PERCEPTUAL SPECIFICITY IN NONVERBAL PRIMING

Five experiments were conducted to examine whether varying certain perceptual attributes of study and test items influences priming on pictorial tasks. Priming was found to be specific to the form of studied items; substantial priming occurred from studying pictures, whereas little or no priming occurred from studying the pictures' names (read or generated). Priming was specific to the exact contour presented at study. Studying the same fragment that was presented at test resulted in greater priming than did studying an intact image or a different fragment of the object. Priming was also specific to the viewing angle of studied objects. Same study-test views showed the greatest priming, whereas priming across different views was greater when subjects studied an unusual view of the object and were tested on a canonical view than when the reverse was true. Together, these data suggest that priming is mediated by representations that are presemantic, highly specific, structural descriptions of objects.