Early response activation in repetition priming: an LRP study

Abstract

According to recent interpretations of repetition priming, response codes are automatically bound to a stimulus and retrieved during successive presentations of the stimulus, hence, affecting its current processing. Despite a solid corpus of behavioural evidence in line with this interpretation, electrophysiological studies have reported contrasting results regarding the nature and the timing of response code retrieval. The present experiment aims to establish at which stage of information processing decision and action codes are retrieved in repetition priming. To this end, the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) was analysed for primed faces to monitor motor cortex activity related to response preparation. Congruent and incongruent responses were obtained by having identical or reversed tasks between study and test. Primed stimuli presented LRP activations with opposite polarities for the two congruency conditions in the time-window 250–300 ms, indicating response-related motor cortex activity resulting from the retrieval of correct and incorrect decision/action codes for congruent and incongruent trials, respectively. This result indicates that decision and action codes bound to a primed stimulus are retrieved at early stages of stimulus processing and that these codes are transmitted to the motor cortex.