Guest Lecture of Stephan Boehm

Guest Lecture of Stephan Boehm

from the School of Psychology, Bangor University, Wales, UK

Date: 23.11.11

Topic: Priming, faster responses and the medial temporal lobe – classical memory theories in the context of new data

Abstract:
Prior processing of a stimulus leads to facilitation when the same processing re-occurs, reflected in faster responses to repeated stimuli. Classical memory theories attribute this repetition priming to learning within perceptual and conceptual networks sub-serving stimulus recognition and classification. A central tenet of these theories is the independence of perceptual and conceptual contributions to priming. A recently emerged view alternatively attributes priming to binding of stimuli to the particular decision or response made. In this talk, I will present recent studies on face priming that (1) investigated the independence of perceptual and conceptual contributions to priming, and (2) evaluated the importance of stimulus-response binding. The results demonstrate the independence of perceptual and conceptual priming contributions, but they also show an additional contribution from stimulus-response binding. These findings support both classical memory theories as well as the alternative view of stimulus-response binding. Thus, an overarching memory theory will need to incorporate stimulus-response binding and learning in perceptual and conceptual networks as two complementary types of memory, both of which can lead to faster responses.