The time-course of negative priming: little evidence for episodic trace retrieval

An episodic trace retrieval (ETR) explanation of negative priming (NP) predicts that the NP effect should be sensitive to the timing of delays between trials (Neill & Valdes, 1992; Neill, Valdes, Terry, & Gorfein, 1992). Specifically, according to ETR, (1) NP is affected by the response-stimulus interval (RSI) before the prime display, and (2) NP decays when RSI is manipulated within groups but not when RSI is manipulated between groups. Two localization tasks and two identification tasks are reported that question the reliability of these findings. The results suggest that there is little in the time-course literature that uniquely supports the ETR theory of NP. Instead, the results seem more compatible with either a dual-mechanism account (Kane, May, Hasher, Rahhal, & Stoltzfus, 1997) or an integrative approach that incorporates both memory and attention processes (Milliken, Joordens, Merikle, & Seiffert, 1998).