The influence of temporal factors on automatic priming and conscious expectancy in a simple reaction time task
Catégorie
Journal Article
Auteurs
Destrebecqz, A., Perruchet, P., Cleeremans, A., Laureys, S., Maquet, P., Peigneux, P.
Année
2010
Titre
The influence of temporal factors on automatic priming and conscious expectancy in a simple reaction time task
Journal / Livre / Conférence
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Résumé
In a previous study, we have reported a dissociation between subjective expectancy and motor behavior in a simple associative learning task (Perruchet, Cleeremans, & Destrebecqz, 2006). According to previous conditioning studies (Clark, Manns, & Squire, 2001), this dissociation is observed when the to-be-associated events co-terminate and thus overlap in time (a training regimen called delay conditioning), but not when they are separated by a temporal delay (trace conditioning). In this latter situation indeed, there tends to be a direct relationship between subjective expectancy and behavior. In this study, we further investigated this issue in a series of experiments where conscious and unconscious components of performance have been pit against each other. In Experiments 1-3, subjects performed a simple reaction time task in which a preparatory signal (a tone) either overlapped with or terminated earlier than the imperative stimulus (a visual target presented in 50% of the trials). After each response, subjects also had to state how much they expected the imperative stimulus to be displayed on the next trial. Results indicate that reaction times tend to decrease when the tone is consistently followed by the visual target across successive trials, whereas conscious expectancy for the target decreases at the same time. Importantly, we systematically found that the temporal relationship between the tone and the target failed to influence performance. In a fourth experiment, we examined whether these results extend to a two-choice reaction time task. To our surprise, we observed a direct relationship between subjective expectancies and reaction time in that situation. We nevertheless observed that the introduction of a delay between the tone and the target had, once again, no effect on performance.
Issue
2
Volume
63
Pages
291-309