The Representational Basis of Positive and Negative Repetition Effects

Repetition of target features in the same spatial location can either benefit or impair performance in perceptual tasks. Moreover, which of these two effects occurs can depend on whether an intervening event is presented temporally between consecutive targets. Here, we explored these effects for color feature repetitions by varying the representational overlap of consecutive targets. The second target on all experimental trials was a simple perceptual color. The task and first target were manipulated to vary the representation produced in response to the first target (perceptual representation of color in Experiment 1; imagined representation of color in Experiments 2 and 5; conceptual representation of color in Experiment 3; color-unrelated representation in Experiment 4). Perceptual and imagined color representations for the first target produced a positive repetition effect when an intervening event did not appear between targets but produced a negative repetition effect when an intervening event did appear between targets. In contrast, conceptual color and color-unrelated representations produced a negative repetition effect both with and without an intervening event. These results suggest that positive repetition effects depend on consecutive targets that share visual representations, whereas negative repetition effects reflect a more complex relationship between stimulus and response features across targets. Public Significance Statement This study demonstrates that color perception and color imagery can produce similar trial-to-trial repetition effects, with color repetition sometimes benefiting and other times impairing performance. A key finding is that positive repetition effects, but not the negative repetition effects, depend closely on consecutive targets sharing visual representations produced either by perceiving a color or imagining a color.