Influence of lag length on repetition priming in emotional stimuli: ERP evidence

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated both behavioral and neural evidence for the potential mediations of lag length and pre-existing memory representation on repetition priming. However, such mediations on emotional stimuli have not been described. Methods: The current experiment intended to disentangle lag length from pre-existing memory representation. A lexical decision task was performed, in which different emotional characters (either normal or transposed) were re-presented either immediately or delayed. Results: In immediate repetition, one early and two late (ie, N400 and late positive complex) repetition-related event-related potential (ERP) effects were elicited, but these were not sensitive to pre-existing memory representation. The delayed repetition case merely observed the N400. Conclusion: These results suggest that the repetition-related priming effect is neutrally sensitive to lag length. Emotional information potentially exerts early and later influences in the processing underlying stimuli memory.