Abstract
Six experiments were conducted to investigate the nature of the contents of object files, temporary representations that store information about objects. Experiment 1 used a lexical priming paradigm with a lexical decision task, in which the prime and target could appear in either the same or different locations. The results indicated a greater priming effect when the prime and target appeared in the same location than when they appeared in different locations (object- or location-specific priming). Experiment 2 replicated these findings for objects that changed position during the display. Experiment 3 demonstrated that these findings reflected the inclusion of abstract identity information, rather than physical form, in object files. Three additional experiments tested for the presence of three types of semantic information (related concepts, semantic features, and category membership) in object files. No object-specific priming effects were found. Taken together, these experiments suggest that an object file includes identity information, but not semantic information. Implications of the results for object file theory are discussed.
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The research reported here was part of a master’s thesis completed by R.D.G. and was supported by NSF Grant SBR 93-09564 to D.E.I. Portions of these data were reported at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago.
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Gordon, R.D., Irwin, D.E. What’s in an object file? Evidence from priming studies. Perception & Psychophysics 58, 1260–1277 (1996). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207558
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207558