Location negative priming in identity discrimination relies on location repetition

Negative priming manifests when a previously ignored stimulus becomes a target. The contingency of identity negative priming on repeated stimuli has been demonstrated, implying a crucial role for distractor competition. In this study, a naming task was used to examine whether location negative priming also relies on the repetition of locations. In Experiment 1, location negative priming was observed only when a small set of repeated locations was used. Positive priming was found instead when a large set of nonrepeated locations was used. Experiment 2 demonstrated that target-to-distractor distance modulated location priming effects, with priming effects observed only for a far distance. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that the effect of location negative priming increased as locations repeated. Like identity negative priming, location negative priming depends on location repetition.