Time: 12:00pm to 1:15pm Wednesday Nov. 2. Location:  Tobin 521B. All are welcome!

Kevin Potter (University of Massachusetts)

Title:
Testing a perceptual fluency/disfluency model of priming with a model of response time and choice

Abstract:
With immediate repetition priming of forced choice perceptual identification, short prime durations produce positive priming (i.e., higher accuracy when the target is primed, but lower accuracy when the foil is primed). In contrast, long prime durations reverse this pattern. The dynamic time course of this transition from positive to negative priming is well explained by the nROUSE model of Huber and O’Reilly (2003), which includes neural habituation. This model assumes that the speed of perceptual identification is used to decide which choice word was seen most recently as the briefly flashed target. Thus, short duration primes induce faster identification (perceptual fluency) for the primed choice and a bias for the primed alternative whereas long duration primes induce slower identification (perceptual disfluency) for the primed choice and a bias against the primed alternative. This account makes specific predictions regarding perceptual identification latencies, and yet a test of these predictions is difficult with forced choice testing, which reflects a comparison decision process. To address this limitation, we collected forced-choice and single-item same-different responses in the same priming paradigm. We then applied a diffusion-race model to the data, transforming the response time and choice data into ‘observed’ drift rate parameters (i.e., the rate of evidence accumulation). Remarkably, the drift rates were inversely proportional to the identification latencies of the nROUSE model even though each model was applied independently to the data and even though the nROUSE model was only applied to the accuracy data. This convergence of the models confirms key predictions of the nROUSE model regarding perceptual fluency and disfluency.