Priming in a Visual and Auditory Attentional Blink Task

Thomas Koelewijn, Cognitive Psychology; Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract
Participants performed an unspeeded attentional blink (AB) task within the visual domain containing digits as targets and letters as distractors. Prior to the rapid serial visual presentation a visual prime was presented in the form of a digit which was similar to the second target (T2) on 50 percent of the trials. Surprisingly, additional to the AB effect shown for T2 there was an overall drop in performance on T2 for the trials on which T2 was similar to the prime. In a subsequent experiment we determined whether similar inhibitory effects would show up when participants performed the same visual (AB) task but this time preceded by an auditory prime in the form of a spoken digit. Results showed an AB effect for T2 but this time there was no additional inhibition effect on T2 for the trials on which T2 was similar to the prime. Further study using a rapid auditory presentation containing spoken digits and letters preceded by an auditory prime, showed an overall drop in performance on T2 for the trials on which T2 was similar to the prime, but no typical AB effect. These results suggest that the observed inhibitory effects are modality specific.

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