Negative Priming in Auditory Attention

This article reports 3 experiments that demonstrate and analyze inhibitory (negative) priming in auditory shadowing. Participants shadowed words that were individually presented over headphones, but ignored words simultaneously presented in another voice or another location. The first experiment demonstrated negative priming. Ignored items are shadowed on the next trial more slowly than controls with no history of being rejected in the experiment. The second experiment showed that the inhibition lasts for only one item after presentation, followed by facilitation 3 and 5 items later. The third experiment showed that the inhibitory priming is exactly the same when both presentations are to the same ear as when they are to different ears. Inhibition thus adheres to the item and not to the position in space. Negative priming takes place in a modality-audition-that has no peripheral means of excluding unattended material, as vision does by shifting fixation.