Relative contributions of task-relevant and task-irrelevant dimensions in priming of pop-out.
Intertrial effects such as priming of pop-out (PoP) often occur for task-irrelevant dimensions as well as task-relevant dimensions, though to a weaker extent. Here we test the hypothesis that increased priming for task-relevant dimensions is due to greater passive build-up of priming for the task-relevant dimension rather than to an active filtering of task-irrelevant dimensions; if this is the case, then we should observe a positive correlation between the magnitude of task-relevant and task-irrelevant priming. We tested this hypothesis using a pop-out search task in which the task-relevant dimension was orientation and the task-irrelevant dimension was color. We found a strong, positive association between task-relevant and task-irrelevant priming across a large group of participants (N = 100); additionally, we observed increased priming over consecutive repetitions for the task-relevant dimension, whereas task-irrelevant priming was constant across multiple repetitions. As further evidence against an active filtering account, task-irrelevant priming showed no systematic relationship with visual short-term memory capacity, which has been shown to correlate with filtering ability. Together, our results suggest that task-irrelevant dimensions are co-selected rather than filtered out during target search. Further, increased task-relevant priming may reflect an enhanced representation of the task-relevant dimension that is reinforced over consecutive repetitions.
['Michal|Audrey L|AL|', 'Lleras|Alejandro|A|', 'Beck|Diane M|DM|']
D000293:Adolescent D001288:Attention D003116:Color D003118:Color Perception D003463:Cues D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D008570:Memory, Short-Term D009949:Orientation D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual D010775:Photic Stimulation D011597:Psychomotor Performance D011930:Reaction Time D055815:Young Adult
task-relevance priming of pop-out visual short term memory