Costs and benefits of target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention

Three experiments examined the relative contributions of positive and negative priming in a selective attention task. A typical trial consisted of a briefly presented letter display containing a red target letter and a distractor letter of another color. This prime display was followed by another similar letter display (the probe). When the red target letters were identical in both displays, facilitation from identity repetition priming was obtained. When the unattended letter from the prime display became the probe target letter, response times were delayed, that is, a negative priming effect was found. Other combinations of target and distractor letters were manipulated to examine the relative influences of positive and negative priming. Results support the hypothesis that selective attention involves a selective inhibition mechanism and suggest that this inhibitory mechanism can be as influential as its excitatory counterpart.