Repetition Priming Effects Research Articles

Assessing the influence of latency variability on EEG classifiers - a case study of face repetition priming

AbstractData-driven strategies have been widely used to distinguish experimental effects on single-trial EEG signals. However, how latency variability, such as within-condition jitter or latency shifts between conditions, affects the performance of EEG classifiers has not been well investigated. Without explicitly considering and disentangling such attributes of single trials, neural network-based classifiers have limitations in measuring their contributions. Inspired by domain knowledge of subcomponent latency and amplitude from traditional cognitive neuroscience, this study applies a stepwise latency correction method on single trials to control for their contributions to classifier behavior. As a case study demonstrating the value of this method, we measure repetition priming effects of faces, which induce large reaction time differences, latency shifts, and amplitude effects in averaged event-related potentials. The results show that within-condition jitter negatively impacts classifier performance, but between-condition latency shifts improve accuracy, whereas genuine amplitude differences have no significant influence. While demonstrated in the case of priming effects, this methodology can be generalized to experiments involving many kinds of time-varying signals to account for the contributions of latency variability to classifier performance.

The temporal dynamics of familiar face recognition: Event-related brain potentials reveal the efficient activation of facial identity representations

While it is widely known that humans are typically highly accurate at recognizing familiar faces, it is less clear how efficiently recognition is achieved. In a series of three experiments, we used event-related brain potentials (ERP) in a repetition priming paradigm to examine the efficiency of familiar face recognition. Specifically, we varied the presentation time of the prime stimulus between 500 ms and 33 ms (Experiments 1 and 2), and additionally used backward masks (Experiment 3) to prevent the potential occurrence of visual aftereffects. Crucially, to test for the recognition of facial identity rather than a specific picture, we used different images of the same facial identities in repetition conditions. We observed clear ERP repetition priming effects between 300 and 500 ms after target onset at all prime durations, which suggests that the prime stimulus was sufficiently well processed to allow for facilitated recognition of the target in all conditions. This finding held true even in severely restricted viewing conditions including very brief prime durations and backward masks. We conclude that the facial recognition system is both highly effective and efficient, thus allowing for our impressive ability to recognise the faces that we know.

The role of semantic information in Chinese word segmentation

ABSTRACT Word segmentation is crucial for reading in Chinese, where the absence of explicit word boundaries poses a distinct challenge. Previous studies in Chinese have examined how lexical and sub-lexical variables affect word segmentation. The present study investigated whether higher-level semantic information affects word segmentation using a primed word segmentation task with Overlapping Ambiguous Strings (OAS). An OAS is a three-character string in Chinese (e.g. ABC [in Latin letters]) where the middle character can constitute a word with both the left (word AB) and right (word BC) characters. The OAS was preceded by a semantic or repetition prime (presented for 42, 83, or 200 ms, across participants), priming either AB or BC. The semantic priming effect occurred at the 200-ms Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA), whereas the repetition priming effect occurred at both 83 and 200-ms SOAs. These findings demonstrate that semantic information can affect word segmentation in Chinese within 200 ms.

Does a mismatch on the accentual pattern of French words affect the magnitude of the repetition priming effect? An ERP investigation

ABSTRACT Primes that mismatch the targets on a phoneme (/ka'di/-/ka'do/) should produce responses intermediate between repeated (/ka'do/-/ka'do/) and unrelated (/bebe/-/ka'do/) primes. But what about primes and targets that mismatch on accentual cues (/kado/-/ ka'do/)? A repetition priming effect was observed on the N400 component with repeated primes eliciting less negativity than unrelated primes. A partial repetition priming effect was observed when the primes and targets mismatched on a phoneme. Phonemic mismatch primes elicited less negativity than unrelated primes, and more negativity than repeated primes. In contrast, no difference was observed between the repeated and the accentual mismatch primes. Hence, contrary to a mismatch on phonemic cues, a mismatch on accentual cues has no consequence on the magnitude of the repetition priming effect. This finding reinforces the view of an abstract lexicon in which acoustic details irrelevant for identification are stripped away before making contact with lexical representations.

Conflicts between priming and episodic retrieval: a question of fluency?

Human memory consists of different underlying processes whose interaction can result in counterintuitive findings. One phenomenon that relies on various types of mnemonic processes is the repetition priming effect for unfamiliar target faces in familiarity decisions, which is highly variable and may even reverse. Here, we tested the hypothesis that this reversed priming effect may be due to a conflict between target fluency signals and episodic retrieval processes. After replicating the reverse priming effect, three different manipulations were effective in diminishing it. We suggest that each of these manipulations diminished the ambiguity regarding the source of priming-induced fluency of target processing. Our findings argue against a strictly independent view of different types of memory.

Mechanisms of long-term repetition priming in recognising speech in noise

ABSTRACT Recognition of speech in noise is facilitated when spoken sentences are repeated a few minutes later, but the levels of representation involved in this effect have not been specified. Three experiments tested whether the effect would transfer across modalities and languages. In Experiment 1, participants listened to sets of high- and low-constraint sentences and read other sets in an encoding phase. At test, these sentences and new sentences were presented in noise, and participants attempted to report the final word of each sentence. Recognition was more accurate for repeated than for new sentences in both modalities. Experiment 2 was identical except for the implementation of an articulatory suppression task at encoding to reduce phonological recoding during reading. The cross-modal repetition priming effect persisted but was weaker than when the modality was the same at encoding and test. Experiment 3 showed that the repetition priming effect did not transfer across languages in bilinguals. Taken together, the results indicate that the facilitated recognition of repeated speech is based on a combination of modality-specific processes at the phonological word form level and modality-general processes at the lemma level of lexical representation, but the semantic level of representation is not involved.

Sleep consolidates stimulus-response learning.

Performing a motor response to a sensory stimulus creates a memory trace whose behavioral correlates are classically investigated in terms of repetition priming effects. Such stimulus-response learning entails two types of associations that are partly independent: (1) an association between the stimulus and the motor response and (2) an association between the stimulus and the classification task in which it is encountered. Here, we tested whether sleep supports long-lasting stimulus-response learning on a task requiring participants (1) for establishing stimulus-classification associations to classify presented objects along two different dimensions ("size" and "mechanical") and (2) as motor response (action) to respond with either the left or right index finger. Moreover, we examined whether strengthening of stimulus-classification associations is preferentially linked to nonrapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep and strengthening of stimulus-action associations to REM sleep. We tested 48 healthy volunteers in a between-subjects design comparing postlearning retention periods of nighttime sleep versus daytime wakefulness. At postretention testing, we found that sleep supports consolidation of both stimulus-action and stimulus-classification associations, as indicated by increased reaction times in "switch conditions"; that is, when, at test, the acutely instructed classification task and/or correct motor response for a given stimulus differed from that during original learning. Polysomnographic recordings revealed that both kinds of associations were correlated with non-REM spindle activity. Our results do not support the view of differential roles for non-REM and REM sleep in the consolidation of stimulus-classification and stimulus-action associations, respectively.

Verbal instructions as selection bias that modulates visual selection

ABSTRACTResearch has shown that in addition to top-down and bottom-up processes, biases produced by the repetition priming effect and reward play a major role in visual selection. Action control research argues that bidirectional effect-response associations underlie the repetition priming effect and that such associations are also achievable through verbal instructions. This study evaluated whether verbally induced effect-response instructions bias visual selective attention in a visual search task in which these instructions were irrelevant. In two online experiments (Exp.1, N = 100; Exp. 2, N = 100), participants memorized specific verbal instructions before completing speeded visual-search classification tasks. In critical trials of the visual search task, a priming stimulus specified in the verbal instructions matched the target stimulus (positive priming). In addition, the design of Experiment 2 accounted for the repetition priming effect caused by frequent appearance of the target object. Reaction time analysis showed that verbal instructions inhibited visual search. Response error analysis showed that verbal effect-response formed an effect-response association between verbally specified stimulus and response. The results also showed that the target object’s frequent appearance strongly affected visual search. The overall findings showed that verbal instructions extended the list of selection biases that modulate visual selective attention.

Priming asymmetry persists in German-English-French trilinguals: the sense model modified for the trilingual mental lexicon

ABSTRACT The present study examined within – and cross-language priming patterns among German-English-French trilinguals in order to explore the lexico-semantic representation of L3 in relation to L1 and L2. The trilinguals participated in three lexical decision tasks within the masked translation priming paradigm. The results showed significant within-language repetition priming effects in all three languages, significant translation priming effects for L2-L1, L1-L3, and L2-L3, but no significant priming for L1-L2, L3-L1 or L3-L2. Our findings demonstrate that translation priming asymmetry persists in trilinguals and that the weakest L3 is integrated into both L1 and L2 conceptually (i.e. three languages have a commonly shared conceptual representation). In addition, our results showed a language dominance shift over lexical development between L1 and L2. We argue for a modified Sense Model as the best fit to explain the cognitive architecture of the trilingual lexicon.

Representations of numerals in Tibetan–Mandarin bilinguals

AbstractAdopting a cross-language long-term repetition-priming paradigm, the current study systematically investigated number representation in Tibetan–Mandarin bilinguals. The study focused on three types of numerals: Arabic digits, Tibetan numerals, and Mandarin numerals. Experiment 1 examined lexical representation; participants performed a lexical decision task in the cross-language repetition-priming paradigm. Experiment 2 used a parity judgment task to examine conceptual representation. In both experiments, if the presentation of the numerals during the learning phase facilitated responses to their translation equivalents in the testing phase, it would indicate that they activate each other (i.e., a shared representation). Results showed that the presentation of Tibetan or Mandarin numerals did not facilitate subsequent responses to the Arabic digit equivalent. No cross-language repetition-priming effect between Tibetan and Mandarin numerals was found in the lexical decision task, indicating that Arabic digits, Tibetan number words, and Mandarin number words are stored separately at the lexical level. At the conceptual level, the results were quite the opposite, suggesting that these three types of numerals share a common representation. To sum up, the results imply that bilinguals’ number representation is similar to bilinguals’ language representation, providing a better understanding of number representation in bilinguals from a linguistic perspective.

Examining long-term repetition priming effects in spoken word recognition using computer mouse tracking.

Language researchers in a variety of disciplines have used priming as a tool to investigate theoretical questions. In spoken word recognition, long-term repetition priming effects have been obtained across a number of behavioral tasks (e.g., lexical decision, shadowing). Repeated - primed - words are responded to more efficiently than new - unprimed - words. However, to our knowledge, long-term repetition priming effects have not been examined using computer mouse tracking, which would provide data regarding the time course of long-term repetition priming effects. Consequently, we compared participants' lexical decision responses using a computer mouse to primed and unprimed words. We predicted that participants would respond more efficiently to primed words compared to unprimed words. Indeed, across all of the dependent variables investigated (accuracy, reaction time, mouse trajectories) and across environments (in person, online), participants responded more efficiently to primed words than to unprimed words. We also performed additional exploratory analyses examining long-term repetition priming effects for nonwords. Across environments (in person, online), participants had more errors to primed nonwords than to unprimed nonwords, but there were no differences in reaction times and mouse trajectories. The current data demonstrating long-term repetition priming effects in mouse tracking are expected to motivate future investigations examining the time course of various long-term repetition priming effects for both words and nonwords.

Investigating the modulation of stimulus types on language switching costs: Do semantic and repetition priming effect matter?

In the present study, I investigated the influence of stimulus types on bilingual control in the language switching process. The commonly employed stimuli in language switching studies - Arabic digits and objects - were compared to further investigate the way in which inhibitory control could be modulated by semantic and repetition priming effects. The digit stimuli have two unique characteristics in the language switching paradigm, for example, they are present repeatedly and are semantically related to each other, compared with pictural stimuli. Thus, these unique characteristics might influence the operation of inhibitory control in bilingual language production, modulating the size and asymmetry of switching costs. Two picture control sets were set up to match those characteristics: (1) a semantic control set, in which picture stimuli belong to the same category group, such as, animals, occupations or transportation and specific semantic categories were presented in a blocked condition; and (2) a repeated control set, in which nine different picture stimuli were repeatedly presented like the Arabic digits from 1 to 9. When comparing the digit condition and the standard picture condition, analyses of naming latencies and accuracy rates revealed that switching costs were reliably smaller for digit naming than for picture naming and the L1 elicited more switching costs for picture naming than for digit naming. On the other hand, when comparing the digit condition and the two picture control sets, it was found that the magnitude of switching costs became identical and the asymmetry in switching costs became much smaller between the two languages.

Effects of syntactic structure on the processing of lexical repetition during sentence reading.

Previous research has demonstrated that the ease or difficulty of processing complex semantic expressions depends on sentence structure: Processing difficulty emerges when the constituents that create the complex meaning appear in the same clause, whereas difficulty is reduced when the constituents appear in separate clauses. The goal of the current eye-tracking-while-reading experiments was to determine how changes to sentence structure affect the processing of lexical repetition, as this manipulation enabled us to isolate processes involved in word recognition (repetition priming) from those involved in sentence interpretation (felicity of the repetition). When repetition of the target word was felicitous (Experiment 1), we observed robust effects of repetition priming with some evidence that these effects were weaker when repetition occurred within a clause versus across a clause boundary. In contrast, when repetition of the target word was infelicitous (Experiment 2), readers experienced an immediate repetition cost when repetition occurred within a clause, but this cost was eliminated entirely when repetition occurred across clause boundaries. The results have implications for word recognition during reading, processes of semantic integration, and the role of sentence structure in guiding these linguistic representations.

Instructing item-specific switch probability: expectations modulate stimulus–action priming

Both active response execution and passive listening to verbal codes (a form of instruction) in single prime trials lead to item-specific repetition priming effects when stimuli re-occur in single probe trials. This holds for task-specific classification (stimulus–classification, SC priming, e.g., apple–small) and action (stimulus–action, SA priming, e.g., apple–right key press). To address the influence of expectation on item-specific SC and SA associations, we tested if item-specific SC and SA priming effects were modulated by the instructed probability of re-encountering individual SC or SA mappings (25% vs. 75% instructed switch probability). Importantly, the experienced item-specific switch probability was always 50%. In Experiment 1 (N = 78), item-specific SA/SC switch expectations affected SA, but not SC priming effects exclusively following active response execution. Experiment 2 (N = 40) was designed to emphasize SA priming by only including item-specific SC repetitions. This yielded stronger SA priming for 25% vs. 75% expected switch probability, both following response execution as in Experiment 1 and also following verbally coded SA associations. Together, these results suggest that SA priming effects, that is, the encoding and retrieval of SA associations, is modulated by item-specific switch expectation. Importantly, this expectation effect cannot be explained by item-specific associative learning mechanisms, as stimuli were primed and probed only once and participants experienced item-specific repetitions/switches equally often across stimuli independent of instructed switch probabilities. This corroborates and extends previous results by showing that SA priming effects are modulated by expectation not only based on experienced item-specific switch probabilities, but also on mere instruction.

Fast priming of grammatical decisions: repetition and transposed-word priming effects.

We used the grammatical decision task to investigate fast priming of written sentence processing. Targets were sequences of 5 words that either formed a grammatically correct sentence or were ungrammatical. Primes were sequences of 5 words and could be the same word sequence as targets, a different sequence of words with a similar syntactic structure, the same sequence with two inner words transposed or the same sequence with two inner words substituted by different words. Prime-word sequences were presented in a larger font size than targets for 200 ms and followed by the target sequence after a 100 ms delay. We found robust repetition priming in grammatical decisions, with same sequence primes leading to faster responses compared with prime sequences containing different words. We also found transposed-word priming effects, with faster responses following a transposed-word prime compared with substituted-word primes. We conclude that fast primed grammatical decisions might offer investigations of written sentence processing what fast primed lexical decisions have offered studies of visual word recognition.

Tracking the time course of sign recognition using ERP repetition priming.

Repetition priming and event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the time course of sign recognition in deaf users of American Sign Language. Signers performed a go/no-go semantic categorization task to rare probe signs referring to people; critical target items were repeated and unrelated signs. In Experiment 1, ERPs were time-locked either to the onset of the video or to sign onset within the video; in Experiment 2, the same full videos were clipped so that video and sign onset were aligned (removing transitional movements), and ERPs were time-locked to video/sign onset. All analyses revealed an N400 repetition priming effect (less negativity for repeated than unrelated signs) but differed in the timing and/or duration of the N400 effect. Results from Experiment 1 revealed that repetition priming effects began before sign onset within a video, suggesting that signers are sensitive to linguistic information within the transitional movement to sign onset. The timing and duration of the N400 for clipped videos were more parallel to that observed previously for auditorily presented words and was 200ms shorter than either time-locking analysis from Experiment 1. We conclude that time-locking to full video onset is optimal when early ERP components or sensitivity to transitional movements are of interest and that time-locking to the onset of clipped videos is optimal for priming studies with fluent signers.

Comprehension exposures to words in sentence contexts impact spoken word production.

Comprehension or production of isolated words and production of words embedded in sentence contexts facilitated later production in previous research. The present study examined the extent to which contextualized comprehension exposures would impact later production. Two repetition priming experiments were conducted with Spanish-English bilingual participants. In Experiment 1 (N = 112), all encoding stimuli were presented visually, and in Experiment 2 (N = 112), all encoding stimuli were presented auditorily. After reading/listening or translating isolated words or words embedded in sentences at encoding, pictures corresponding to each target word were named aloud. Repetition priming relative to new items was measured in RT and accuracy. Relative to isolated encoding, sentence encoding reduced RT priming but not accuracy priming. In reading/listening encoding conditions, both isolated and embedded words elicited accuracy priming in picture naming, but only isolated words elicited RT priming. In translation encoding conditions, repetition priming effects in RT (but not accuracy) were stronger for lower-frequency words and with lower proficiency in the picture-naming response language. RT priming was strongest when the translation response at encoding was produced in the same language as final picture naming. In contrast, accuracy priming was strongest when the translation stimulus at encoding was comprehended in the same language as final picture naming. Thus, comprehension at encoding increased the rate of successful retrieval, whereas production at encoding speeded later production. Practice of comprehension may serve to gradually move less well-learned words from receptive to productive vocabulary.

Explaining the association between repetition priming and source memory: No evidence for a contribution of recognition or fluency.

In a conjoint memory task (measuring repetition priming, recognition memory, and source memory), items recognised as previously studied and receiving correct source decisions also tend to show a greater magnitude of the repetition priming effect. These associations have been explained as arising from a single memory system or signal, rather than multiple distinct ones. In the present work, we examine whether the association between priming and source memory can alternatively be explained as being driven by recognition or fluency. We first reproduced the basic priming-source association (Experiment 1). In Experiments 2 and 3, we found that the association persisted even when the task was modified so that overt and covert recognition judgements were precluded. In Experiment 4, the association was again present even though fluency (as measured by identification response time) could not influence the source decision, although the association was notably weaker. These findings suggest that the association between priming and source memory is not attributable to a contribution of recognition or fluency; instead, the findings are consistent with a single-system account in which a common memory signal drives responding.

Influence of emotional prosody, content, and repetition on memory recognition of speaker identity.

Recognising individuals through their voice requires listeners to form an invariant representation of the speaker's identity, immune to episodic changes that may occur between encounters. We conducted two experiments to investigate to what extent within-speaker stimulus variability influences different behavioural indices of implicit and explicit identity recognition memory, using short sentences with semantically neutral content. In Experiment 1, we assessed how speaker recognition was affected by changes in prosody (fearful to neutral, and vice versa in a between-group design) and speech content. Results revealed that, regardless of encoding prosody, changes in prosody, independent of content, or changes in content, when prosody was kept unchanged, led to a reduced accuracy in explicit voice recognition. In contrast, both groups exhibited the same pattern of response times (RTs) for correctly recognised speakers: faster responses to fearful than neutral stimuli, and a facilitating effect for same-content stimuli only for neutral sentences. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether an invariant representation of a speaker's identity benefitted from exposure to different exemplars varying in emotional prosody (fearful and happy) and content (Multi condition), compared to repeated presentations of a single sentence (Uni condition). We found a significant repetition priming effect (i.e., reduced RTs over repetitions of the same voice identity) only for speakers in the Uni condition during encoding, but faster RTs when correctly recognising old speakers from the Multi, compared to the Uni, condition. Overall, our findings confirm that changes in emotional prosody and/or speech content can affect listeners' implicit and explicit recognition of newly familiarised speakers.

The effect of repetition priming on implicit recognition memory as measured by Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation and EEG

IntroductionThe development of rapid and reliable neural measures of memory is an important goal of cognitive neuroscience research and clinical practice. Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) is a recently developed electroencephalography (EEG) method that involves presenting a mix of novel and previously-learnt stimuli at a fast rate. Recent work has shown that implicit recognition memory can be measured using FPVS, however the role of repetition priming remains unclear. Here, we attempted to separate out the effects of recognition memory and repetition priming by manipulating the degree of repetition of the stimuli to be remembered. MethodTwenty-two participants with a mean age of 20.8 (±4.3) yrs. completed an FPVS-oddball paradigm with a varying number of repetitions of the oddball stimuli, ranging from very high repetition to no repetition. In addition to the EEG task, participants completed a behavioural recognition task and visual memory subtests from the Wechsler Memory Scale – 4th edition (WMS-IV). ResultsAn oddball memory response was observed in all four experimental conditions (very high repetition to no repetition) compared to the control condition (no oddball stimuli). The oddball memory response was largest in the very high repetition condition and smaller, but still significant, in conditions with less/no oddball repetition. Behavioural recognition performance was at ceiling, suggesting that all images were encoded successfully. There was no correlation with either behavioural memory performance or WMS-IV scores, suggesting the FPVS-oddball paradigm captures different memory processes than behavioural measures. ConclusionRepetition priming significantly modulates the FPVS recognition memory response, however recognition is still detectable even in the total absence of repetition priming. The FPVS-oddball paradigm could potentially be developed into an objective and easy-to-administer memory assessment tool.