The effects of the concreteness of differently valenced words on affective priming

This study aimed to determine whether affective priming is influenced by the concreteness of emotional words. To address this question, we conducted three experiments using lexical decision-priming task. In Experiment 1, positive-abstract (PA) and positive-concrete (PC) words were used as primes to examine the effect of the concreteness of positive words on affective priming, and in Experiment 2, negative-abstract (NA) and negative-concrete (NC) words were used as primes to examine the effect of the concreteness of negative words on affective priming. Results showed that participants responded faster to affectively congruent-abstract trails than incongruent-abstract trails in PA prime conditions, but for PC or negative word (NC and NA) prime conditions, there were no differences between the response times of congruent trails and incongruent trails. To examine the reliability of the priming effects observed in Experiments 1 and 2, we set up a neutral condition as a baseline in Experiment 3, through which we confirmed the difference in the affective priming effect between positive and negative primes in a concrete–abstract dimension. PA words were found to have the tendency to possess more emotional load and facilitate affective association between the prime and the target. The study finding suggests that aside from arousal and valence, the concreteness of positive words also has an impact on affective priming effect.     

On wildebeests and humans: the preferential detection of negative stimuli

On the basis of a functional perspective, we hypothesized that negative stimuli are detected faster than positive stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants were subliminally presented with positive and negative words or with no words at all. After each presentation, participants were asked whether they had seen a word. They detected negative words more accurately than positive words. In Experiment 2, participants were subliminally presented with negative or positive words. After each presentation, they were asked whether the presented word was positive or negative. Negative words were correctly categorized more often than positive words. Experiment 3 showed that although participants correctly categorized negative words more often than positive words, they could not guess the meaning of the words better than would be expected by chance. The results are discussed against the background of recent findings on basic affective processes.     

The affective priming effect: Automatic activation of evaluative information in memory

Abstract

Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, and Kardes (1986) argued that affect may be activated automatically from memory on the mere observation of an affect-loaded stimulus. Using a variant of the standard sequential priming paradigm, it was demonstrated that the time needed to evaluate target words as positive or negative decreased if they were preceded by a similarly valenced prime word, but increased when preceded by a prime of opposite valence. Several aspects of their procedure, however, do not warrant their conclusion concerning the unconditionality of the effect. The present research investigated the generality of this affective priming effect. In Experiment 1, it was tested whether the effect can be generalised to more complex visual material. Stimulus pairs consisted of colour slides. Subjects had to evaluate the targets as quickly as possible. In Experiment 2, the standard word-word procedure was used, but target words had to be pronounced. In both experiments, significant affective priming effects were observed, supporting Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, and Pratto's (1992) assertion that the automatic activation effect is a pervasive and relative unconditional phenomenon. Implications for theories of affect and emotion are discussed.     

The positivity proportion effect: A list context effect in masked affective priming

In the evaluative decision task, participants decide whether target words denote something positive or negative. Positive and negative prime words are known to engender so-called affective priming effects in this task. Primes were sandwich masked, and the proportion of positive to negative target words was manipulated. In Experiment 1, prime valence and positivity proportion interacted, so that primes of the less frequently presented target valence caused larger priming effects. Experiment 2 rendered an explanation of this interaction in terms of response bias unlikely, Experiment 3 ruled out a peripheral locus of the effect, and Experiment 4 ruled out an account in terms of stimulus repetition. The effect is explained by means of an attentional bias favoring the rare kind of valence.     

Affective priming with subliminally presented pictures.

Affective priming studies have demonstrated that subliminally presented prime words can exert an influence on responses towards positive or negative target stimuli. In the present series of experiments, it was investigated whether these findings can be extended to pictorial stimuli. Ideographically selected positive, neutral, and negative picture primes that were sandwich-masked immediately preceded positive or negative target pictures (Experiment 1) or words (Experiments 2 & 3). Evaluative categorization responses to these target stimuli were significantly influenced by the valence of the prime. First, it was demonstrated that high anxious participants were selectively slowed when the subliminally presented prime was negative (Experiments 1 & 2). Second, the affective congruence between primes and targets also exerted an influence on the responses, but in a direction that is opposite to what is typically observed in affective priming research. These reverse priming effects are situated within a series of recent similar findings, and implications for theories of affective priming are discussed.     

Approach motivation as incentive salience: perceptual sources of evidence in relation to positive word primes

Four experiments (total N = 391) examined predictions derived from a biologically based incentive salience theory of approach motivation. In all experiments, judgments indicative of enhanced perceptual salience were exaggerated in the context of positive, relative to neutral or negative, stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, positive words were judged to be of a larger size (Experiment 1) and led individuals to judge subsequently presented neutral objects as larger in size (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, similar effects were observed in a mock subliminal presentation paradigm. In Experiment 4, positive word primes were perceived to have been presented for a longer duration of time, again relative to both neutral and negative word primes. Results are discussed in relation to theories of approach motivation, affective priming, and the motivation-perception interface.     

Priming effects on the N400 in the affective priming paradigm with facial expressions of emotion

We studied the effect of facial expression primes on the evaluation of target words through a variant of the affective priming paradigm. In order to make the affective valence of the faces irrelevant to the task, the participants were assigned a double prime–target task in which they were unpredictably asked either to identify the gender of the face or to evaluate whether the word was pleasant or unpleasant. Behavioral and electrophysiological (event-related potential, or ERP) indices of affective priming were analyzed. Temporal and spatial versions of principal components analyses were used to detect and quantify those ERP components associated with affective priming. Although no significant behavioral priming was observed, electrophysiological indices showed a reverse priming effect, in the sense that the amplitude of the N400 was higher in response to congruent than to incongruent negative words. Moreover, a late positive potential (LPP), peaking around 700 ms, was sensitive to affective valence but not to prime–target congruency. This pattern of results is consistent with previous accounts of ERP effects in the affective priming paradigm that have linked the LPP with evaluative priming and the N400 with semantic priming. Our proposed explanation of the N400 priming effects obtained in the present study is based on two assumptions: a double check of affective stimuli in terms of valence and specific emotion content, and the differential specificities of facial expressions of positive and negative emotions.     

The affective regulation of cognitive priming

Semantic and affective priming are classic effects observed in cognitive and social psychology, respectively. The authors discovered that affect regulates such priming effects. In Experiment 1, positive and negative moods were induced before one of three priming tasks; evaluation, categorization, or lexical decision. As predicted, positive affect led to both affective priming (evaluation task) and semantic priming (category and lexical decision tasks). However, negative affect inhibited such effects. In Experiment 2, participants in their natural affective state completed the same priming tasks as in Experiment 1. As expected, affective priming (evaluation task) and category priming (categorization and lexical decision tasks) were observed in such resting affective states. Hence, the authors conclude that negative affect inhibits semantic and affective priming. These results support recent theoretical models, which suggest that positive affect promotes associations among strong and weak concepts, and that negative affect impairs such associations (Clore & Storbeck, 2006; Kuhl, 2000).     

Unconscious semantic priming in the absence of partial awareness

In a recent paper in Psychological Science, Kouider and Dupoux reported obtaining unconscious Stroop priming only when subjects had partial awareness of the masked distractor words (i.e., could consciously perceive subword features that enabled reconstruction of whole words). Kouider and Dupoux conjectured that semantic priming occurs only when such partial awareness is present. The present experiments tested this conjecture in an affective categorization priming task that differed from Kouider and Dupoux’s in using masked distractors that subjects had practiced earlier as visible words. Experiment 1 showed priming from practiced words when subjects had no partial awareness of those words. Experiment 2 showed that, in the absence of partial awareness, practiced words yielded priming but not-practiced words did not. Experiment 3 corroborated Experiment 1 and 2s results using a different test of partial awareness. These results suggest that unconscious processing (rather than partial awareness) of subword elements drives masked semantic priming by practiced words.     

Investigating the mechanisms underlying affective priming effects using a conditional pronunciation task

Recently, using a conditional pronunciation task, De Houwer and Randell (2004) reported evidence of affective priming effects only when pronunciation depended on the semantic category of targets. Although these findings support the notion that spreading of activation is the mechanism underlying affective priming effects, an explanation in terms of postlexical mechanism could not be ruled out. To clarify this point, we conducted two experiments in which nouns for both the to-be-pronounced as well as the not-to-be pronounced targets were used and all stimuli were affectively valenced words. In Experiment 1, the to-be-pronounced targets were object-words, and the not-to-be-pronounced targets were person-words, whereas in Experiment 2, the instructions were reversed. Results of experiment 1 showed affective priming effects only when pronunciation of target words was conditional upon their semantic category. Most importantly, affective priming effects were observed for both object-words (Experiment 1) and person-words (Experiment 2). These results are compatible with a spreading activation account, but not with a postlexical mechanism account of affective priming effects in the pronunciation task.     

Electrophysiological responses to evaluative priming: the LPP is sensitive to incongruity

Previous studies examining event-related potentials and evaluative priming have been mixed; some find evidence that evaluative priming influences the N400, whereas others find evidence that it affects the late positive potential (LPP). Three experiments were conducted using either affective pictures (Experiments 1 and 2) or words (Experiment 3) in a sequential evaluative priming paradigm. In line with previous behavioral findings, participants responded slower to targets that were evaluatively incongruent with the preceding prime (e.g., negative preceded by positive) compared to evaluatively congruent targets (e.g., negative preceded by negative). In all three studies, the LPP was larger to evaluatively incongruent targets compared to evaluatively congruent ones, and there was no evidence that evaluative incongruity influenced the N400 component. Thus, the present results provide additional support for the notion that evaluative priming influences the LPP and not the N400. We discuss possible reasons for the inconsistent findings in prior research and the theoretical implications of the findings for both evaluative and semantic priming.     

任务与字频对汉字情绪启动反转效应的影响

本研究使用ERP技术对比了效价判断与真假字判断两种任务形式下的汉字情绪启动效应。结果发现,在效价判断任务中高频目标字出现情绪启动的反转效应,效价不一致比一致条件下反应时短,诱发了较大的P200;低频目标字出现情绪启动的一致性效应,效价一致比不一致条件下反应时短,诱发了较大的P200与N400。真假字判断任务中高频和低频目标字均出现情绪启动的一致性效应。情绪启动的反转效应依赖于刺激材料的可通达性与注意导向,启动字与目标字的反应竞争关系导致了情绪启动的反转效应。     

Connection between the evaluation of positive or negative valence and verbal responses to a lexical decision making task]

Evaluation of the positive or negative valence of a stimulus is an activity that is part of any emotional experience that has been mostly studied using the affective priming paradigm. When the prime and the target have the same valence (e.g. positive prime and positive target), the target response is facilitated as a function of opposing valence conditions (e.g. negative prime and positive target). These studies show that this evaluation is automatic but depends on the nature of the task's implied response because the priming effects are only observed for positive responses, not for negative responses. This result was explained in automatic judgmental tendency model put forth by Abelson and Rosenberg (1958) and Klauer and Stern (1992). In this model, affective priming assumes there is an overlap between both responses, the first response taking precedence as a function of the prime-target valence, and the second response one that is required by the task. We are assuming that another type of response was not foreseen under this model. In fact, upon activating the valence for each of the prime-target elements, two preliminary responses would be activated before the response on the prime-target valence relationship. These responses are directly linked to the prime and target evaluation independently of the prime-target relationship. This hypothesis can be linked to the larger hypothesis whereby the evaluative process is related to two distinct motivational systems corresponding to approach and avoidance behaviour responses (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990; Neuman & Strack, 2000; Cacciopo, Piester & Bernston, 1993). In this study, we use the hypothesis that when a word leads to a positive valence evaluation, this favours a positive verbal response and inversely, a negative valence word favours a negative response. We are testing this hypothesis outside the affective priming paradigm to study to what extent evaluating a word, even when it is not primed, activates both motivational systems and consequently, positive verbal responses for approach and negative responses for avoidance. To validate this hypothesis, we are re-using both versions of the lexical decision task proposed by Wentura (2000). The classic version leads participants to a positive response for words, and the modified version leads to a no response. This experiment, carried out with thirty-two participants, measures the influence on response time of two experimental factors, the intrasubject valence of words (positive and negative) and the inter-subject factor (yes and no responses to words). Results show an interaction between the type of response and word valence. It is temporally more onerous to give a no response to positive words than to negative words. This result confirms that there is a direct relation between the evaluation of a valence stimulus and the response to this stimulus, a relation that had up to now been essentially observed with motor behaviours, and more rarely with verbal responses. We propose integrating the existence of this link between evaluation and verbal response (yes and no) in interpreting the effects of affective priming.     

Multiletter Word Units in Visual Recognition: Direct Activation by Supraletter Visual Features

Multiletter priming effects have been interpreted as evidence for the representation of separable multiletter units in the visual word recognition system (Whiteley & Walker, 1994). The reported experiments examine whether the activation of such units is pre- or post-lexical. Experiments 2 and 3 employed priming in an alphabetic decision task in which subjects made a discrimination response to test stimuli which could be classed as either targets or foils. Targets were single letters, or consonant bigrams, present or absent in an immediately preceding word, or (Experiment 3 and 4) they were whole words semantically associated or not to a preceding word. Foils were single non-alphanumeric characters, a character plus a letter, or a word with one letter replaced by a character. Experiment 1 was a preliminary to determine the parameters of a sequential presentation manipulation. Experiment 2 compared conditions of simultaneous and sequential presentation where letters of prime words were presented together, or one at a time in rapid succession. With simultaneous presentation, responses to bigram targets were facilitated when these appeared in the prime word, while responses to individual constituent letters of those bigrams were not facilitated. Additionally, responses to primed bigram targets were faster than responses to primed single letter targets. The sequential presentation of prime words resulted in a qualitative change in the response pattern indicative of the disruption of multiletter unit activation. That change was replicated in Experiment 3 where semantic priming confirmed that the prime words were being processed to a level of meaning. The observations challenge a post-lexical account of the multiletter priming effects. Finally, Experiment 4 addressed the question of whether bigram priming reflects the intentional use of prime information to predict following targets. Strategic interpretations are undermined and it is argued that multiletter units are activated automatically as part of normal visual word recognition.     

Evidence for the automatic evaluation of self-generated actions

The accuracy of simple actions is swiftly determined through specific monitoring brain systems. However, it remains unclear whether this evaluation is accompanied by a rapid and compatible emotional appraisal of the action that allows to mark incorrect actions as negative/bad and conversely correct actions as positive/good. In this study, we used a new method to decode the affective value of simple actions generated by participants during a standard Go/noGo task. Immediately after each Go/noGo action, participants responded to the valence of either a positive or a negative word. Results showed that False Alarms performed during the Go/noGo task led to a faster evaluative categorization of negative words relative to positive words. This action-word evaluative priming effect occurred when the interval between these two events was set to either 300 or 600ms, but not 1000ms. Finally, higher levels of trait anxiety were associated with a reduction of the evaluative priming effect. Our results suggest that simple actions are rapidly evaluated as positive or negative depending on the automatic monitoring of their perceived accuracy.     

Automatic integration of non-perceptual action effect features: the case of the associative affective Simon effect

In the first phase of Experiment 1, participants were instructed to move a response key up or down in response to a go signal. One of both responses was consistently followed by an aversive stimulus, whereas the other response was never followed by the aversive stimulus. In a subsequent test phase, the same responses had to be emitted according to the grammatical category (noun or adjective) of positive and negative target words. Results showed that the level of affective correspondence between the task-irrelevant positive or negative connotation of the target and the motivational significance of the effect of the correct response influenced performance. The results of Experiment 2 replicated those of Experiment 1, using alternating target-response assignment. These findings point to the integration of affective action effect feature codes in the cognitive representation of actions.     

Affective priming as an indirect measure of food preferences acquired through odor conditioning

The present study aimed at investigating affective priming for originally neutral food stimuli that recently acquired their affective meaning through odor conditioning. In a first phase, pictures of different brands of yogurts (CSs) were contingently presented with a positive or negative odor (US). In a subsequent phase, the yogurt CSs were used as primes in an affective priming procedure. Rating data showed that the acquisition procedure resulted in a reliable evaluative learning effect. This could be corroborated by the results of the priming task. Participants responded faster to positive target words and made fewer errors when they were preceded by a CS that had been associated with a positive odor, as compared to a CS that was associated with a negative odor. A reversed pattern was present for negative targets. Based on these findings, it is suggested that affective priming might be used as a demand-free measure of evaluative learning.     

Does sunshine prime loyal? Affective priming in the naming task

Recent work has found an affective priming effect using the naming task: In pronouncing target words, pronunciation latencies were consistently shorter when the target (e.g., loyal) was preceded by an evaluatively congruent (e.g., sunshine) rather than incongruent prime word (e.g, rain). Using the naming task, no affective priming was found in the present studies irrespective of prime-set size and target-set size (Experiment 1), irrespective of stimulus-onset asynchrony (Experiment 2), and even when a nearly exact replication of previous work that demonstrated the effect was conducted (Experiment 3). Finally, bilingual German/English speakers exhibited strong associative priming, but no affective priming, in both the English as well as the German language (Experiment 4). The results show that priming for evaluatively related words is not a general finding.     

The influence of induced mood on the inhibition of emotional information

The ability to inhibit affective information plays a major role in efficient cognitive processing. In this study the effect of mood induction on inhibitory processing of emotional material was investigated. In Experiment 1, performance on a negative affective priming task (NAP) following negative and positive mood induction (MIP) was compared to a neutral mood condition. Results revealed that, as compared with the neutral mood condition, inhibitory function for affective material was unaffected by negative MIP. However, after the positive MIP, inhibitory processes were significantly impaired. In Experiment 2, we replicated and extended the findings on positive affect and inhibition. The data concerning positive mood fit with the general findings that positive mood often leads to a “loose, flexible” processing mode. The null-finding concerning negative mood and inhibition is discussed in the light of research on inhibition in depression.     

The lasting effect of words on feelings: words may facilitate exposure effects to threatening images

Previous studies have shown that mere words, particularly affective words, can dampen emotional responses. However, the effect of affective labels on emotional responding in the long term is unknown. The authors examined whether repeated exposure to aversive images would lead to more reduction in autonomic reactivity a week later if the images were exposed with single-word labels than without labels. In Experiment 1, healthy individuals were exposed to pictures of disturbing scenes with or without labels on Day 1. On Day 8, the same pictures from the previous week were exposed, this time without labels. In Experiment 2, participants were spider fearful and were exposed to pictures of spiders. In both experiments, although repeated exposure to aversive images (without labels) led to long-term attenuation of autonomic reactivity, exposure plus affective labels, but not nonaffective labels, led to more attenuation than exposure alone. Thus, affective labels may help dampen emotional reactivity in both the short and long terms. Implications for exposure therapy and translational studies are discussed.