Mask- and distractor-triggered inhibitory processes in the priming of motor responses: an EEG study.

Masked stimuli presented near the threshold of conscious awareness may act as primes, affecting responses to subsequent targets. With arrows as primes and targets, the prime-mask-target sequence has been shown to evoke triphasic lateralized readiness potentials (LRP) with two phases of imbalance between hemispheres preceding the target-related contralateral preponderance of negativity: first a negative, then a positive preponderance contralateral to prime direction. The present article provides evidence that the second wave is related to mask presentation and reflects inhibitory processing independent of reductions in prime visibility, even being evoked by nonmasking distractors that leave the prime fully accessible for consciousness. Of all hypotheses put forward to account for inverse effects in masked priming, this finding is most compatible with the mask-triggered inhibition hypothesis suggested by P. Jaśkowski (2007).

[1]  A. Osman,et al.  Mechanisms of speed–accuracy tradeoff: evidence from covert motor processes , 2000, Biological Psychology.

[2]  James T. Enns,et al.  Updating a Cautionary Tale of Masked Priming: Reply to Klapp (2005). , 2005 .

[3]  H. Leuthold.  The Bereitschaftspotential: Movement-related cortical potentials , 2004 .

[4]  M. Eimer,et al.  The Influence of Subliminally Presented Primes on Response Preparation , 1997 .

[5]  W. Sommer,et al.  Partial advance information and response preparation: inferences from the lateralized readiness potential. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[6]  Martin Eimer,et al.  A neural network model of inhibitory processes in subliminal priming , 2006 .

[7]  S. T. Klapp,et al.  The negative compatibility effect: unconscious inhibition influences reaction time and response selection. , 2002, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[8]  R. Verleger,et al.  A TMS study on non-consciously triggered response tendencies in the motor cortex , 2006, Experimental Brain Research.

[9]  D. Vorberg,et al.  The time course of response inhibition in masked priming , 2005, Perception & psychophysics.

[10]  Robert Oostenveld,et al.  Brain symmetry and topographic analysis of lateralized event-related potentials , 2003, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[11]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Imaging unconscious semantic priming , 1998, Nature.

[12]  Uwe Mattler,et al.  Inhibition and decay of motor and nonmotor priming , 2005, Perception & psychophysics.

[13]  Rolf Verleger,et al.  Traces Left on Visual Selective Attention by Stimuli That Are Not Consciously Identified , 2002, Psychological science.

[14]  Jeff Miller,et al.  Jackknife-based method for measuring LRP onset latency differences. , 1998, Psychophysiology.

[15]  J. Enns,et al.  Negative compatibility or object updating? A cautionary tale of mask-dependent priming. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[16]  Jeff Miller,et al.  Using the jackknife-based scoring method for measuring LRP onset effects in factorial designs. , 2001, Psychophysiology.

[17]  Martin Eimer,et al.  The Lateralized Readiness Potential , 2003 .

[18]  Peter Praamstra,et al.  The Neurophysiology of Response Competition: Motor Cortex Activation and Inhibition following Subliminal Response Priming , 2005, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[19]  M. Eimer.  Facilitatory and inhibitory effects of masked prime stimuli on motor activation and behavioural performance. , 1999, Acta psychologica.

[20]  Bruno G. Breitmeyer,et al.  Visual masking : an integrative approach , 1984 .

[21]  M Eimer,et al.  A central-peripheral asymmetry in masked priming , 2000, Perception & psychophysics.

[22]  Martin Eimer,et al.  Links between conscious awareness and response inhibition: Evidence from masked priming , 2002, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[23]  J. Miller,et al.  Motor processes in simple, go/no-go, and choice reaction time tasks: a psychophysiological analysis. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[24]  P. Jaśkowski.  The effect of nonmasking distractors on the priming of motor responses. , 2007, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[25]  Martin Eimer,et al.  Active masks and active inhibition: a comment on Lleras and Enns (2004) and on Verleger, Jaskowski, Aydemir, van der Lubbe, and Groen (2004). , 2006, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[26]  Stuart T Klapp,et al.  Two versions of the negative compatibility effect: comment on Lleras and Enns (2004). , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[27]  Martin Eimer,et al.  Motor activation with and without inhibition: Evidence for a threshold mechanism in motor control , 2002, Perception & psychophysics.

[28]  P. Sumner.  Negative and positive masked-priming – implications for motor inhibition , 2008, Advances in cognitive psychology.

[29]  M. Eimer,et al.  Effects of masked stimuli on motor activation: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[30]  Rolf Verleger,et al.  Qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious processing? On inverse priming induced by masked arrows. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[31]  Hartmut Leuthold,et al.  Mechanisms of Priming by Masked Stimuli: Inferences From Event-Related Brain Potentials , 1998 .

[32]  M. Coles.  Modern mind-brain reading: psychophysiology, physiology, and cognition. , 1989, Psychophysiology.

[33]  R. Verleger,et al.  What determines the direction of subliminal priming , 2008, Advances in cognitive psychology.

[34]  C. Eriksen,et al.  Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task , 1974 .

[35]  Charles Curtis Eriksen,et al.  The extent of processing of noise elements during selective encoding from visual displays , 1973 .

[36]  R. Verleger,et al.  How the Self Controls Its Automatic Pilot when Processing Subliminal Information , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[37]  K. Yu,et al.  Attentional modulation of sensorimotor processes in the absence of perceptual awareness , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[38]  P. Jaśkowski,et al.  On the role of mask structure in subliminal priming. , 2005, Acta neurobiologiae experimentalis.

[39]  M. Eimer,et al.  Partial Response Activation to Masked Primes is Not Dependent on Response Readiness , 2001, Perceptual and motor skills.

[40]  Alejandro Lleras,et al.  How much like a target can a mask be? Geometric, spatial, and temporal similarity in priming: a reply to Schlaghecken and Eimer (2006). , 2006, Journal of experimental psychology. General.