A Neural Habituation Account of the Negative Compatibility Effect

The Negative Compatibility Effect (NCE) is slower reaction times (RTs) to report the direction of a target arrow that follows a matching prime arrow. The cause has been debated, with some studies indicating perception, while others indicate a response effect. We applied the neural habituation model of Huber and O’Reilly (2003) to the NCE, explaining the varied results as reflecting changes in the timing of events. We developed a novel variant of the NCE task, specifying the perceptual dynamics of orientation priming as measured with threshold accuracy. This revealed a transition from positive to negative priming as a function of prime duration, and a second experiment ruled out response priming. The perceptual dynamics of the neural habituation model were fit to these results and the parameter values were fixed in applying the model to the NCE literature. Application of the model to RTs necessitated a response representation that accumulates response information during the trial. Our results indicate that the NCE reflects rapid perceptual priming and slower response priming. Because the accumulation of response information is slow and does not suffer from habituation, the response factor of the prime is a positive effect (lingering response information). In contrast, because perceptual activation is fast and habituates, the perceptual factor can be positive or negative priming depending on the timing of the display sequence. These factors interact with the post-prime mask, which can prime the alternative direction when the mask is a related mask created by combining arrows pointing in both directions.

The Role of Representation Strength of the Prime in Subliminal Visuomotor Priming

This study investigated the role of representation strength of the prime in subliminal visuomotor priming in two experiments. Prime/target compatibility (compatible and incompatible) and preposed object type (jumbled lines, strong masking; and rectangular outlines, weak masking) were manipulated in Experiment 1. A significant negative compatibility effect (NCE) was observed in the rectangle condition, whereas no compatibility effect was found in the line condition. However, when a new variable, prime duration, was introduced in Experiment 2, the NCE was reversed with an increase in the prime duration in the rectangle condition, whereas the NCE was maintained in the line condition. This result is consistent with the claim that increasing the prime duration causes the prime representation to be too strong for inhibition in the rectangle condition but strong enough to reliably trigger inhibition in the line condition. The findings demonstrated that prime representation has a causal role in subliminal visuomotor priming.

What Is Shaping RT and Accuracy Distributions? Active and Selective Response Inhibition Causes the Negative Compatibility Effect

Inhibitory control such as active selective response inhibition is currently a major topic in cognitive neuroscience. Here we analyze the shape of behavioral RT and accuracy distributions in a visual masked priming paradigm. We employ discrete time hazard functions of response occurrence and conditional accuracy functions to study what causes the negative compatibility effect (NCE)—faster responses and less errors in inconsistent than in consistent prime target conditions—during the time course of a trial. Experiment 1 compares different mask types to find out whether response-relevant mask features are necessary for the NCE. After ruling out this explanation, Experiment 2 manipulates prime mask and mask target intervals to find out whether the NCE is time-locked to the prime or to the mask. We find that (a) response conflicts in inconsistent prime target conditions are locked to target onset, (b) positive priming effects are locked to prime onset whereas the NCE is locked to mask onset, (c) active response inhibition is selective for the primed response, and (d) the type of mask has only modulating effects. We conclude that the NCE is neither caused by automatic self-inhibition of the primed response due to backward masking nor by updating response-relevant features of the mask, but by active mask-triggered selective inhibition of the primed response. We discuss our results in light of a recent computational model of the role of the BG in response gating and executive control.

Moving Single Dots as Primes for Static Arrow Targets

In response priming, responses are typically faster and more accurate if the prime calls for the same response as the target (i.e., compatible trials) than when primes and targets trigger different responses (i.e., incompatible trials). With moving rows-of-dots as primes for static arrow targets, participants instead responded faster to incompatible targets with longer SOAs (stimulus onset asynchrony, > 200 ms). Until now, it is unclear whether this effect is specific to the material. In the present research, a single moving dot was used as a prime. Further, we analyzed compatibility effects depending on reaction times (RTs). Positive compatibility effects in reaction times were found with an SOA of 147 ms and even with a relatively long SOA of 360 ms; for very long SOAs (800–1,200 ms), negative effects were found. We interpreted this as evidence that the specific type of motion is irrelevant for the occurrence of a negative compatibility effect.