Abstract
Negative priming refers to the slowed response time (RT) to an item that has been previously ignored. This study investigated whether negative priming can be observed in a sequence learning that is purely perceptual-based. A modified version of the Serial Response Time (SRT) task was employed to dissociate the pure perceptual component from the motor component. Four red and four green circles were equally spaced and alternately located along the circumflex of an imaginary circle. According to a prearranged sequence, one red circle and one green circle simultaneously changed to open circles. Participants were asked to determine the location of the gap of the open circle of one color while ignoring the other color circles. After the training, all participants were instructed to attend to the set of circles either attended or ignored during the previous sequence learning phase. Additionally, two novel sequences were used to measure the learning effects: One for the attended sequence and the other for the ignored sequence. Faster RTs were observed in the previously attended sequence condition than in the novel sequence condition, indicating that pure perceptual-based sequence learning occurred. In contrast, slower RTs were observed in the previously ignored sequence condition than in the novel sequence condition, indicating that negative priming in pure perceptual-based sequence learning occurred. These results suggest that negative priming can occur for the temporal regularity of a set of ignored items.
This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2004-005-H00004)