There is a cost to expectation-based priming, revealed by the fact that priming the wrong detector leads to slower responding. That is, getting prepared for one target seems to hinder performance for other targets. What does this finding reveal about selective attention?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The finding that priming the wrong detector leads to slower responding suggests that selective attention is a limited-capacity system, as preparing for one target seems to hinder performance for other targets. This implies that there are limitations on the amount of information that we can attend to and process at one time.

There Is a Cost to Expectation-Based Priming, Revealed by the Fact