Priming with Furrow illusion

Name: Erica Addo

Mentor: Marjan Persuh

Abstract: A prominent theory suggests that response priming depends only on physical characteristics of stimuli and not on their perceived attributes. In response priming, a prime stimulus moderates responses to trailing target stimulus, by either affecting reaction time or accuracy. We tested this theory in a priming paradigm using a Furrow illusion. In this illusion a vertically moving disk, placed on background consisting of tilted lines, appears to move along the direction of tilted lines. Furrow illusion stimulus served as a prime and was followed by target stimulus. Responses to targets were systematically affected by the prime in the direction of perceived movement and not in the direction of veridical, vertical motion of prime disk. These results suggest that response priming can be based on perceived properties of a stimulus. We are planning to conduct a second experiment, in which we will estimate the size of the illusion and test whether veridical motion of prime, across tilted lines, affects responses to targets even when perceptually disk is moving vertically.