Dissociation between priming and recognition in the expression of sequential knowledge

Abstract

Exposure to a repeating sequence of target stimuli in a speeded localization task can support both priming of sequence-consistent responses and recognition of sequence components. Here, a task is introduced in which measures of priming and recognition are obtained concurrently, and it is demonstrated that priming of sequence-consistent responses occurs even when test stimuli are not recognized. The results show that sequence knowledge can be expressed in the absence of conscious recognition. However, we also show that this result is consistent with a simple model in which priming and recognition depend on exactly the same underlying memory strength variable.