Priming effects on temporal order judgments about words: perceived temporal priority or response bias?

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Perception
• Attention

Background:

• Stolz (1999) demonstrated semantic priming affects temporal order judgments.
• Repetition priming is a known cognitive phenomenon influencing perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To replicate and extend Stolz's (1999) findings on priming and temporal order judgment.
• To investigate the mechanisms underlying the observed priming effect.
• To examine if priming induces an attentional precedence effect.

Main Methods:

• Temporal order judgment task with two words.
• Utilized repetition priming to manipulate word presentation.
• Analyzed observer responses for accuracy and bias.

Main Results:

• Replicated Stolz's finding that semantic priming influences temporal order judgments.
• Demonstrated that repetition priming leads to perceiving the primed item as earlier.
• Identified a response bias favoring the repetition-primed item.
• Found evidence that priming induces an attentional precedence effect.

Conclusions:

• Priming affects temporal order judgments through both perceptual and response bias mechanisms.
• Repetition priming creates an attentional precedence effect, similar to spatial cuing.
• The findings contribute to understanding attention and perception interactions.