Negative Priming Vision vs. Audition Although there have been many studies examining the negative priming phenomenon, virtually all of the existing studies use visual presentation studies. In fact, there appears to be only one successful demonstration of negative priming using auditory stimulus presentations (i.e., Banks, Roberts, & Ciranni, 1995). Why is there such an imbalance in the literature? Is it because: (a) negative priming does not occur for auditory stimuli, (b) negative priming is weaker in the auditory domain, or (c) negative priming is just as strong for auditory stimuli but nobody uses auditory presentations anymore.

Non-Relative Versus Relative Procedures MacDonald, Joordens, & Seergobin (1998) MINUTE HOUR MONTH MINUTE HOUR SECOND MONTH Non-Relative - “Name the green item” Relative - “Name the item corresponding to the longer unit of time”

Non-Relative Versus Relative Procedures MacDonald, Joordens, & Seergobin (1998)

Pitch Non-Relative vs. Relative The stimuli consisted of 4 (non-relative) or 8 tones (relative) selected along a frequency continuum, with two tones presented simultaneously to each of the two ears. In the non-relative condition, participants were asked to indicate which tone was presented in the target ear while ignoring the non-target ear. In the relative condition, participants were asked to indicate which ear the higher tone was played in. In both conditions, the probe target matched the prime distractor on half the trials (ignored repetition) and not on the other half (control).

Pitch Non-Relative vs. Relative

Timbre Non-Relative vs. Relative The stimuli consisted of sounds associated with either 4 (non-relative) or 8 (relative) musical instruments presented simultaneously to each of the two ears. The instruments varied in terms of their size; whistle, harmonica, flute, oboe, guitar, marimba, piano, & pipe organ In the non-relative condition, participants were asked to indicate which instrument was presented in the target ear while ignoring the non-target ear. In the relative condition, participants were asked to indicate which ear the sound of the larger instrument was played in. In both conditions, the probe target matched the prime distractor on half the trials (ignored repetition) and not on the other half (control).

Timbre Non-Relative vs. Relative

Timbre - Relative Visual vs. Auditory An interesting aspect of our data is that although negative-priming only occurs for auditory presentations when the relative procedures are used … it actually appears extremely large in that condition, perhaps even larger than negative-priming for visual stimuli. Given this, we wanted to directly compare auditory and visual negative priming within a single experiment using relative procedures Either the sounds of the instruments (auditory) or their names (visual) were presented to participants, and they were asked to indicate either the ear or side that contained the “larger” instrument. In the visual condition, the names of the instruments were separated to an extent that would make mean RTs similar to the auditory context

Timbre - Relative Visual vs. Auditory

Conclusions Negative priming does occur for auditory stimuli, although relative procedures must be used to observe it reliably This may suggest the auditory negative priming is weaker than visual except for the paradoxical result showing that, when relative procedures are used, negative priming is larger for auditory than for visual stimulus presentations The implication is that in order to observe negative priming for auditory stimuli, some attention must be devoted to processing the distractor (perhaps we are generally better able to selectively attend in the auditory domain But when the distractor is slightly attended, the information that gets through is highly relevant to the processes that underlie negative priming

Speculations A Role for Memory? Much of the recent negative priming data supports the possibility that negative priming arises as a result of mismatches with memory (see MacDonald & Joordens, in press) Perhaps such mismatches are more salient for auditory stimuli as a result of a stronger memory trace for sounds than for visually presented words Clearly this possibility requires further research If you would like a copy of this poster, it is available online at the following URL: