Self-reference is a fast-acting automatic mechanism on emotional word processing: evidence from a masked priming affective categorisation task |
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Authors: | Ana P. Soares Joana Macedo Helena M. Oliveira Alexandrina Lages Juan Hernández-Cabrera Ana P. Pinheiro |
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Affiliation: | 1. Laboratório de Cogni??o Humana, Centro de Investiga??o em Psicologia (CIPSI), Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugalasoares@psi.uminho.pt;3. Laboratório de Cogni??o Humana, Centro de Investiga??o em Psicologia (CIPSI), Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal;4. Laboratorio de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Psicolingüística, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife, Espa?a;5. Laboratório de Voz, Afeto e Fala, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal |
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Abstract: | This study examined the impact of self-referential information at early stages of emotional word processing using an affective masked-priming paradigm in which positive (e.g, espetacular[awesome]) and negative (e.g., horrível[awful]) trait-adjectives were preceded by briefly primes that could be self-related (Eu sou[I am]), other-related (Ela é[She is]), or a control (%%%%%). Trait-adjectives were selected from female norms and only females participants were used to control for sex differences. Results showed that positive words were categorised faster when preceded by self-related primes than by other-related primes, though not control primes. Negative trait-adjectives were not modulated by the type of prime, even though participants were slower when they were preceded by other-related than by control primes. These findings demonstrate that taking the other-perspective entails a cost, and that the amount of priming produced by self-related and control primes was virtually the same, thus suggesting that assuming the self-perspective is a cognitively effortless process. |
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Keywords: | Self-reference effect implicit self-referential processing self-positivity bias emotional word processing affective categorisation task |
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