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Partial response activation to masked primes is not dependent on response readiness
1Department of Experimental Psychology, Birkbeck College, London, UK.
Perceptual and Motor Skills
|April 27, 2001
Summary
Masked primes initially activate and then inhibit responses. This process is independent of response readiness, suggesting readiness impacts response execution, not initial activation.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human Motor Control
Background:
- Masked primes can prime responses, leading to a negative compatibility effect (NCE) where compatible trials are slower.
- This NCE is thought to arise from an initial response activation followed by inhibition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if the activation-inhibition process of masked primes is modulated by response readiness.
- To determine if response readiness influences the automatic activation or the subsequent inhibition of responses.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments used masked priming with response readiness manipulated via response frequency in Go/NoGo and choice reaction time tasks.
- Reaction times and accuracy were measured to assess performance costs and benefits.
Main Results:
- Response frequency influenced overall reaction times, with infrequent responses being slower.
- Crucially, the magnitude of the negative compatibility effect (NCE) remained unaffected by response frequency.
Conclusions:
- Response readiness does not alter the initial automatic activation or inhibition dynamics triggered by masked primes.
- The findings suggest that response readiness primarily affects the execution stage of an overt motor response, not its early automatic activation.