NEGATIVE PRIMING DEPENDS ON PRIME-PROBE SIMILARITY - EVIDENCE FOR EPISODIC RETRIEVAL

It is well established that requiring a person to respond to a recentl y ignored object in a visual se lection task leads to slower respondin g (i.e., negative priming). In the present experiment, subjects identi fied target letters flanked by incompatible distracter letters on prim e and probe displays. Prime display distracters appeared as the target letter on one third of subsequent probe displays. We manipulated stim ulus strength by means of intensity contrast between letter displays a nd their background Displays were presented with either high contrast (white against a black background) or low contrast (dark gray against a black background). The important finding was that negative priming w as maximal when prime and probe displays shared the same intensity con trast. These results suggest that greater similarity between prime and probe displays results in improved retrieval of prime display informa tion The results provide strong support for an episodic retrieval acco unt of negative priming.