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.     

Loading working memory enhances affective priming

Stronger affective priming (Murphy & Zajonc, 1993) with suboptimal (i.e., reduced consciousness) than with optimal (i.e., full consciousness) prime presentation suggests that nonconscious processes form an important part of emotions. Merikle and Joordens (1997) have argued that both impoverished presentation and divided attention can produce suboptimal conditions and result in parallel effects. We manipulated attention by means of a concurrent working memory load while keeping presentation duration constant, as participants evaluated Japanese ideographs that were preceded by happy, neutral, or angry faces (affective priming) and male or female faces (nonaffective priming). In contrast to nonaffective priming, affective priming was larger with divided attention than with focused attention. It is concluded that manipulations of stimulus quality and of attention can both be used to probe the distinction between conscious and nonconscious processes and that the highest chances of obtaining the pattern of stronger priming with suboptimal presentation than with optimal presentation occur in the affective domain.     

Comparison of affective and semantic priming in different SOA

Researchers have been at odds on whether affective or semantic priming is faster or stronger. The present study selects a series of facial expression photos and words, which have definite emotional meaning or gender meaning, to set up experiment including both affective and semantic priming. The intensity of emotion and gender information in the prime as well as the strength of emotional or semantic (in gender) relationship between the prime and the target is matched. Three groups of participants are employed separately in our experiment varied with stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) as 50, 250 or 500 ms. The results show that the difference between two types of priming effect is revealed when the SOA is at 50 ms, in which the affective priming effect is presented when the prime has negative emotion. It indicates that SOA can affect the comparison between the affective and semantic priming, and the former takes the priority in the automatic processing level.     

No evidence for subliminal affective priming with emotional facial expression primes

The present study investigated whether facial expressions of emotion presented outside consciousness awareness will elicit evaluative responses as assessed in affective priming. Participants were asked to evaluate pleasant and unpleasant target words that were preceded by masked or unmasked schematic (Experiment 1) or photographic faces (Experiments 1 and 2) with happy or angry expressions. They were either required to perform the target evaluation only or to perform the target evaluation and to name the emotion expressed by the face prime. Prime-target interval was 300 ms in Experiment 1 and 80 ms in Experiment 2. Naming performance confirmed the effectiveness of the masking procedure. Affective priming was evident after unmasked primes in tasks that required naming of the facial expressions for schematic and photographic faces and after unmasked primes in tasks that did not require naming for photographic faces. No affective priming was found after masked primes. The present study failed to provide evidence for affective priming with masked face primes, however, it indicates that voluntary attention to the primes enhances affective priming.     

Effects of prime task on affective priming by facial expressions of emotion

Priming of affective word evaluation by pictures of faces showing positive and negative emotional expressions was investigated in two experiments that used a double task procedure where participants were asked to respond to the prime or to the target on different trials. The experiments varied between-subjects the prime task assignment and the prime-target interval (SOA, stimulus onset asynchrony). Significant congruency effects (that is, faster word evaluation when prime and target had the same valence than when they were of opposite valence) were observed in both experiments. When the prime task oriented the subjects to an affectively irrelevant property of the faces (their gender), priming was observed at SOA 300 ms but not at SOA 1000 ms (Experiment 1). However, when the prime task assignment explicitly oriented the subjects to the valence of the face, priming was observed at both SOA durations (Experiment 2). These results show, first, that affective priming by pictures of facial emotion can be obtained even when the subject has an explicit goal to process a non-affective property of the prime. Second, sensitivity of the priming effect to SOA duration seems to depend on whether it is mediated by intentional or unintentional activation of the valence of the face prime.     

Negative priming reduces affective ratings

The mere exposure effect is the commonly observed increase in pleasantness ratings of stimuli that have been given prior exposure. According to the fluency attribution account of the mere exposure effect, repeated presentations of a stimulus lead to increased ease of processing, which in turn is attributed to pleasantness. If so, processing fluency manipulated by means other than repetition should influence liking. In the present experiment, processing fluency was manipulated using a negative priming procedure, and its influence on affective judgement was examined. Previously ignored stimuli were responded to slower (negative priming) and were rated as less pleasant than controls. It was concluded that decreased processing fluency decreases liking of previously ignored stimuli.     

情绪启动与语义启动的比较

情绪启动与语义启动发生时孰先孰后、进行中独立平行还是交互作用、效应上孰强孰弱,还存在较大争议.这些争议的本质涉及到人脑中情绪和认知这两大基本系统的关系认识问题.通过行为观察与事件相关脑电位技术结合,在同一个实验中设置情绪启动、语义启动两种情境,并匹配可能影响这两种启动效应的因素,如信息强度、启动刺激和靶刺激的信息关联程度等,然后系统性变化启动刺激呈现的时间、SOA、实验任务等,并逐步加入被试的年龄、性别、学科专业、认知风格、情绪易感性等个体差异变量,可望直接而系统地澄清争议,深层次揭示情绪信息流与语义信息流的加工特点,并进而揭示人脑情绪系统与认知系统功能与机制的发展规律.     

Is cleanliness next to abstinence? The effect of cleanliness priming on attitudes towards harm reduction strategies for people with substance use disorders

Can exposure to a cleanliness prime affect moral judgements towards harm reduction strategies (HRS) for individuals with substance use disorders? Our research examined (a) the effect of a cleanliness prime on attitudes towards HRS and (b) whether this effect would be attenuated by a brief educational presentation. Participants were randomly assigned to a priming condition and an educational presentation condition. Results demonstrated that (a) the cleanliness prime did not shift attitudes towards HRS, however, (b) the educational presentations significantly shifted attitudes to be more positive after the Harm Reduction presentation and more negative after the Healthy Living presentation. The literature on priming is mixed and our results support a growing body of research challenging the robustness of cleanliness priming and also demonstrates that brief presentations can change attitudes. Our research has implications for education on the benefits of HRS in reducing disease transmission, refuse in the community, and overdose deaths.     

Adult attachment avoidance and automatic affective response to sad facial expressions

The present work represents the first study to investigate the relationship between adult attachment avoidance and anxiety and automatic affective responses to basic facial emotions. Subliminal affective priming methods allowed for the assessment of unconscious affective reactions. An affective priming task using masked sad and happy faces, both of which are approach‐related facial expressions, was administered to 30 healthy volunteers. Participants also completed the Relationship Scales Questionnaire and measures of anxiety and depression. Attachment avoidance was negatively associated with affective priming due to sad (but not happy) facial expressions. This association occurred independently of attachment anxiety, depressivity, and trait anxiety. Attachment anxiety was not correlated with priming due to sad or happy facial expressions. The present results are consistent with the assumption that attachment avoidance moderates automatic affective reaction to sad faces. Our data indicate that avoidant attachment is related to a low automatic affective responsivity to sad facial expressions.     

Automatic affective priming of recently acquired stimulus valence: Priming at SOA 300 but not at SOA 1000

In a recent series of studies, it was demonstrated that originally neutral stimuli that were predictive of an electrocutaneous stimulus in a differential aversive conditioning procedure not only acquired “signal-value” but also acquired a negative affective valence. These affective changes were not only evident from the evaluative ratings scales, but also from the data of an affective priming procedure. This response-latency based priming procedure has recently been employed as an indirect and unobtrusive index of stimulus valence (attitudes) (e.g., Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995). In the present experiment, the use of the affective priming procedure as an indirect measure of stimulus valence was further explored. Results showed that aversively conditioned stimuli revealed their newly acquired valence in this priming procedure. As predicted, this effect was obtained at the short SOA (300 ms) but not at the long SOA (1000 ms). The significant SOA X Priming interaction suggests that the affective priming procedure is less or not affected by demand effects and (self-presentational) response strategies. This makes the affective priming effect and excellent and unobtrusive measure of affective valence and an interesting alternative to subjective rating scales in situations where demand effects might otherwise influence responding. The results are also related to recent research on conditioning models of the acquisition of anxiety disorders, and to research on the co-occurrence of expectancy learning and affective learning within these models.     

About the impact of automaticity in the minimal group paradigm: evidence from affective priming tasks

Two experiments examined whether novel, minimal ingroups are automatically associated with positive affect while outgroups do not elicit such positive evaluative default. Participants were assigned to social categories in a typical minimal group setting and subsequently administered a masked priming task, i.e. prime words were not consciously recognized. Following either the presentation of a priori positive or negative words or the presentation of the group labels, participants classified adjectives with regard to their valence (positive/negative). In Experiment 1, a standard affective priming paradigm was realized with response latencies as dependent measures; in Experiment 2, a response window technique was used, with errors as crucial measure. In both studies, significant affective congruency effects emerged similarly for standard primes and category labels, indicating ingroup bias on an implicit level. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

不同愉悦度面孔阈下情绪启动效应:来自ERP的证据

采用事件相关电位技术,研究阈下情绪启动效应。实验中的因素是阈下呈现的情绪启动面孔的愉悦度,分为高、低两个水平。被试的任务是对中性靶刺激面孔进行情绪判断。结果发现:被试在对靶刺激进行情绪判断时出现与启动刺激愉悦度趋于一致的启动效应;低愉悦度面孔作启动刺激条件下N1和P2的波幅显著大于高愉悦度面孔作为启动刺激的条件;不同愉悦度情绪面孔的阈下启动效应是由于启动刺激影响了对靶刺激的知觉加工所致。     

Interaction of prime and target in the subliminal affective priming effect

It has been found that an emotional stimulus such as a facial expression presented subliminally can affect subsequent information processing and behavior, usually by shifting evaluation of a subsequent stimulus to a valence congruent with the previous stimulus. This phenomenon is called subliminal affective priming. The present study was conducted to replicate and expand previous findings by investigating interaction of primes and targets in the affective priming effect. Two conditions were used. Prime (subliminal presentation 35 msec.) of an angry face of a woman and a No Prime control condition. Just after presentation of the prime, an ambiguous angry face or an emotionally neutral face was presented above the threshold of awareness (500 msec.). 12 female undergraduate women judged categories of facial expressions (Anger, Neutral, or Happiness) for the target faces. Analysis indicated that the Anger primes significantly facilitated judgment of anger for the ambiguous angry faces; however, the priming effect of the Anger primes was not observed for neutral faces. Consequently, the present finding suggested that a subliminal affective priming effect should be more prominent when affective valence of primes and targets is congruent.     

分析思维降低情感预测影响偏差

人们在决策前需要对决策可能带来的结果进行预测。人们往往会高估未来事件对情感的影响, 这被称为影响偏差。本研究从双系统理论出发, 考察了分析思维是否会降低情感预测影响偏差。实验1(采用图片启动)和实验2(采用语言流畅性任务)考察了分析思维对影响偏差的影响, 并分析了情感预测程度的中介作用。实验3在现场中以真实的决策(生育二孩)为例, 考察了分析思维启动对情感预测的影响。结果发现:分析思维会降低情感预测强度, 进而降低影响偏差。     

On the replicability of the affective priming effect in the pronunciation task

Bargh, Chaiken, Raymond, and Hymes (1996) and Hermans, De Houwer, and Eelen (1994) showed that a valenced target word is pronounced faster after the presentation of an affectively related prime word than after the presentation of an affectively unrelated prime word. This finding is important because it provides crucial evidence for the hypotheses that stimulus evaluation (a) is goal-independent and (b) facilitates the encoding of stimuli that have the same valence. However, recent studies indicate that the affective priming effect is not a reliable finding in the standard pronunciation task. We report the results of a nearly exact replication of Bargh et al.'s (1996) Experiment 2. In line with previous replication studies, we failed to detect the affective priming effect.     

Phonological and orthographic overlap effects in fast and masked priming

We investigated how orthographic and phonological information is activated during reading, using a fast priming task, and during single-word recognition, using masked priming. Specifically, different types of overlap between prime and target were contrasted: high orthographic and high phonological overlap (track–crack), high orthographic and low phonological overlap (bear–gear), or low orthographic and high phonological overlap (fruit–chute). In addition, we examined whether (orthographic) beginning overlap (swoop–swoon) yielded the same priming pattern as end (rhyme) overlap (track–crack). Prime durations were 32 and 50?ms in the fast priming version and 50?ms in the masked priming version, and mode of presentation (prime and target in lower case) was identical. The fast priming experiment showed facilitatory priming effects when both orthography and phonology overlapped, with no apparent differences between beginning and end overlap pairs. Facilitation was also found when prime and target only overlapped orthographically. In contrast, the masked priming experiment showed inhibition for both types of end overlap pairs (with and without phonological overlap) and no difference for begin overlap items. When prime and target only shared principally phonological information, facilitation was only found with a long prime duration in the fast priming experiment, while no differences were found in the masked priming version. These contrasting results suggest that fast priming and masked priming do not necessarily tap into the same type of processing.     

Nonword repetition in lexical decision: Support for two opposing processes

We tested and confirmed the hypothesis that the prior presentation of nonwords in lexical decision is the net result of two opposing processes: (1) a relatively fast inhibitory process based on global familiarity; and (2) a relatively slow facilitatory process based on the retrieval of specific episodic information. In three studies, we manipulated speed-stress to influence the balance between the two processes. Experiment 1 showed item-specific improvement for repeated nonwords in a standard “respond-when-ready” lexical decision task. Experiment 2 used a 400-ms deadline procedure and showed performance for nonwords to be unaffected by up to four prior presentations. In Experiment 3 we used a signal-to-respond procedure with variable time intervals and found negative repetition priming for repeated nonwords. These results can be accounted for by dual-process models of lexical decision (e.g., Balota & Chumbley, 1984; Balota & Spieler, 1999).     

情绪启动对低自尊个体注意偏向的影响

研究通过两个实验来探讨情绪启动对低自尊个体注意偏向的影响。实验一采用点探测实验范式考察高、低自尊个体的注意偏向特点。实验二将重复启动范式和点探测实验范式相结合,进一步探讨情绪启动如何影响低自尊水平个体注意偏向。结果表明：低自尊个体对负性信息存在注意偏向;情绪启动对低自尊个体注意偏向有显著的影响。正性情绪启动对低自尊个体负性注意偏向有显著的调节作用,负性情绪启动加重了低自尊个体的负性注意偏向。     

时间间隔对面部表情唤醒度阈下情绪启动的影响

采用3×4混合实验设计,研究了启动刺激与靶刺激的时间间隔对面部表情唤醒度阈下情绪启动效应的影响,实验因素为启动刺激的唤醒度和时间间隔。结果发现,当时间间隔为200ms、300ms、500ms时,出现了阈下情绪启动效应,时间间隔为700ms时,启动效应消失。上述结果表明阈下情绪启动效应可在唤醒度维度上实现,但此效应只能在启动刺激与靶刺激间隔时间较短的情况下出现。     

Backward affective priming: Even when the prime is late, people still evaluate

It is well-established that affective stimuli can prime congruent evaluations if they precede the target within a short time interval, i.e., forward affective priming. The present research examines whether similar effects occur if affective primes succeed target presentation, i.e., backward affective priming. Experiments 1 found short-lived, yet reliable backward affective priming. Experiment 2 found parallel forward affective priming in the same paradigm. Experiment 3 found forward and backward affective priming in a within-subjects design. Comparison with neutral primes suggested that the observed effects were mainly due to interference. Backward affective priming is a robust phenomenon that may reflect a rapid and continuous evaluation of environmental stimuli.