Visual Priming Research Articles

Unconscious integration of pointing relation between two masked arrows

ABSTRACTIn the present study, by using a briefly masked prime display paradigm, we investigated whether the pointing relation (same or different) between two unconsciously perceived arrows in the prime could be processed. Since only motor response priming can reflect unconscious processing of two arrows’ pointing-direction relation (i.e., a relational integration), we could distinguish the motor response priming from the visual priming in this study which in other studies were not separated. We also manipulated the prime-to-target stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) by using a 70 ms and a 180 ms SOA. In this experiment, two masked arrow signs pointing in the same or different directions (> > or > <) were simultaneously presented in the prime, followed by two arrow symbols also pointing in the same or different directions in the target. The participants were asked to decide whether the two arrows in the target were pointing in the same or different directions. The results did not show any visual priming effect, but did show that the unconsciously perceived pointing relation in the prime elicited a positive motor response priming effect in RT under the 70 ms SOA condition, and a negative motor response priming effect in accuracy under the 180 ms SOA condition. The results were discussed in terms of self-motor-inhibition (or mask-triggered inhibition) and attention mechanisms. Overall, this study indicated that the pointing relation between the two subliminal arrows in the prime could influence the subsequent responses to the target and suggested that people can integrate unconsciously perceived information.

Facilitating morphosyntactic and semantic prediction among second language speakers of German

ABSTRACTUsing two visual priming experiments, the present study investigates whether presenting facilitative semantic (i.e. colour) and morphosyntactic (i.e. grammatical gender) information in a prime image prior to reading a target sentence facilitates naming of a sentence-final target image among L1 German and L1 English-L2 German speakers. In Experiment 1, L1 and L2 German speakers used both semantic and gender cues to predict the sentence-final target image. In Experiment 2, a new group of L2 German speakers used gender cues to predict, but this effect was stronger when gender information was provided via a gender-marked indefinite article and adjective in the prime, than when the prime contained only the gender-marked article. These results suggest that if L2 speakers are able to overcome unstable and often inaccurate L2 gender assignment, they can use gender cues in a native-like manner for prediction, but that multiple gender-marked cues may be necessary for such prediction to occur.

Frequency and Chunking in Derived Words: A Parametric fMRI Study.

In usage-based linguistic theories, the assumption that high-frequency language strings are mentally represented as unitary chunks has been invoked to account for a wide range of phenomena. However, neurocognitive evidence in support of this assumption is still lacking. In line with Gestalt psychological assumptions, we propose that a language string qualifies as a chunk if the following two conditions are simultaneously satisfied: The perception of the whole string does not involve strong activation of its individual component parts, but the component parts in isolation strongly evoke the whole. Against this background, we explore the relationship between different frequency metrics and the chunk status of derived words (e.g., "government," "worthless") in a masked visual priming experiment with two conditions of interest. One condition investigates "whole-to-part" priming (worthless-WORTH), whereas the other one analyzes "part-to-whole" priming (tear-TEARLESS). Both conditions combine mixed-effects regression analyses of lexical decision RTs with a parametric fMRI design. Relative frequency (the frequency of the whole word relative to that of its onset-embedded part) emerges as the only frequency metric to correlate with chunk status in behavioral terms. The fMRI results show that relative frequency modulates activity in regions that have been related to morphological (de)composition or general task performance difficulty (notably left inferior frontal areas) and in regions associated with competition between whole, undecomposed words (right inferior frontal areas). We conclude that relative frequency affects early stages of processing, thereby supporting the usage-based concept of frequency-induced chunks.

Negative versus positive priming: When are distractors inhibited?

Visual attention is guided by the history of selections in previous trials, an effect usually referred to as intertrial priming. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether such priming in visual search is due to a strengthening of the target signal, or the suppression of the distractor signal. In two experiments, we examined the deviation of saccade endpoints in situations in which the target and distractors were presented in relative close proximity. We found both negative and positive priming, irrespective of whether the repeating feature was relevant or irrelevant. This finding is in contrast to previous results with this paradigm, based on which we concluded that visual priming is strictly the result of boosting perceptual target signals. Based on the differences between these experiments, we conclude that the number of distractors is essential in observing negative priming. We propose that negative priming is solely observed when multiple distractors result in either strong inhibition of distractor features, or strong adaptation to them. Whereas positive priming seems to be a robust mechanism, negative priming is only present if there are multiple distractors.

Finger posing primes number comprehension.

Canonical finger postures, as used in counting, activate number knowledge, but the exact mechanism for this priming effect is unclear. Here we dissociated effects of visual versus motor priming of number concepts. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed either to pictures of canonical finger postures (visual priming) or actively produced the same finger postures (motor priming) and then used foot responses to rapidly classify auditory numbers (targets) as smaller or larger than 5. Classification times revealed that manually adopted but not visually perceived postures primed magnitude classifications. Experiment 2 obtained motor priming of number processing through finger postures also with vocal responses. Priming only occurred through canonical and not through non-canonical finger postures. Together, these results provide clear evidence for motor priming of number knowledge. Relative contributions of vision and action for embodied numerical cognition and the importance of canonicity of postures are discussed.

Erratum to: The effect of inhibitory control on general mathematics achievement and fraction comparison in middle school children

Individual differences in inhibitory control have been shown to relate to general mathematics achievement, but whether this relation varies for specific areas within mathematics is a question that remains open. Here, we evaluate if inhibitory processes play a specific role in the particular case of fraction comparison, where learners must ignore the potentially misleading information provided by the natural numbers composing fractions (e.g. 2/3 > 4/7 despite 2 < 4 and 3 < 7). To do this, we presented a sample of Chilean children (N = 450) from 5th, 6th, and 7th grade with a numerical comparison task tapping inhibitory and other processes. Results showed that both general math achievement and accuracy in comparing fractions were significantly predicted by inhibition. The former association, however, turned out to mediate the latter one. Another process, related to visual priming, predicted children’s likelihood to answer fraction comparison items focusing exclusively on the fraction components. This relation was, furthermore, not mediated by general math achievement. Altogether, these findings shed light on the mental processes underlying the early stages of the learning of fractions.

Activation and Functional Connectivity of the Left Inferior Temporal Gyrus during Visual Speech Priming in Healthy Listeners and Listeners with Schizophrenia.

Under a “cocktail-party” listening condition with multiple-people talking, compared to healthy people, people with schizophrenia benefit less from the use of visual-speech (lipreading) priming (VSP) cues to improve speech recognition. The neural mechanisms underlying the unmasking effect of VSP remain unknown. This study investigated the brain substrates underlying the unmasking effect of VSP in healthy listeners and the schizophrenia-induced changes in the brain substrates. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, brain activation and functional connectivity for the contrasts of the VSP listening condition vs. the visual non-speech priming (VNSP) condition were examined in 16 healthy listeners (27.4 ± 8.6 years old, 9 females and 7 males) and 22 listeners with schizophrenia (29.0 ± 8.1 years old, 8 females and 14 males). The results showed that in healthy listeners, but not listeners with schizophrenia, the VSP-induced activation (against the VNSP condition) of the left posterior inferior temporal gyrus (pITG) was significantly correlated with the VSP-induced improvement in target-speech recognition against speech masking. Compared to healthy listeners, listeners with schizophrenia showed significantly lower VSP-induced activation of the left pITG and reduced functional connectivity of the left pITG with the bilateral Rolandic operculum, bilateral STG, and left insular. Thus, the left pITG and its functional connectivity may be the brain substrates related to the unmasking effect of VSP, assumedly through enhancing both the processing of target visual-speech signals and the inhibition of masking-speech signals. In people with schizophrenia, the reduced unmasking effect of VSP on speech recognition may be associated with a schizophrenia-related reduction of VSP-induced activation and functional connectivity of the left pITG.

Priming recognition in good sleepers and in insomniacs.

Insomniacs often report memory and concentration problems, but these complaints have not been consistently supported by performance measurements. Furthermore, while the majority of studies have addressed explicit memory, few have investigated the implicit domain, and very little is known concerning other types of implicit memory besides procedural memory, such as priming. Thus, the purpose of the study was to investigate priming effect for visual stimuli in insomniacs and good sleepers. Twenty-three insomniacs and 20 good sleepers performed a visual priming task in which they were asked to name new and old pictures presented at nine ascending levels of spatial filtering. Both neutral and sleep-related stimuli were used, as previous research evidenced an attentional bias for sleep-related stimuli. Visual priming effect was observed in both groups, suggesting that poor sleep quality does not affect this type of implicit memory. However, the identification process in insomniacs is influenced by the nature of the stimulus to identify: insomniacs recognized both new and old sleep-related stimuli at lower spatial frequencies compared with good sleepers. The tendency to selectively attend to sleep-related stimuli may influence top-down processes occurring during identification of filtering stimuli, by determining a pre-allocation of attentional resources and facilitating identification processes even when sensorial information is scant. Differences in the identification processes of sleep-related stimuli compared with neutral ones should be carefully taken into account as possible pre-clinical markers of insomnia in poor sleepers.

P313 Reactivation of iconic memory in a priming task by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

Introduction Iconic memory represents the registration of visual information in a high-capacity but fast decaying visuo-sensory buffer. It has recently been shown that the primary visual cortex contributes to this memory function. Objectives In this TMS study, we investigated visual priming effects when TMS is applied over the primary visual cortex after prime presentation to see whether TMS could reactivate or “replay” the prime information stored in the sensory buffer. Methods Prime and probe maintained the same shape (square) but varied in colours of the same mean luminance, leading to congruent vs incongruent prime-probe conditions. Observers (n = 14) were asked to identify the colour of the probe as accurately and as fast as possible. Each trial started by a fixation cross lasting between 500–2000 ms. A prime was then flashed for 10 ms within the lower RVF at the location of TMS-induced phosphenes. A probe was displayed 400 ms after the prime for 40 ms at a mirrored location in the lower LVF. In TMS blocks, single-pulse TMS below phosphene thresholds was randomly delivered at 100 ms or 300 ms after the prime onset and intermingled with no TMS trials. Control trials (with no TMS) aiming at emulating a possible TMS-induced replay consisted of a physical redisplay of the prime at 300 ms i) in the same but faint colour, ii) in the opponent colour or iii) of a grey mask while responses to probes were recorded. The design was the same in SHAM blocks. Results Results showed that the significant priming effect (reaction times, RTs congruent Conclusion This is evidence that a memory trace stored in the sensory buffer in V1/V2 can be reactivated by TMS. The study is supported by a Wellcome Trust Award to Gregor Thut and Joachim Gross [grant number 098434, 098433] and by a Biological Sciences Research Council (BB /I006494/1) grant.

Visual Information Priming in Internet of Things: Focusing on the interface of smart refrigerator

Internet of Things (IoT) supports an environment where users are able to interact and get information by sharing visual informational cues. The purpose of this study was to investigate what effect was made on the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, intention to use and selfefficacy about use of smart refrigerator when visual information related to the food and function is provided in advance in the interface. A data was collected from a between-subjects experiment (N = 26) with an independent variable (priming visual information vs. non-priming). According to the experiment results, users who were primed about the visual cues perceived higher usefulness (PU), ease of use (PEoU), intention to use (IU), and self-efficacy (SE) toward the fridge compared to the users in a non-primed group. The study proposes theoretical and practical implications for designing food-related smart home appliances’ interface and visual affordances.

Behavioral oscillation in face priming: Prediction about face identity is updated at a theta-band rhythm.

In order to deal with external world efficiently, the brain constantly generates predictions about incoming sensory inputs, a process known as "predictive coding." Our recent studies, by employing visual priming paradigms in combination with a time-resolved behavioral measurement, reveal that perceptual predictions about simple features (e.g., left or right orientation) return to low sensory areas not continuously but recurrently in a theta-band (3-4Hz) rhythm. However, it remains unknown whether high-level object processing is also mediated by the oscillatory mechanism and if yes at which rhythm the mechanism works. In the present study, we employed a morph-face priming paradigm and the time-resolved behavioral measurements to examine the fine temporal dynamics of face identity priming performance. First, we reveal classical priming effects and a rhythmic trend within the prime-to-probe SOA of 600ms (Experiment 1). Next, we densely sampled the face priming behavioral performances within this SOA range (Experiment 2). Our results demonstrate a significant ~5Hz oscillatory component in the face priming behavioral performances, suggesting that a rhythmic process also coordinates the object-level prediction (i.e., face identity here). In comparison to our previous studies, the results suggest that the rhythm for the high-level object is faster than that for simple features. We propose that the seemingly distinctive priming rhythms might be attributable to that the object-level and simple feature-level predictions return to different stages along the visual pathway (e.g., FFA area for face priming and V1 area for simple feature priming). In summary, the findings support a general theta-band (3-6Hz) temporal organization mechanism in predictive coding, and that such wax-and-waning pattern in predictive coding may aid the brain to be more readily updated for new inputs.

Effects of Auditory and Visual Priming on the Identification of Spoken Words.

This study examined the effects of preceding contextual stimuli, either auditory or visual, on the identification of spoken target words. Fifty-one participants (29% males, 71% females; mean age = 24.5 years, SD = 8.5) were divided into three groups: no context, auditory context, and visual context. All target stimuli were spoken words masked with white noise. The relationships between the context and target stimuli were as follows: identical word, similar word, and unrelated word. Participants presented with context experienced a sequence of six context stimuli in the form of either spoken words or photographs. Auditory and visual context conditions produced similar results, but the auditory context aided word identification more than the visual context in the similar word relationship. We discuss these results in the light of top-down processing, motor theory, and the phonological system of language.

‘Can you wash off the hogwash?’ – semantic transparency of first and second constituents in the processing of German compounds

ABSTRACTThis study examined whether the lexical processing of German compounds is driven by semantic transparency and applied an overt visual priming experiment to manipulate the transparency of modifiers or heads. When manipulating modifiers, participants responded to compounds like Hundeauge (“dog’s eye”) or Hühnerauge (“corn”; literal: “hen's eye”) that were preceded by their transparent (Hund, “dog”) or opaque (Huhn, “hen”) modifier, respectively, or unrelated controls. When manipulating heads, participants responded to compounds like Pferdeohr (“horse’s ear”) or Eselsohr (“dog-ear”; literal: “donkey’s ear”) that were preceded by their transparently or opaquely related head Ohr (“ear”), or an unrelated control. Results showed that compound frequency was facilitatory, head frequency was inhibitory, and modifier frequency was both. These findings indicate that compound constituents and their corresponding independent words compete in compound processing. Furthermore, both modifiers and heads induced priming regardless of their semantic transparency, indicating that lexical representation in German incorporates constituent structure, regardless of semantic transparency.

The effects of environmental resource and security on aggressive behavior.

Exposure to different environments has been reported to change aggressive behavior, but previous research did not consider the underlying elements that caused such an effect. Based on previous work on environmental perception, we examined the role of environmental resource and security in altering aggression level. In three experiments, participants were exposed to environments that varied in resource (High vs. Low) and security (High vs. Low) levels, after which aggression was measured. The environments were presented through visual priming (Experiments 1-2) and a first-person gameplay (Experiment 3). We observed a consistent resource-security interaction effect on aggression, operationalized as the level of noise blast (Experiment 1) and number of unpleasant pictures (Experiments 2-3) delivered to strangers by the participants. High resource levels associated with higher aggression in insecure conditions, but lower aggression in secure conditions. The findings suggest that the adaptive value of aggression varies under different environmental constraints. Implications are discussed in terms of the effects of adverse environments on aggression, and the nature's effects on social behavior. Aggr. Behav. 43:304-314, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Working memory enhances target detection in the blind hemifield

ABSTRACTVisual perception can be influenced by the content of working memory. Previous studies have shown this influence can be enough to improve unconscious visual discrimination in healthy participants and conscious visual discrimination in neuropsychological patients with extinction. Here, these findings are extended by examining the effects of holding an object in working memory on unconscious visual perception in a person with hemianopia. The results revealed significantly enhanced detection accuracy when there was an exact match between the colour and orientation of the discrimination target and the item in working memory. However, the facilitatory effect was greatly reduced when only colour or orientation was matched with the item being held in memory. A control experiment confirmed these effects were not due to visual priming. These results are consistent with the proposal that working memory guided perceptual facilitation is driven by signal enhancement. More broadly, the data are interpreted in terms of a biased competition account of visual perception.

Better the devil you know: Threat effects and attachment to the European Union

The EU is facing unprecedented challenges and significant threats to its economic and political security. Austerity, the Eurozone crisis, rising immigration and heightened fear of terrorism all present serious challenges to the process of integration. How does this context of insecurity impact on what the EU means to its citizens? Will the public become increasingly Eurosceptic or will they discover a hitherto unrecognised attachment to the EU as the prospect of its collapse becomes real? Psychological research has demonstrated that individual exposure to threat decreases cognitive capacity, inducing a tendency towards rigidity or conservatism – a tendency to cling to the ‘devil you know’. So what might this mean for the European integration process? Using experimental techniques drawn from political psychology, the authors find a dual threat effect. The EU symbol has a negative (anti-EU) effect on EU-related attitudes when presented in neutral context. This is consonant with conceptualisations of the EU as a threat to national cultural and political norms. In contrast, however, visual priming of participants with EU symbols has a positive (pro-EU) effect on related attitudes when symbols are presented in a context that implies a subtle but imminent threat to the benefits of EU membership.

Simple actions influence pop-out search

ABSTRACTRecent research has revealed that a simple action (pressing a computer key) produced in response to a visual object prioritizes features of that object in subsequent visual search. The effects of simple action, however, have only been studied with search displays that required serial search. Here we explored whether simple actions have an effect when the target in visual search is always a salient singleton. Participants viewed a coloured shape at the beginning of each trial, and sometimes they acted (pressed the space bar) in response to it. In the subsequent search task, after acting (but not after viewing), the previously-seen colour affected search performance even though the target was always a salient singleton and the colour was uninformative. The results reveal that prior action can interact with bottom-up salience during search. Implications for our understanding of both visual search and repetition priming are discussed.

Multiple determinants of lifespan memory differences.

Memory problems are among the most common complaints as people grow older. Using structural equation modeling of commensurate scores of anterograde memory from a large (N = 315), population-derived sample (www.cam-can.org), we provide evidence for three memory factors that are supported by distinct brain regions and show differential sensitivity to age. Associative memory and item memory are dramatically affected by age, even after adjusting for education level and fluid intelligence, whereas visual priming is not. Associative memory and item memory are differentially affected by emotional valence, and the age-related decline in associative memory is faster for negative than for positive or neutral stimuli. Gray-matter volume in the hippocampus, parahippocampus and fusiform cortex, and a white-matter index for the fornix, uncinate fasciculus and inferior longitudinal fasciculus, show differential contributions to the three memory factors. Together, these data demonstrate the extent to which differential ageing of the brain leads to differential patterns of memory loss.

Visual priming and perception of small pictures in a scene with multiscale objects

Biederman and co-authors [1, 2], have shown that the priming effect in the long-tirn priming paradigm does not depend on the difference between the angular sizes of the test stimulus and the primer. However, these two and other similar works (both with long-time and short-fime priming paradigms) studied a small range of the angular sizes of stimuli. In Vakhrameeva et al. [3], it has been shown that there exist two perceptionally different size ranges: perception of the objects with angular size varying from 1-1.5 to 50 deg was found to be invariant, but for the objects which angular size is less than 1-1.5 deg (depending on object class and task) their perception is no longer invariant. In this work we have investigated the presence of priming effect in match-to-sample task with such a difference in the angular sizes of a primer and a test stimuli, when the sizes of the primer (about 4 deg) and the test stimulus (about 0.5 deg) belong to those different physiological size ranges. The sample stimulus was presented with and without the noise superposition. It has been shown that the priming effect is suppressed when the size difference between the primer and the test stimulus is large. A congruent primer can give a positive impact on the recognition of the test objects, but this takes place under viewing conditions complicated by the noise superposition.

Effects of audio and visual priming on prosocial behavior.

Priming may be a means to increase prosocial behavior, and past research suggests that individuals with higher levels of altruistic beliefs may be more susceptible to different forms of priming. The extent and circumstances in which priming influences prosocial behaviors are not well understood. We expanded upon a previous successful conceptual replication of Howard, Nelson, and Sleigh (2011), in which prosocial behavior was not influenced by a written priming exercise or altruism beliefs. The current study attempted to further examine if altering the presentation format of the priming condition to a visual/audio example would alter prosocial behaviors. A brief video/audio clip was created for each of the four priming conditions (needed help, received help, gave help, and control) using a car with a flat tire scenario. After watching one of the four videos, participants were presented with a request to perform a prosocial altruistic behavior. Results from 164 participants indicated no significant findings regarding the influences of visual/audio priming, and altruism belief scores on prosocial behavior, &amp;#967;2(3, n=155)=6.48, p=.09, and F(3, 149)= 0.39, p=.376, respectively. Therefore using a brief written or visual/audio priming activity did not influence prosocial behaviors, and altruism belief scores were not indicative of the likelihood of prosocial behavior. Overall, women were significantly more likely than men to offer assistance, and interestingly, empathy scores, but not altruism belief scores, were related to prosocial behavior. Future research should further elucidate if, and how, other activities could influence prosocial behaviors.