Testing the role of response repetition in spatial priming in visual search

Hilchey, Matthew D.; Leber, Andrew B.; Pratt, Jay · 2018 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-018-1550-7

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Summary

This study investigates whether spatial priming effects in visual search tasks are driven by attentional biases or by response repetition. In standard attention tasks, spatial priming is typically dependent on whether the motor response repeats or switches, a pattern explained by episodic retrieval theories rather than pure attentional mechanisms. However, the visual search literature has historically favored attentional explanations and largely ignored the role of response repetition. The authors propose the "discrimination response hypothesis," suggesting that spatial priming magnitude and direction depend on the information required to form a response. To test this, they reanalyzed data from Tower-Richardi, Leber, and Golomb (2016), which examined spatial priming across retinotopic, spatiotopic, and object-centered reference frames. The researchers reevaluated three experiments involving visual search displays where participants identified targets based on color and responded based on shape. The experimental design allowed for two key conditions. In the "array stay/fixation stay" condition, retinotopic, spatiotopic, and object-centered reference frames were confounded. In the "array stay/fixation move" condition, participants made eye movements to dissociate retinotopic coordinates from spatiotopic and object-centered coordinates. By adding target shape/response repetition as a factor to the original analysis, the authors could determine if spatial priming persisted when response repetition was controlled for across different spatial reference frames. The results revealed distinct patterns depending on the reference frame conditions. In the confounded condition (array stay/fixation stay), spatial priming was strongly dependent on response repetition. Priming effects were significantly larger when the response repeated compared to when it switched, supporting the view that these effects are driven by post-selective response processes. However, in the dissociated condition (array stay/fixation move), spatial priming remained positive and was unaffected by response repetition. Specifically, priming persisted for spatiotopic and object-centered location repetitions regardless of whether the response repeated or switched. This indicates that when retinotopic representations are separated from environmental and object-centered coordinates, a response-independent spatial priming effect emerges. These findings demonstrate that at least two distinct processes contribute to spatial priming in visual search, operating at different levels of representation. The study concludes that while response repetition heavily influences priming in standard paradigms where reference frames are confounded, genuine attentional or perceptual priming effects exist in spatiotopic and object-centered frames. This challenges the prevailing attentional explanations in the visual search literature by highlighting the critical confounding role of response selection and clarifying the specific reference frames in which attentional biases operate independently of motor history.

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• visual search