NEGATIVE PRIMING AND STIMULUS-RESPONSE COMPATIBILITY

The subjects in this study made incongruent naming responses to words and pictures that were presented on alternate trials-(e.g., say ''car' ' to BIKE). Their response time was longer if the correct response for the current trial was the name of the stimulus presented on the prece ding trial, as compared with a control condition. These results sugges t that the tendency to produce the (congruent) name of the stimulus is automatically activated and then inhibited. The ''negative priming'' effects appeared stronger for words where pictures were primes than fo r pictures where words were primes. The implications of these results for negative priming and stimulus-response compatibility are discussed .