Negative priming and mental retardation: the processing of distractor information

Negative priming was assessed to investigate what information persons with and without mental retardation access from distractors. Subjects viewed displays of one blue and one red letter and were instructed to identify the blue letter. A prime display followed a probe display at intervals varying from 100 to 500 msec. At the short time interval, all subjects exhibited facilitation to identifying targets in the probe that were the same as the target or distractor of the prime, indicating the automatic activation of both letters. At the long interval, only the subjects without mental retardation exhibited inhibition of the distractors. The subjects with mental retardation did not suppress responding to the distractor to facilitate their performance.