Immediate priming and cognitive aftereffects

Three forced-choice perceptual word identification experiments tested the claim that transitions from positive to negative priming as a function of increasing prime duration are due to cognitive aftereffects. These aftereffects are similar in nature to perceptual aftereffects that produce a negative image due to overexposure and habituation to a stimulus. Each experiment tested critical predictions that come from including habituation in a dynamic neural network with multiple levels of processing. The success of this account in explaining the dynamics of repetition priming, associative-semantic priming, and forward masking effects suggests that habituation is a useful mechanism for reducing source confusion between successively presented stimuli. Implications are considered for visible persistence, repetition blindness, attention-based negative priming, attentional blink, inhibition of return, the negative compatibility effect, affect priming, and flanker preview effects.