Automaticity and Flexibility of S-R Retrieval During Priming

Abstract

Learned associations between stimuli and responses (S-R associations) make important contributions to behavioral and neural priming. The current study investigated the automaticity and flexibility of these S-R associations and whether the global task context in which they occur modulates the impact of S-R retrieval on priming. Participants engaged in a semantic repetition priming task in which S-R retrieval is known to influence priming. Across participants, repetition priming occurred in global task contexts (i.e., combination of activated task sets) that either remained consistent or shifted across time. In the stable context group, the global task context at study matched that at test, whereas in the shifting context group, the global task context at study differed from that at test. Results revealed that the stability of the global task context did not affect the magnitude of S-R contributions to priming and that S-R contributions to priming were significant in both the stable and shifting context groups. These results highlight the robustness of S-R contributions to priming and indicate that S-R associations can flexibly transfer across changes in higher-level task states.

Keywords: associative learning; context; memory; repetition priming.

Figure 1

Task design for the stable context group and the shifting context group. Participants in the stable context group made two types of classification decisions (“SMALLER?” and “NATURAL?”) at study and test, whereas participants in the shifting context group made two types of classification decisions at study and only one type of classification decision (“SMALLER?”) at test.

Figure 2

Task schematics showing levels of repetition. (A) During the study block, each primed stimulus was presented with the same decision cue three times, and participants pressed one of two buttons to indicate a “Yes” or “No” response. At test, primed stimuli were presented again, either with the same task cue (Within-Task trials) or with the alternate task cue (Across-Task trials). Of the Across-Task trials, half required the same response at test as at study (Across-Task Response-Repeat, AT-RR) and half required a different response (Across-Task Response-Switch, AT-RS). (B) The four test conditions differed according to repetition at the stimulus, decision, and response levels.

Figure 3

Priming effects (reaction time difference from Novel trials) in the shifting context group (blue) and the stable context group (orange). Priming scores were greater for Within-Task (WT) compared to Across-Task (AT) trials (Panel A) as well as for Across-Task Response Repeat (AT-RR) compared to Across-Task Response Switch (AT-RS) trials (Panel B), but did not differ between the stable and shifting context groups in any condition. Error bars indicate SEM.