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Possible underlying mechanisms of context effects in the DSP task

Welten, M.J. (2011) Possible underlying mechanisms of context effects in the DSP task.

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Abstract:The aim of the current study was to investigate context effects and its underlying mechanisms in a discrete sequence production (DSP) task. In this task, participants responded to sequences of stimuli that were accompanied by irrelevant stimuli that had to be ignored. After a practice phase, participants responded to the previously ignored sequence in a familiar test block and to an unfamiliar sequence in another test block. The results showed that responses to previously ignored sequences were slower than responses to unfamiliar sequences. This suggests a negative priming effect. A negative priming effect is demonstrated when a previously ignored stimulus becomes the relevant stimulus in the next task and where performance is impaired compared to responses on a task with stimuli that have not been ignored before. However, in the current study negative priming effects were demonstrated only when the locations of relevant and irrelevant stimuli were consistently matched within the sequences. This matching entails that the location of the irrelevant stimulus depends on the location of the relevant stimulus and that these locations were constantly paired. In the condition where the irrelevant stimuli followed a sequence independent of the relevant stimulus (and thus were not consistently matched on location), no impairment due to earlier presentation of the sequence was shown. In conclusion this study suggests that performance on the DSP task impairs when participants have to respond to earlier ignored stimuli, but that this effect only occurs when the practiced relevant and irrelevant stimuli were consistently paired on location
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61333
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