Negative priming between response modalities: Evidence for the central locus of inhibition in selective attention

Abstract

Considerable research has demonstrated that distractor stimuli impair response to targets. Such observations suggest that distractor stimuli are analyzed at least to the level of incipient response (Eriksen, Eriksen, & Hoffman, 1986). There is also debate about the mechanisms that enable the subject to make the correct response to the target rather than the incorrect response to the distractor. One model proposes that the internal representations of distractor stimuli are inhibited during selection and execution of the response to the target (Neill, 1977; Tipper, 1985). This inhibition occurs at, or beyond, the level of abstract categorical representation, rather than at the earlier level of representations of physical properties of the distractor stimulus (Tipper & Driver, in press). An experiment is reported in which we further investigated the locus of inhibition by looking at whether or not inhibition is isolated in output modalities (for example, verbal naming or manual keypress). The evidence suggests that inhibition is isolated not in response systems, but rather at some central locus common to a variety of separate perceptual inputs and response outputs. © 1988 Psychonomic Society, Inc.