Affective priming in the valent/neutral categorisation task is due to affective matching,not encoding facilitation: Reply to Spruyt

Spruyt obtained an affective congruency effect in a valent/neutral categorisation task, which contrasts with the absence of such an effect in the same task that was reported by Werner and Rothermund. The crucial difference between the two studies is that Spruyt presented only valent primes, whereas Werner and Rothermund presented equal amounts of valent and neutral primes and targets in their experiments. Removing the neutral primes introduces a confound of affective matches with the required response. Affective congruency effects in Spruyt's study can be explained straightforwardly in terms of such an affective matching strategy. To demonstrate the influence of matching strategies in the valent/neutral task without neutral primes, we conducted an experiment in which we induced an affective mismatching strategy. In support of our reasoning, this study revealed an affective incongruency effect in the valent/neutral categorisation task. We conclude that affective congruency as well as incongruency effects in the valent/neutral categorisation task reflect post-lexical affective (mis-)matching strategies rather than encoding facilitation.     

情绪图片的效价与唤醒度在注意瞬脱对抗效应中的作用:来自ERP的证据

以情绪图片为材料,在RSVP任务下检验了效价和唤醒度在注意瞬脱对抗效应中的作用。实验发现效价在对抗注意瞬脱中起主要作用,且正性图片的对抗效应优于负性图片,但唤醒度对注意瞬脱的影响不显著,结果支持积极情绪对抗注意瞬脱的观点。ERP结果进一步发现以上效应发生在P3代表的工作记忆巩固阶段。而在P2和N2代表的早期注意阶段,尽管已出现了注意瞬脱和情绪加工,但二者无显著交互作用。     

Masked emotional priming: A double dissociation between direct and indirect effects reveals non-conscious processing of emotional information beyond valence

We demonstrate non-conscious processing beyond valence by employing the masked emotional priming paradigm (Rohr, Degner, & Wentura, 2012) with a stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) variation. Emotional faces were briefly presented and directly masked, followed by the target face, using a SOA of either 43 ms or 143 ms. Targets were categorized as happy, angry, fearful, or sad. With short SOA, we replicated the differentiated priming effect within the negative domain (i.e., angry differentiate from fearful/sad). A direct test of prime awareness indicated that primes could not be discriminated consciously in this condition. With long SOA, however, we did not observe the priming effect whereas the direct test indicated some degree of conscious processing. Thus, indirect effects dissociated from direct effects in our study, an indication for non-conscious processing. Thereby, the present study provides evidence for non-conscious processing of emotional information beyond a simple positive-negative differentiation.     

Task difficulty and response complexity modulate affective priming by emotional facial expressions

In this study we used an affective priming task to address the issue of whether the processing of emotional facial expressions occurs automatically independent of attention or attentional resources. Participants had to attend to the emotion expression of the prime face, or to a nonemotional feature of the prime face, the glasses. When participants attended to glasses (emotion unattended), they had to report whether the face wore glasses or not (the glasses easy condition) or whether the glasses were rounded or squared (the shape difficult condition). Affective priming, measured on valence decisions on target words, was mainly defined as interference from incongruent rather than facilitation from congruent trials. Significant priming effects were observed just in the emotion and glasses tasks but not in the shape task. When the key–response mapping increased in complexity, taxing working memory load, affective priming effects were reduced equally for the three types of tasks. Thus, attentional load and working memory load affected additively to the observed reduction in affective priming. These results cast some doubts on the automaticity of processing emotional facial expressions.     

Higher order influences on evaluative priming: Processing styles moderate congruity effects

A growing body of research challenges the automaticity of evaluative priming (EP). The present research adds to this literature by suggesting that EP is sensitive to processing styles. We relied on previous research showing that EP is determined by the extent to which the prime and the target events on a given trial are processed as a unified compound. Here, we further hypothesised that processing styles encouraging the inclusion of the prime to the target episode support congruity effects, whereas processing styles that enhance the exclusion of the prime from the target episode interrupt (or reverse) these effects. In Experiment 1, a preceding similarity search task produced a congruity effect, whereas a dissimilarity search task eliminated and (non-significantly) reversed this effect. In Experiments 2 and 3, we replicated and extended these findings using a global/local processing manipulation. Overall, these findings confirm that EP is flexible, open to top-down influences and strategic regulation.     

Recognition advantage of happy faces in extrafoveal vision: Featural and affective processing

Happy, surprised, disgusted, angry, sad, fearful, and neutral facial expressions were presented extrafoveally (2.5° away from fixation) for 150 ms, followed by a probe word for recognition (Experiment 1) or a probe scene for affective valence evaluation (Experiment 2). Eye movements were recorded and gaze-contingent masking prevented foveal viewing of the faces. Results showed that (a) happy expressions were recognized faster than others in the absence of fixations on the faces, (b) the same pattern emerged when the faces were presented upright or upside-down, (c) happy prime faces facilitated the affective evaluation of emotionally congruent probe scenes, and (d) such priming effects occurred at 750 but not at 250 ms prime–probe stimulus–onset asynchrony. This reveals an advantage in the recognition of happy faces outside of overt visual attention, and suggests that this recognition advantage relies initially on featural processing and involves processing of positive affect at a later stage.     

Relevance drives attention: Attentional bias for gain- and loss-related stimuli is driven by delayed disengagement

Attentional bias to gain- and loss-related stimuli was investigated in a dot-probe task. We used coloured stimuli that had acquired their valence during the experiment by signalling the chance to either win or lose points in a game task. Replicating previous findings with the additional singleton paradigm, we found attentional bias effects for both gain- and loss-related colours. The effects were due to delayed disengagement from valent stimuli, especially if they were positive, and could not be explained by nonattentional processes like behavioural freezing. Our findings suggest that stimuli signalling opportunities and dangers hold attention, supporting a general motivational relevance principle of the orienting of attention.     

Boundary conditions for the influence of unfamiliar non-target primes in unconscious evaluative priming: The moderating role of attentional task sets

Evaluative priming by masked emotional stimuli that are not consciously perceived has been taken as evidence that affective stimulus evaluation can also occur unconsciously. However, as masked priming effects were small and frequently observed only for familiar primes that there also presented as visible targets in an evaluative decision task, priming was thought to reflect primarily response activation based on acquired S–R associations and not evaluative semantic stimulus analysis. The present study therefore assessed across three experiments boundary conditions for the emergence of masked evaluative priming effects with unfamiliar primes in an evaluative decision task and investigated the role of the frequency of target repetition on priming with pictorial and verbal stimuli. While familiar primes elicited robust priming effects in all conditions, priming effects by unfamiliar primes were reliably obtained for low repetition (pictures) or unrepeated targets (words), but not for targets repeated at a high frequency. This suggests that unfamiliar masked stimuli only elicit evaluative priming effects when the task set associated with the visible target involves evaluative semantic analysis and is not based on S–R triggered responding as for high repetition targets. The present results therefore converge with the growing body of evidence demonstrating attentional control influences on unconscious processing.     

The role of consciousness in attentional control differences in trait anxiety

Trait anxiety has long been associated with impaired selective attention to task-irrelevant threat stimuli, both when threat is presented consciously and outside of awareness. However recent research has suggested broader deficits in selective attention, with poorer ability to ignore supraliminal non-emotional information in anxiety. Here, we investigated whether anxiety could equally be associated with poorer selective attention for non-emotional stimuli in a subliminal context. Participants performed a simple arrow discrimination task, where prior incompatible or compatible response primes were presented before targets either unmasked (supraliminal) or masked (subliminal). While distractor interference was evident in both conditions, trait anxiety was associated with increased task-irrelevant processing only in the supraliminal condition; group effects were eliminated when primes were masked. Our findings are in line with traditional accounts suggesting that differences in selective attention and cognitive control solely modulate conscious distractor processing.     

Impact of fearful expression on danger processing: The influence of the level of trait anxiety

Threat estimation is crucial for the adaptation of behavior to a dangerous situation. In anxiety, a bias to threat has been described as a core feature. Therefore, the sensitivity for threatening information in anxious individuals may have consequences for danger estimation. In this study, we used the affective priming paradigm to test the assumption that fearful expressions would facilitate danger detection in natural scenes in anxious individuals. Twenty-three high trait anxious individuals and 22 low trait anxious individuals participated in the study. They had to detect the potential threat of a target scene (neutral or threatening) following neutral or fearful face primes. High trait anxious participants detected threat more rapidly than low trait anxious participants, consistent with previous reports of emotional hypervigilance in anxiety. Furthermore, this effect was enhanced when the target scene followed a fearful expression: Only in anxious participants were reaction times shorter to detect danger following a fearful prime than a neutral prime. Our results tend to show that in anxiety, the hypervigilance to threat may be of an important value such as increasing the detection of a subsequent potential danger. Implication of attentional processes and attentional control is discussed.     

Attentional processing of emotional material in types of anxiety and depression

ABSTRACT

The present study was designed to address the hypothesis that differences and similarities in patterns of attentional processing in recently proposed types of anxiety and depression are connected with the dominant (reactive, regulative) function they play in stimulation processing and their structural components. Participants (N?=?1247) filled out the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire, which assesses types of anxiety and depression, and completed the Emotional Faces Attentional Test one week later. The obtained results confirmed our prediction and suggested that the proposed typology of anxiety and depression is valid in the adaptive meanings of both phenomena.     

Threat processing in obsessive-compulsive disorder: evidence from a modified negative priming task

Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often experience intrusive thoughts. These intrusions may be due to biases in information processing mechanisms, including attention, memory, and learning. To examine this hypothesis, we presented a modified negative priming (NP) paradigm with idiographically selected words to 19 individuals with OCD (OCs) and 19 matched non-anxious control participants (NACs). The words included OCD-relevant threat, OCD-relevant positive, and neutral words. This paradigm typically elicits positive priming because participants may learn the contingency between the prime and probe that facilitates responding [Frings and Wentura (2006). Strategy effects counteract distractor inhibition: NP with constantly absent probe distractors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 854-864]. As predicted, NACs showed facilitation (i.e., positive priming) rather than NP for all word types, whereas OCs exhibited facilitation for only neutral words. For positive words, OCs exhibited no priming and for threat words they exhibited NP. These results suggest that for idiographic, OCD-relevant threat information, individuals with OCD show difficulty learning the contingency between the information in the prime and probe displays relative to the NACs.     

Syntactic processing in Korean-English bilingual production: Evidence from cross-linguistic structural priming

A structural priming experiment investigated whether grammatical encoding in production consists of one or two stages and whether oral bilingual language production is shared at the functional or positional level [Bock, J. K., Levelt, W. (1994). Language production. Grammatical encoding. In M. A. Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 945-984). San Diego, CA: Academic Press] by manipulating syntactic structure and argument order in structurally parallel Korean and English dative sentences. The results revealed that structural priming across languages can occur when both languages share syntactic structure, independent of argument order. Specifically, cross-linguistic argument-order-independent structural priming in canonical Korean postpositional and English prepositional dative structures was observed, providing evidence for shared bilingual syntactic processing occurring at the abstract, functional level within a two-stage grammatical encoding process. This is the first demonstration of cross-linguistic priming of argument-order-independent structural information.     

A unique look at face processing: the impact of masked faces on the processing of facial features

This experiment utilized a masked priming paradigm to explore the early processes involved in face recognition. The first experiment investigated implicit processing of the eyes and mouth in an upright face, using prime durations of 33 and 50 ms. The results demonstrate implicit processing of both the eyes and mouth, and support the configural processing theory of face processing. The second experiment used the same method with inverted faces and the third experiment was a combination of Experiments 1 and 2. The fourth experiment utilized misaligned faces as the primes. Based on the pattern of results from these experiments, we suggest that, when a face is inverted, the eyes and mouth are initially processed individually and are not linked until a later stage of processing. An upright face is proposed to be processed by analysis of its configuration, whereas an inverted face is initially processed using first-order relational information, and then converted to an upright representation and transferred to face specific regions for configural analysis.     

Affective and cognitive predictors of affective response to exercise: Examining unique and overlapping variance

ObjectivesAffective response to exercise has been suggested as an important factor in determining regular exercise. However, it is unclear the extent to which anticipatory affect factors (affective attitudes, implicit associations, and affective associations), anticipated affect factors (anticipated regret, anticipated pride), and cognitive factors (self-efficacy, intentions) explain overlapping or unique variance in affective response to exercise.DesignWe systematically examined the extent to which these various affective and cognitive factors relevant to exercise predict affective response, and determined the extent to which these factors account for unique or overlapping variance in affective response.MethodHealthy young adults (N = 69) completed measures of affective attitudes, affective associations, implicit associations, anticipated affect, self-efficacy, and exercise intentions. Participants then exercised for 20-min at moderate intensity on a treadmill, during and after which they reported their affective response. Using variables that were independent predictors, we conducted multivariate analyses to determine which factors account for unique variance in affective response to exercise.ResultsIn three of four multivariate models, both anticipated and anticipatory affect variables explained unique variance in affective response during exercise. Only anticipatory affect variables accounted for unique variance in affective response immediately post-exercise. Finally, the association between exercise self-efficacy and affective response during-exercise was rendered non-significant after controlling for affective factors in all three multivariate models.ConclusionsThe unique associations between affective response to exercise and affective, but not cognitive, factors elucidate key predictors of affective response during- and post-exercise.     

Affective information processing and the assessment of anxiety

A conceptualization of anxiety as comprising three loosely coupled response systems of overt behavior, verbal report, and physiological activation has proven useful in clinical and theoretical work. With this framework as a starting point, an information-processing approach to the study of emotion is described. Emotions are conceived as affective programs within the brain, with information coded as propositions organized into associative networks. Affective expression results when such a network is accessed and processed, which can occur when a sufficient number of propositions are activated by environmental stimuli and/or internal associations. It is hypothesized that information about the expressive physiology is an integral component of the associative structure, and that processing of the network accordingly results in measurable psychophysiological response. Data from studies of emotional imagery, as well as other areas of research, are reviewed in support of these theories. The utility of this approach for the assessment of anxiety disorders is discussed, and results of clinical studies are presented to suggest that individual differences in accessing and processing emotional information may bear significant implications for prognosis and treatment selection. It is speculated that differences among the anxiety disorders could be interpreted in terms of the degree of cognitive organization of the network, leading to potential refinement of current diagnostic categories. In conclusion, cognitive psychology paradigms are discussed in terms of their application to the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders.The authors' research is supported in part by NIMH Grant MH 37757. Portions of this paper were presented at the NIMH Conference on Anxiety, Tuxedo, NY, September 1983. Several of its themes were developed there at more length, and this material may be found in the publication of the conference proceedings (Tuma & Maser, 1985).     

In the grip of fear: Dissociations in attentional processing of animal fearful individuals

Using a modified attention paradigm we investigated specific attentional mechanisms in processing animal feared stimuli. In this paradigm arrays of four pictures were displayed and after its disappearance from view a probe (a letter, X or P) then followed unpredictably in the location of one of the four pictures. The results showed that discriminations of probes tended to be impeded by spider stimuli, compared to snake stimuli. This effect was potentiated by high anxiety but only for those individuals fearful of spiders, since no such effect was observed for snake fearful individuals. Moreover, the discrimination of the probes was not facilitated when presented after the feared stimuli. The implications of these findings are discussed as a function of the cognitive bias involved in specific fear.     

词汇识别中歧义词素语义加工:ERP研究

结合掩蔽启动范式和ERP技术,利用歧义词素的加工,本研究探讨了歧义词素语义的激活。实验采用3×2两因素被试内设计,歧义词素两含义互为启动刺激和目标刺激,两变量分别为启动词类型(歧义词素含义1 vs.含义2 vs.无关词)和目标词类型(歧义词素含义1 vs.含义2)。行为结果发现启动词类型和目标词类型存在交互作用,即只有当共享词素同形同义的情况下,目标词的加工才可能被启动,共享词素同形不同义时并没有产生启动效应。ERP结果进一步肯定了行为结果,在N250和N400两个脑电成分上都发现了启动类型和目标类型交互作用有关的效应,当启动词和目标词共享词素同形同义时,同时引发了N250和N400的变化;当共享词素同形不同义时,时程分析时虽然也发现了N250的变化,但是N250的效应较小,小于同形同义所引发的N250效应,持续时间也较短。实验结果说明,在词汇识别中歧义词素语义可以激活,并对目标词汇加工的早期加工阶段发挥作用。     

Good vibrations: Global processing can increase the pleasantness of touch

Visual–tactile carry-over effects of global/local processing (attention to the whole, versus the details) have been reported under active touch conditions. We investigated whether carry-over effects of global/local processing also occur for passive touch and whether global/local processing has differential effects on affective and discriminative aspects of touch. Participants completed two tactile tasks involving pleasantness rating and discrimination of a set of tactile vibrations before and after completing a version of the Navon task that encouraged a focus on the global (n?=?30), local (n?=?30), or both (n?=?30) features of a series of visual stimuli. In line with previous research suggesting a link between global processing and positive emotion, global processing increased pleasantness ratings of high-frequency (but not low-frequency) tactile vibrations. Local processing did not improve the ability to discriminate between vibrations of different frequencies, however. There was some evidence of a tactile–visual carry-over effect; prior local processing of tactile vibrations reduced global precedence during the Navon task in the control group. We have shown carry-over effects of global versus local processing on passive touch perception. These findings provide further evidence suggesting that a common perceptual mechanism determines processing level across modalities and show for the first time that prior global processing affects the pleasantness of touch.