activations are used to support the episode retrieval model. In an fMRI meta-analysis, in addition to the right middle frontal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus and precuneus, the anterior cingulate cortex was revealed across fMRI studies. Whether the cingulate cortex is directly involved in negative priming processes or due to the contrast between congruent and mismatching stimuli is still up for debate. Additional investigations of the neurophysiological data of negative priming are necessary to further clarify the relationship between selective attention and memory in negative priming. Pathology Negative priming is identified as one of the cognitive process necessary for goal directed behaviors. It is associated with many cognitive processes such as inhibition, selective attention, encoding, memory retrieval, and short-term memory. Neuropsychiatric disorders may be due to problems with some of the above-mentioned areas of cognition. Currently, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and Tourette syndrome are being studied with reference to negative priming. Understanding the paradigm of negative priming can lead to the use of negative priming tasks as diagnosing tools to identify the disorders. Knowledge about the physiological basis of negative priming can also help in designing therapies or treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders. Conclusion Among the four theories, the feature mismatch hypothesis and the temporal discrimination model lack solid evidence and are inadequate. These two models differ slightly from the distractor inhibition model and episode retrieval model respectively and can be incorporated into the latter two. The distractor inhibition model was the dominant model until recent contradicting findings pointed to a retrieval mechanism in negative priming. The episode retrieval model is gaining more support for the memory based negative priming but lacks in its explanation of the association tags. Perhaps, further research exploring both these models may help to better understand the role of negative priming in attention, memory and cognition. See also Attention Inhibition of return Priming (psychology) Thought suppression Working memory References External links Online lesson with online demonstration of negative priming via PsyToolkit Cognition