Priming effect of figures that represent external objects or human body parts

A visual stimulus (e.g., a letter, word, or object) may have a lasting effect on the processing of subsequent stimuli. The present study verified the priming effect of a figure (i.e., five-petal daisy) on manual reaction time (MRT) to another equal or different five-petal daisy. Two distinct groups were tested. One group was instructed that the five-petal daisy represented a human hand. The other group was instructed that the five-petal daisy represented a flower. The figures in the pairs of stimuli could share or not share some features such as handedness and view. In both groups, after being informed whether the five-petal daisy represented a flower or human hand, an uninformative flower was presented for 200 ms in the center of the screen. After 1000 ms, a second flower was presented in the same location until the observer responded by pressing a left or right switch. The results showed that prior presentation of the five-petal daisy affected MRT only when the figure represented a human hand. Furthermore, an opposite effect of view on MRT was found. The shorter MRT to the back (dorsal) view of the figure that represented a human hand could be attributable to a faster response to the dorsal view of a hand figure made with a prone posture of the participants' hand than to a front (palm) view. The longer MRT to the back view of the figure that represented a flower may be due to a mental rotation of the object along its vertical axis before selecting the correct response because the response was based on the position of the asymmetrical petal in the canonical front view of the daisy.

Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Implicit Memory / 中国心理卫生杂志

Objective:To investigate the effects of sleep deprivation(SD)on implicit memory.Methods:32 young men were divided into four groups,SD21,SD45,SD69 and Control,8 men each group.Subjects were asked to finish the tests of word completion and words association.Results:After SD,both semantic priming and perceptual priming decreased significantly and the decrease were connected with the length of SD.In the same group,the decrease of perceptual priming of SD groups was significantly lowered than that of semantic priming.In perceptual priming,there was significantly different compared between groups except that of SD45 and SD69.In semantic priming,there was significantly different compared between groups except that of Control and SD21.Conclusions: SD has effect on implicit memory,and it's associated with the length of SD.After SD,there exits dissociation between semantic priming and perceptual priming.Perceptual priming is more affected.