring distractor sounds. They changed from verbal (prime) to manual (probe) responding. Concomitant manual prime responses were prevented right from the start in Experiment 1 (N = 72) but not in Experiment 2 (N = 49). Experiment 1 revealed a negative priming effect in response speed but no prime response retrieval effect--that is, there was no increase in prime errors to the probes of ignored repetition trials. This pattern of results implies that retrieval of prime responses takes place at the level of motor responses (e.g., retrieval of the motor programme of a right index finger key press) but not at the level of task-specific response codes (e.g., retrieval of the "piano" response alternative). Experiment 2 replicated the negative priming effect across response modalities and helped to clarify the importance of prime response processes for finding a negative priming effect in overall error rates.