Department or Program

Psychology

Abstract

Recently Kahan, Slowiaczek, and Altschuler (2017) reported a new form of negative priming, termed temporal negative priming. The purpose of the current study was to first replicate this effect using a slightly altered methodology and then to examine possible mechanisms that contribute to temporal negative priming and the extent to which this effect might generalize across modalities. By requiring participants to attend to both the distractor and target stimuli, the first experiment found robust temporal negative priming effects. The second study explored whether temporal negative priming is in part caused by difficulty binding features of a target with a temporal position that was previously associated with features of a distractor (Park & Kanwisher, 1994). Results were inconclusive but are consistent with the possibility that feature mismatch theory may not be the causal mechanism behind this effect. In addition, the data support memory-based over inhibition-based theories, but additional research is needed to determine if this memory-based negative priming effect is sensitive to manipulations which affect memory retrieval. The final study found temporal negative priming within the auditory modality as well. Fifty-seven individuals participated in the first experiment, 49 individuals participated in the second experiment and 38 individuals participated in the final experiment. Similar to other negative priming studies, participants were shown prime-probe trial pairs. However, in all of the studies reported here, prime-probe trial pairs were shown at different timing sequences to help separate the effects of temporal location and response.

Level of Access

Restricted: Embargoed [Open Access After Expiration]

First Advisor

Kahan, Todd

Date of Graduation

5-2019

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Number of Pages

72

Components of Thesis

1 PDF file

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