Sequential priming in hierarchically organized figures: Effects of target level and target resolution

Three experiments are reported in which participants identified target lett ers that appeared at either the global or local level of hierarchically org anized stimuli. It has been previously reported that response time is facil itated when targets on successive trials appear at the same level (L. M. Wa rd, 1982; L. C. Robertson, 1996). Experiments 1 and 2 showed that this sequ ential priming effect can be mediated by target-level information alone, in dependent of the resolution, or actual physical size, of targets. Target le vel and resolution were unconfounded by manipulating total stimulus size, s uch that global elements of the smaller stimuli subtended the same amount o f visual angle as local elements of the larger stimuli. Experiment 3, howev er, showed that when level information is less useful than resolution in pa rsing targets from distracters, resolution does become critical in intertri al priming. These data are discussed as they relate to the role of attentio n in local vs. global (part vs. whole) processing.