The cuing and priming of cognitive operations

Abstract

The effect on performance of advance information about the specific cognitive operations to be performed on a stimulus was investigated in two experiments using cues (information useful and necessary for performance) and primes (information useful but not necessary for performance). In the first experiment, a cue presented prior to a digit stimulus indicated whether the digit was to be classified as odd or even, or low (less than 6) or high (greater than 5). Results showed that performance improved with increasing time between cue and digit and with practice. A stroop-like asymmetric interference of the low-high operation on the odd-even operation was also observed. In the second experiment, a prime that matched the cue, mismatched it, or was neutral was presented before the cue. Results showed facilitatory and inhibitory priming effects, as well as a distance effect based on the position of a digit relative to the boundary between 5 and 6. The results of both experiments were discussed in terms of a model based on relative processing speeds of the two relevant properties of the digits.