Negative Priming Under Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Negative priming (NP) was examined under a new paradigm wherein a target and distractors were temporally separated using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). The results from the two experiments revealed that (a) NP was robust under RSVP, such that the responses to a target were slower when the target served as a distractor in a previous trial than when it did not; (b) NP was found regardless of whether the distractors appeared before or after the targets; and (c) NP was stronger when the distractor was more distinctive. These findings are generally similar to those on NP in the spatial search task. The implications for the processes causing NP under RSVP are discussed in the current paper

Results of Experiment 2.

<p>Vertical bars denote 0.95 confidence intervals (within-participants).</p

Sample displays in Experiment 1 (A) and Experiment 2 (B).

<p>In all cases, a prime display occurred before a probe display. Prime displays were manipulated to have four versions following a 2 (priming condition: NP vs. control) by 2 (display sequence: distractor-first vs. target-first) factorial within-participant design. In the NP condition, the distractor letter in the prime display (“C”) became the target letter in the probe display. In the control condition, the target letter in the probe display was not related to the target letter or distractor letter in the prime display. In the distractor-first condition, the distractor letter occurred before the target letter. In the target-first condition, the target occurred before the distractor letter. In Experiment 1, the distractor letters were in red, whereas the target letters and all other digits were in black. In Experiment 2, the target letters were in red, whereas the distractor letters and all other digits were in black. In both experiments, the display sequence for both target and distractor in the probe display was counterbalanced.</p

The Effect of Managerial Bias on Employees' Specific Human Capital Investments

Contrary to the conventional belief that escalation of commitment by managers is detrimental, this study argues for its potential benefits. While firm-specific human capital is considered a critical element of knowledge-based resources that have the potential for superior firm performance, factors affecting the incentives for employees to make such investments are often overlooked. In the case of firms taking on risky projects, fear of project termination often reduces employees' incentives to make specific human capital investments. We argue that in this situation, the firms may find it desirable to commit to a lower probability of project termination in order to encourage the development of specific human capital by employees. Managers' escalation of commitment tendency may function as such a commitment mechanism. We find support for the key argument from the results of two experimental studies