Spatial Priming Research Articles

The effects of age and gender and elite levels on perceptual-cognitive skills of adolescent badminton athletes.

This study aimed to examine perceptual-cognitive skills across age, gender and elite levels of badminton adolescent athletes. A total of 57 badminton athletes divided into junior high school athletes (age = 13.36 ± 1.14 years, females = 22, males = 11) and senior high school athletes (age = 16.25 ± 0.84 years, females = 11, males = 13) were evaluated using a cognitive component skills approach. Elite levels were classified as semi-elite (n = 29, score = 3.23) and competitive elite (n = 28, score = 5.84) levels. Each group completed a cognitive test, including an evaluation of their capacity for Corsi block-tapping (CCT) and spatial priming tasks (SPT). No gender effects were found in the perceptual skills of the adolescent players, and the age effect was consistent across gender. For the elite levels, the perceptual-cognitive skills of SPT of reaction time was performed equally in the groups of semi-elite and competitive players, however, in the CCT Span of working-memory (WM), competitive-elite players outperformed semi-elite players. We found that perceptual-cognitive skills of WM play crucial roles in the open-skill sports of badminton. Thus, when developing advanced skills to higher elite levels in adolescent players, perceptual-cognitive skills should be considered.

Reduced Priming Effect for Visual-Spatial Perspective Taking in Patients With Severe Acquired Brain Injury.

Social cognition can be impaired after a severe acquired brain injury (sABI), but mechanisms potentially underlying these difficulties remain to be clarified. This study aimed at investigating perspective taking ability in individuals with sABI. Twenty individuals with sABI and 20 healthy controls (HCs) have been enrolled in this case-control study. All participants were submitted to an experimental visual-spatial priming memory procedure and a self-report assessment of perspective taking (i.e., the Interpersonal Reactivity Index [IRI]). Individuals with sABI were submitted to neuropsychological tests to assess executive subcomponents, working memory, and visual attention. The analysis on self-report scales data documents a significant between groups difference in the IRI-Fantasy subscale, with HCs showing a higher tendency to imaginatively transpose oneself into fictional situations than individuals with sABI. Analysis of performance on the experimental procedure revealed the priming effect in HCs but not in sABI individuals. Moreover, individuals with sABI performed significantly poorer than HCs on the indices of the experimental procedure. Our data preliminarily demonstrated that visual-spatial perspective taking is reduced after sABI. Findings above could give some clues for the rehabilitative intervention in sABI and suggest the possible application of the procedure here used in assessing perspective taking after sABI.

Different Metaphorical Orientations of Time Succession between Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine

ABSTRACT Speakers of different languages perceive time differently depending on various factors such as age, pace of life, religion, time of day, and even pregnancy. In recent years, studies have shown that this is the case even within one same language community. This article presents research showing that doctors in China differ in their perception of time, based on their specific background training, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) or Western medicine (WM), even when both categories speak the same mother tongue. An initial questionnaire showed that TCM doctors were significantly more vertically oriented than WM doctors. To test these findings’ generalizability, we designed a spatial priming experiment (using horizontal and vertical pictures as priming stimuli) to obtain reaction time and accuracy of the doctors’ response on horizontal and vertical questions. TCM doctors showed significantly shorter reaction times and higher accuracy rates than WM doctors when answering vertical questions. These results confirmed the findings of our first survey. Overall, this study provides support for the hypothesis that background training affects the perception of time succession.

A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Role of Time Representation in Economic Decision-Making

Time is at the core of our decisions, yet the relationship between subjective time representation and decision-making is largely unknown. Time is conceptualized using spatial metaphors, and the metaphors employed differ by language. English and Mandarin both utilize horizontal metaphors; however, vertical metaphors are used more systematically in Mandarin than in English. As a result, implicit spatial priming paradigms have shown that Mandarin speakers more readily think about time vertically. Here, we examined whether this observation extends to the explicit representation of world events and investigated the relationship between the subjective psychological distance of world events and temporal decision-making.

When do response-related episodic retrieval effects co-occur with inhibition of return?

At some point, spatial priming effects more faithfully reflect response selection processes than they do attentional orienting or sensory processes. Findings from the spatial cueing literature suggest that two factors may be critical: (1) the amount of identity processing that is required in order to respond correctly (feature-based response hypothesis), and (2) the amount of spatial processing that is required in order to respond correctly (space-based response hypothesis). To test the first hypothesis, we manipulated whether observers made single keypress detection or two-choice localization responses to serially presented stimuli in peripheral vision and whether stimulus identity information processing was necessary before responding. Responses were always slowest when the target location repeated, consistent with an attentional orienting bias independent of keypress responding (i.e., inhibition of return; IOR). The localization procedure revealed a subtle additional cost for changing the target location and repeating a response, consistent with a response-related episodic retrieval effect predicted by the Theory of Event Coding (TEC). Neither effect was modulated by the need to discriminate features. To test the second hypothesis, we made spatial processing indispensable to response selection by requiring a decision between a detection and localization response, depending on where the target appeared. IOR was eliminated for detection, but not localization, responses, consistent with the TEC. Collectively, the findings suggest that the amount of space-based, but not feature-based, processing that is required to determine a response is responsible for the response retrieval effects that can co-occur with IOR.

On the superiority of visual processing in spatiotopic coordinates

Organisms exploit spatiotemporal regularities in the environment to optimize goal attainment. For example, in experimental conditions, repetition of a stimulus at the same position speeds up response time. A recent study reported that this spatial priming occurs even when the eyes move between trials, indicating that the target is encoded in spatiotopic coordinates (Attention, Perception & Psychophysics 78, (2016) 114–132). However, in that study, the relevant position of the repeated stimulus eliciting spatiotopic priming, was always at the screen center. Using a similar paradigm, we find that reaction times for screen-centered targets are markedly shorter than for retinally-equidistant target positions. When this center preference is taken into account, the alleged spatiotopic priming effects are dramatically reduced, though not totally eliminated. In a second experiment, we show that the preferred central stimulus position is encoded in allocentric coordinates (e.g. screen position) rather than in an egocentric frame of reference (e.g. straight ahead). The better performance at the screen center, irrespective of gaze direction or seating position, is likely to reflect an optimal choice for the allocation of spatial attention.

Testing the role of response repetition in spatial priming in visual search.

In common "attention" tasks, which require stimulus-identity processing prior to the formation of a speeded key-press response, spatial priming effects depend on response repetition. Typically, the repetition of a stimulus location is advantageous when the prior response repeats, but disadvantageous or inconsequential when the prior response changes. This link between responding and space makes it difficult to draw inferences about attentional bias from two-choice key-press tasks. Instead, the findings are accounted for by episodic retrieval theories, which argue that the response associated with a prior stimulus location is retrieved when a later stimulus occupies its space. This retrieval operation is advantageous if the prior response is needed but not otherwise, which explains typical patterns. This perspective motivated us to evaluate whether spatial priming effects in the visual-search literature depend critically on response repetition. To assess this, we reevaluated a series of experiments recently published by Tower-Richardi, Leber, and Golomb (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78(1), 114-132, 2016). Their goal was to determine the reference frame of spatial priming across visual search displays. Reassessment reveals that spatial priming was strongly dependent on response repetition when spatiotopic, retinotopic, and object-centered reference frames were perfectly confounded. However, when eye movements were made to dissociate the spatiotopic and object-centered reference frame from the retinotopic reference frame, spatial priming was positive and unaffected by response repetition. The findings demonstrate that at least two distinct processes factor into spatial priming across visual searches, which occur at different levels of representation.

The mental timeline is gradually constructed in childhood.

When reasoning about time, English-speaking adults often invoke a "mental timeline" stretching from left to right. Although the direction of the timeline varies across cultures, the tendency to represent time as a line has been argued to be ubiquitous and primitive. On this hypothesis, we might predict that children also spontaneously invoke a spatial timeline when reasoning about time. However, little is known about how and when the mental timeline develops, or to what extent it is variable and malleable in childhood. Here, we used a sticker placement task to test whether preschoolers and kindergarteners spontaneously map temporal events (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and deictic time words (yesterday, today, tomorrow) onto lines, and to what degree their representations of time are adult-like. We found that, at age 4, preschoolers were able to arrange temporal items in lines with minimal spatial priming. However, unlike kindergarteners and adults, most preschoolers did not represent time as a line spontaneously, in the absence of priming, and did not prefer left-to-right over right-to-left lines. Furthermore, unlike most adults, children of all ages could be easily primed to adopt an unconventional vertical timeline. Our findings suggest that mappings between time and space in children are initially flexible, and become increasingly automatic and conventionalized in the early school years.

Response-mediated spatial priming despite perfectly valid target location cues and intervening response events

ABSTRACTAttentional effects are often inferred from keypress reaction time (RT) studies when two sequentially presented stimuli, appearing at the same location, generate costs or benefits. The universality of these attentional attributions is challenged by data from perceptual discrimination tasks, which reveal that location repetition benefits and costs depend on whether a prior response repeats or switches, respectively. According to dual-stage accounts, these post-attentional effects may be abolished by making responses in between two target stimuli or by increasing target location certainty, leaving only attentional effects. Here, we test these accounts by requiring responses to stimuli in between targets and by increasing target location certainty with 100% valid location cues. Contrary to expectations, there was no discernible effect of cueing on any repetition effects, although the intervening response diminished stimulus-response repetition effects while subtly reducing location-response repetition effects. Despite this, there was little unambiguous evidence of attentional effects independent of responding. Taken together, the results further highlight the robustness of location-response repetition effects in perceptual discrimination tasks, which challenge whether there are enduring attentional effects in this paradigm.

Evidence for an attentional component of inhibition of return in visual search.

Inhibition of return (IOR) is typically described as an inhibitory bias against returning attention to a recently attended location as a means of promoting efficient visual search. Most studies examining IOR, however, either do not use visual search paradigms or do not effectively isolate attentional processes, making it difficult to conclusively link IOR to a bias in attention. Here, we recorded ERPs during a simple visual search task designed to isolate the attentional component of IOR to examine whether an inhibitory bias of attention is observed and, if so, how it influences visual search behavior. Across successive visual search displays, we found evidence of both a broad, hemisphere-wide inhibitory bias of attention along with a focal, target location-specific facilitation. When the target appeared in the same visual hemifield in successive searches, responses were slower and the N2pc component was reduced, reflecting a bias of attention away from the previously attended side of space. When the target occurred at the same location in successive searches, responses were facilitated and the P1 component was enhanced, likely reflecting spatial priming of the target. These two effects are combined in the response times, leading to a reduction in the IOR effect for repeated target locations. Using ERPs, however, these two opposing effects can be isolated in time, demonstrating that the inhibitory biasing of attention still occurs even when response-time slowing is ameliorated by spatial priming.

Comparing the effect of temporal delay on the availability of egocentric and allocentric information in visual search

Frames of reference play a central role in perceiving an object’s location and reaching to pick that object up. It is thought that the ventral stream, believed to subserve vision for perception, utilises allocentric coding, while the dorsal stream, argued to be responsible for vision for action, primarily uses an egocentric reference frame. We have previously shown that egocentric representations can survive a delay; however, it is possible that in comparison to allocentric information, egocentric information decays more rapidly. Here we directly compare the effect of delay on the availability of egocentric and allocentric representations. We used spatial priming in visual search and repeated the location of the target relative to either a landmark in the search array (allocentric condition) or the observer’s body (egocentric condition). Three inter-trial intervals created minimum delays between two consecutive trials of 2, 4, or 8 seconds. In both conditions, search times to primed locations were faster than search times to un-primed locations. In the egocentric condition the effects were driven by a reduction in search times when egocentric information was repeated, an effect that was observed at all three delays. In the allocentric condition while search times did not change when the allocentric information was repeated, search times to un-primed target locations became slower. We conclude that egocentric representations are not as transient as previously thought but instead this information is still available, and can influence behaviour, after lengthy periods of delay. We also discuss the possible origins of the differences between allocentric and egocentric priming effects.

Human sex differences in solving a virtual navigation problem

The current study examined sex differences in initial and subsequent strategies in solving a navigational problem within a virtual reality environment. We tested 163 undergraduates on a virtual T-maze task that included probe trials designed to assess whether participants were responding using either a place or response strategy. Participants were also tested on a mental rotation task and memory of the details of the virtual room. There were no differences between the sexes in copying or recalling a map of the room or on first trial performance of the T-maze. However, at trial two, males show a significant advantage in solving the task, and approximately 80% of the males adopt a place strategy to solve the T-maze whereas females at that point showed no strategy preference. Across all testing, both males and females preferentially used a place strategy. We discuss how factors such as spatial priming affect strategy preferences and how such factors may differentially affect males and females.

Spatial priming in ecologically relevant reference frames.

In recent years, researchers have observed many phenomena demonstrating how the visual system exploits spatial regularities in the environment in order to benefit behavior. In this paper, we question whether spatial priming can be considered one such phenomenon. Spatial priming is defined as a response time facilitation to a visual search target when its spatial position has been repeated in recent trials (Maljkovic & Nakayama, 1996, Perception & Psychophysics, 58, 977-991). Does this priming serve a behaviorally adaptive role or is it merely a byproduct of ongoing visual processing? Critically, an adaptive priming mechanism must actively transform visual inputs from native retinotopic (eye-centered) coordinates into ecologically relevant coordinates, e.g., spatiotopic (world-centered) and/or object-centered. In Experiment 1, we tested this hypothesis by having participants move their eyes between trials, which dissociated retinotopic and spatiotopic frames of reference. Results showed only weak retinotopic priming, but robust spatiotopic priming. The second experiment again had participants move their eyes between trials but also manipulated the placement of a grouped array of display objects from trial to trial. This allowed us to measure not just retinotopic and spatiotopic priming, but object-centered priming as well. Results from this experiment did not yield retinotopic priming but showed robust spatiotopic and object-centered priming. These findings demonstrate that spatial priming operates within ecologically relevant coordinate systems, and the findings support the notion that spatial priming serves an adaptive role in human behavior.

Temporal frames of reference in three Germanic languages: Individual consistency, interindividual consensus, and cross-linguistic variability.

A task like "moving a meeting forward" reveals the ambiguity inherent in temporal references. That speakers of U.S. English do not agree on how to solve it is well established: Roughly one half moves the meeting futurewards, the other half pastwards. But the extent to which individual speakers, rather than groups of speakers, consider such phrases as ambiguous has not been scrutinized. Does the split in readings result from a lack of intraindividual consistency or from a lack of interindividual consensus? And how specific is U.S. English in this regard when compared to other closely related Germanic languages? Based on a taxonomy of spatiotemporal frames of reference (FoRs), we conducted two experiments with speakers of Swedish, U.S. English, and German to assess individual preferences for temporal FoRs, intra- and cross-linguistic variability, consistency and long-term stability of these preferences, and possible effects of priming a spatial FoR. The data reveal cross-linguistic differences, both in terms of which temporal FoRs speakers prefer (the absolute FoR in Sweden, the intrinsic FoR in German, and both of these in the US) and in terms of the extent to which these preferences are shared and stable (high consensus and consistency in Sweden and Germany, and low consensus and partial consistency in the US). Overall, no effect of spatial priming was observed; only speakers of U.S. English with a baseline preference for the absolute temporal FoR seemed to be susceptible to spatial priming. Thus, the assumption that temporal references are affected by spatial references is only weakly supported.

Timing of spatial priming within the fronto-parietal attention network: A TMS study

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) are known to be part of a cortical network involved in visual spatial attention. Top-down control can modulate processing at target and distractor positions over a sequence of trials, leading to positive priming at prior target positions and negative priming at prior distractor positions. In order to elucidate the exact time course of this top-down mechanism we here propose a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) protocol. Single-pulses were applied over the right PPC, the right DLPFC or over the vertex (sham stimulation) at five time intervals (50, 100, 150, 200, 250ms) after onset of a probe display during a spatial negative priming paradigm. Both suppression of the negative priming effect at a previous distractor position and enhancement of positive priming at a previous target position was found if a TMS pulse was applied 100ms after the probe display onset either over the right DLPFC or the right PPC. We suggest that top-down mechanisms within the right fronto-parietal attention network are compromised during TMS interference in this time window.

The error protection impact of inhibitory after-effects in a location-based task and its preservation with practice.

In location-based tasks, responses related to (prime trial) distractor-occupied locations automatically undergo activation, followed by inhibition, which causes these responses to become execution-resistant (ER). Distractor-response ER takes time to override, delaying target reactions that later require this response (e.g., probe, ignored-repetition trials), causing the spatial negative priming (SNP) phenomenon. We learned in this study that distractor-response ER affords this output a degree of error protection. Specifically, when the probe target appeared at a new location, former (prime) distractor responses were used erroneously significantly less often than their control response counterparts, likely due to their ER feature, which discourages their inappropriate selection (i.e., "ER" provides error protection). This error protection also was evident when a previous distractor response was activated by a distractor on the probe (i.e., distractor-repeat trial). Notably, error protection remained effective over extensive practice, as did SNP size (i.e., ER override time) after an initial decline.

The preservation of response inhibition aftereffects in a location-based spatial negative priming task: younger versus older adults

Younger (M=21years) and older (M=74years) adults completed a spatial negative priming (SNP) task where (central) events (i.e., target or distractor) are presented in trial pairs: first the prime and then the probe. Free-choice trials were included (1 location: 2 permissible responses), which allowed us to isolate response inhibition and its consequent inhibitory aftereffects (i.e., current inhibition interferes with later related processing-e.g., SNP). The inhibitory aftereffects associated with the suppression of responses activated by distractor-occupied locations were highly comparable for younger and older adults; including similar SNP effect sizes, a significant tendency to select against former distractor (inhibited) responses (within-hand finger options) on free-choice trials, and latency delays attributable solely to the use of self-selected distractor responses. Aftereffects generated by target-occupied prime trials locations were also the same for both age groups; recently executed target responses were selected for and produced faster responding (within hand). Aftereffects were absent on between-hand free-choice trials and, overall, response selection determinants on free-choice trials matched for older and younger adults.

Auditory spatial negative priming: What is remembered of irrelevant sounds and their locations?

The categorization and identification of previously ignored visual or auditory stimuli is typically slowed down--a phenomenon that has been called the negative priming effect and can be explained by the episodic retrieval of response-inadequate prime information and/or an inhibitory model. A similar after-effect has been found in visuospatial tasks: participants are slowed down in localizing a visual stimulus that appears at a previously ignored location. In the auditory modality, however, such an after-effect of ignoring a sound at a specific location has never been reported. Instead, participants are impaired in their localization performance when the sound at the previously ignored location changes identity, a finding which is compatible with the so-called feature-mismatch hypothesis. Here, we describe the properties of auditory spatial in contrast to visuospatial negative priming and report two experiments that specify the nature of this auditory after-effect. Experiment 1 shows that the detection of identity-location mismatches is a genuinely auditory phenomenon that can be replicated even when the sound sources are invisible. Experiment 2 reveals that the detection of sound-identity mismatches in the probe depends on the processing demands in the prime. This finding implies that the localization of irrelevant sound sources is not the inevitable consequence of processing the auditory prime scenario but depends on the difficulty of the target search process among distractor sounds.

Negative Priming in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Schizophrenia: Association with Symptom Patterns

Negative priming (NP) is assumed to indicate the effect of an inhibitory mechanism in selective attention. Previous studies showed inconsistent reductions of the NP effect in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia. The aim of the present study was to relate NP alterations in two different NP tasks with specific symptom patterns of OCD and schizophrenia patients. Twenty-eight patients with a diagnosis of OCD, 27 patients with schizophrenia, and 27 healthy comparison participants performed a spatial and an identity priming task. Robust NP effects were found in the spatial priming task across groups and symptom patterns. However, OCD patients with a predominance of obsessive thoughts as well as schizophrenia patients with predominantly positive symptoms showed no identity NP effects, whereas OCD patients who primarily presented with compulsive rituals and schizophrenia patients with predominant negative symptoms tended to have increased identity NP compared to healthy participants. It is concluded that obsessions as well as positive psychotic symptoms are related to identity NP deficits possibly reflecting a shared basic cognitive mechanism leading to deficient thought control.

Priming and statistical learning in right brain damaged patients

We investigated how right hemisphere lesions affected location priming and statistical learning in four groups of participants: young controls, older controls, and right brain damaged patients with or without spatial neglect. Using a version of the Maljkovic and Nakayama's (1994) priming task, but with all the targets presented at the mid-line, we biased the transition probability for targets to repeat their spatial location. The decrease in response time with spatial repetition allowed us to quantify priming, and the modulation of priming strength as a function of repeat probability allowed us to assess for statistical learning. Contrary to the healthy controls, right brain damage decreased (but did not abolish) spatial priming. Right brain damaged patients did not modulate the magnitude of the spatial priming effect with variation in repeat frequency, as did the control groups. We conclude that damage to the right hemisphere impairs spatial priming and that priming impairment co-exists with, and may contribute to an inability to learn environmental statistical regularities. Such deficits could contribute to functional deficits and a poorer response to rehabilitation.