Inhibitory Priming Effect Research Articles

Inhibitory priming effects in auditory word recognition: when the target's competitors conflict with the prime word

Several studies indicate that the number of similar sounding words that are activated during recognition is a powerful predictor of performance on auditory targets. Words with few competitors are processed more quickly and accurately than words with many competitors. In the present study, we examined the contribution of the competitor set size in determining the magnitude of the inhibitory priming effect. The data show that the priming effect is stronger when word targets have few competitors. This result supports the view of direct competition between lexical candidates.

Sometimes faster, sometimes slower: associative and competitor priming in picture naming with young and elderly participants

There are reports on facilitatory and inhibitory priming effects with semantically related prime–target pairs in naming experiments conducted with both young and elderly participants. We would suggest that facilitatory priming effects in naming occur only with associatively, non-semantically related items, whereas inhibitory priming effects occur with semantically related, non-associated items. The current experiments examined the effects of both types of primes on picture naming with young (age range: 18–25) and elderly participants (age range: 66–87). We demonstrate that associative relatedness results in short-term facilitatory priming effects and semantic relatedness results in long-term inhibitory priming effects. Age had no impact on associative facilitatory priming, and there was only limited evidence that age had an impact on the pattern of semantic inhibitory priming. We argue that at best these results are consistent with a weak form of an inhibitory deficit in older adults.

An examination of automatic versus strategic semantic priming effects in Broca's aphasia

This experiment examined the nature of automatic versus strategic priming effects in Broca's aphasia. Broca's aphasics, age-matched controls, and young controls participated in a visual pairwise lexical decision task in a 250 SOA condition. A neutral priming condition was included to measure the contribution of facilitatory and inhibitory influences to the overall priming effect. Unlike the young normal controls, the age-matched controls and the Broca's aphasics displayed inhibitory priming effects, indicating the use of strategic processing in this short SOA condition. The results suggest that automatic lexical processing is reduced in Broca's aphasia, and perhaps declines with normal ageing as well. Furthermore, they support the hypothesis that subjects will resort to the use of conscious strategies in the lexical decision task, even in short SOA conditions, if unable to process the stimuli automatically.

Regulation of CD31 expression and interleukin-4 production by human cord blood CD4+ T cells with interleukin-4 and interleukin-7.

T helper 2 cell type cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-5, play pivotal roles in the development of allergic diseases. However, the mechanism by which naive CD4+ T cells acquire the ability to produce these cytokines remains unclear. Recently, it was reported that IL-7 induces the ability to produce IL-4 as well as interferon (IFN)-gamma and IL-5 in naive CD4+ T cells without TCR stimulation. To further analyze the mechanism of acquiring IL-4-producing ability by naive CD4+ T cells, the effects of IL-7 on human cord blood CD4+ T cells were compared with those of IL-4, which induced the ability to produce IFN-gamma but not IL-4. Interleukin-7 preserved the population of CD4+CD31- T cells in cord blood and induced their IL-4-producing ability without T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation, while IL-4 induced CD31 on CD31- T cells and could not induce their IL-4-producing ability. Both the CD31-inducing effect and the inhibitory priming effect for IL-4-production by IL-4 were also observed after cord blood CD4+ T cells had been primed with IL-7 and acquired the IL-4-producing ability. Interleukin-7 induced the IL-4-producing ability in naive CD4+CD31- T cells without TCR stimulation, suggesting that the signal transduction via CD31 may have an inhibitory effect on the acquisition of the IL-4-producing ability by cord blood CD4+ T cells in the absence of TCR stimulation.

Further evidence for a multidimensional personality disposition to schizophrenia in terms of cognitive inhibition.

A study is reported using the 'negative priming' paradigm to examine individual differences in cognitive inhibition in relation to distinct features of schizotypy. Seventy psychology students completed four measures of schizotypy, selected to index specific schizotypal traits: the Schizotypy Scale (STA), the Magical Ideation (MI) Scale, the Revised Social Anhedonia (SoA) Scale and the Physical Anhedonia (PhA) Scale. The priming paradigm was based on that of Beech, McManus, Baylis & Agar (1991), including conventional repeat and semantic priming conditions as well as repeat and semantic negative priming conditions, but differed in terms of task and stimuli. Cluster analysis of STA scores revealed a four-cluster solution reflecting 'very low', 'moderately low', 'moderately high' and 'very high' STA scores. Cluster analysis of MI, SoA, and PhA Scale scores also revealed four clusters. The first cluster comprised those with low scores on all scales. The remaining three clusters were distinguished by those with high MI, high SoA, and high PhA Scale scores, respectively. Those with high STA, MI, and SoA scale scores showed a significantly reduced, or reversed, repeat and semantic negative priming effect compared to those with moderately low STA scores and those low on all scales, respectively. An unexpected finding was that participants with high and moderately high STA scores as well as those with high MI and SoA scores revealed an inhibitory rather than facilitatory conventional repeat priming effect. It is concluded that weakening of inhibitory processes may be associated with a strong presence of schizotypal features related to dimensions of positive schizophrenic symptomatology, whereas schizotypal traits that parallel purely negative schizophrenic symptoms are not linked to reduced inhibition unless there is also a presence of 'positive' schizotypal features. The association of some schizotypal traits with an inhibitory repeat priming effect indicates that stimuli and task differences have a bearing on the attentional processes underlying priming effects for these participants. Thus, Beech et al.'s 'reduced-inhibition' model of schizophrenic symptomatology may require refinement.

The cuing and priming of cognitive operations.

The effect on performance of advance information about the specific cognitive operations to be performed on a stimulus was investigated in two experiments using cues (information useful and necessary for performance) and primes (information useful but not necessary for performance). In the first experiment, a cue presented prior to a digit stimulus indicated whether the digit was to be classified as odd or even, or low (less than 6) or high (greater than 5). Results showed that performance improved with increasing time between cue and digit and with practice. A stroop-like asymmetric interference of the low-high operation on the odd-even operation was also observed. In the second experiment, a prime that matched the cue, mismatched it, or was neutral was presented before the cue. Results showed facilitatory and inhibitory priming effects, as well as a distance effect based on the position of a digit relative to the boundary between 5 and 6. The results of both experiments were discussed in terms of a model based on relative processing speeds of the two relevant properties of the digits.

Inhibition from related primes in semantic memory retrieval: A reappraisal of Brown's (1979) paradigm.

The present study was an attempt to replicate and extend Brown's (1979) finding of inhibition in retrieval from semantic memory produced by presentation of semantically related primes. Subjects' speed and accuracy in answering generalknowledge questions (e.g., Who was the first man to walk on the moon?) were measured when the question was preceded by one of four different prime types: neutral (ready), unrelated (alligator), semantically related (John Glenn), or correct (Neil Armstrong). One group of subjects was given all four of the different prime types across the 96 questions, while a second group received only the first three types (i.e., correct primes did not occur). For the first group of subjects, latency to answer the questions^was greater following related primes than the other types, replicating Brown's finding of inhibition from semantically related primes. However, for subjects who did not receive any correct primes, latencies were not greater following related primes than following neutral or unrelated primes. Thus the inhibitory priming effect reported by Brown is not due to automatic spreading inhibition (as he suggested). Rather, the inhibition seems due to strategic factors involved in evaluating the prime to determine if it is the correct answer to the •