Shape priming in a complex visual search task

Shape priming was studied in four experiments comprising a complex search task in which subjects searched for a target shape presented among three distractors and reported the location of the target. Localization performance improved as a function of the duration of stimulus exposure and prime lead time. The efficiency of shape primes in improving performance decreased when lateral masks were presented near the target. Generally, both preprimes and simultaneous primes improved localization accuracy. With laterally masked stimuli, the preprimes and simultaneous primes were equally effective; when neighboring mask items were absent, the effect of preprimes was more pronounced. The results suggest that different strategies were used in the preprime and in the simultaneous-prime conditions.