Age Stereotypes in Younger and Older Women: Analyses of Accommodative Shifts with a Sentence-Priming Task

Author(s):  
Dirk Wentura ◽  
Jochen Brandtstädter

A sentence-priming technique was used to examine whether older women (N = 39) share a more positive view of aging than younger women (N = 35). Situationally specified statements about older and younger persons were presented, followed either by a semantically related word, an unrelated word of the same valence, or a nonword. The accessibility of target words was measured by reaction times in a lexical decision task. Whereas a semantic priming effect for negatively connoted materials emerged for both groups, a priming effect for positively connoted materials was found for older women only. Furthermore, an affective priming effect was found for the older group, i.e., older women tended to respond relatively faster (slower) to semantically unrelated positive (negative) words following a sentence about an older person. The results are discussed within a coping-theoretical framework.

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (12) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Cheng Kang ◽  
Nan Ye ◽  
Fangwen Zhang ◽  
Yanwen Wu ◽  
Guichun Jin ◽  
...  

Although studies have investigated the influence of the emotionality of primes on the cross-modal affective priming effect, it is unclear whether this effect is due to the contribution of the arousal or the valence of primes. We explored how the valence and arousal of primes influenced the cross-modal affective priming effect. In Experiment 1 we manipulated the valence of primes (positive and negative) that were matched by arousal. In Experiments 2 and 3 we manipulated the arousal of primes under the conditions of positive and negative valence, respectively. Affective words were used as auditory primes and affective faces were used as visual targets in a priming task. The results suggest that the valence of primes modulated the cross-modal affective priming effect but that the arousal of primes did not influence the priming effect. Only when the priming stimuli were positive did the cross-modal affective priming effect occur, but negative primes did not produce a priming effect. In addition, for positive but not negative primes, the arousal of primes facilitated the processing of subsequent targets. Our findings have great significance for understanding the interaction of different modal affective information.


2008 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingo Wegener ◽  
Astrid Wawrzyniak ◽  
Katrin Imbierowicz ◽  
Rupert Conrad ◽  
Jochen Musch ◽  
...  

Attenuated affective processing is hypothesized to play a role in the development and maintenance of obesity. Using an affective priming task measuring automatic affective processing of verbal stimuli, a group of 30 obese participants in a weight-loss program at the Psychosomatic University Clinic Bonn ( M age = 48.3, SD = 10.7) was compared with a group of 25 participants of normal weight ( M age = 43.6, SD= 12.5). A smaller affective priming effect was observed for participants with obesity, indicating less pronounced reactions to valenced adjectives. The generally reduced affective processing in obese participants was discussed as a possible factor in the etiology of obesity. Individuals who generally show less pronounced affective reactions to a given stimulus may also react with less negative affect when confronted with weight gain or less positive affect when weight is lost. Consequently, they could be expected to be less motivated to stop overeating or to engage in dieting and will have a higher risk of becoming or staying obese.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Michelle Buchanan ◽  
Kelly Cuccolo ◽  
Nicholas Alvaro Coles ◽  
Aishwarya Iyer ◽  
Neil Anthony Lewis ◽  
...  

Semantic priming has been studied for nearly 50 years across various experimental manipulations and theoretical frameworks. These studies provide evidence of cognitive underpinnings of the structure and organization of semantic representation in both healthy and clinical populations. In this registered report, we propose to create a large database of semantic priming values, alleviating the sample size and limited language issues with previous studies in this area. Consequently, this database will include semantic priming data across multiple languages using an adaptive sampling procedure. This study will test the size of semantic priming effect and its variability across languages. Results will support semantic priming when reduced response latencies are found for related word-pair conditions in comparison to unrelated word-pair conditions. Differences in semantic priming across languages will be supported when priming effect confidence intervals do not overlap.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-97
Author(s):  
Candice Steffen Holderbaum ◽  
Letícia Lessa Mansur ◽  
Jerusa Fumagalli de Salles

ABSTRACT Investigations on the semantic priming effect (SPE) in patients after left hemisphere (LH) lesions have shown disparities that may be explained by the variability in performance found among patients. The aim of the present study was to verify the existence of subgroups of patients after LH stroke by searching for dissociations between performance on the lexical decision task based on the semantic priming paradigm and performance on direct memory, semantic association and language tasks. All 17 patients with LH lesions after stroke (ten non-fluent aphasics and seven non aphasics) were analyzed individually. Results indicated the presence of three groups of patients according to SPE: one exhibiting SPE at both stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), one with SPE only at long SOA, and another, larger group with no SPE.


2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 589-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candice Steffen Holderbaum ◽  
Jerusa Fumagalli de Salles

Differences in the semantic priming effect comparing child and adult performance have been found by some studies. However, these differences are not well established, mostly because of the variety of methods used by researchers around the world. One of the main issues concerns the absence of semantic priming effects on children at stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) smaller than 300ms. The aim of this study was to compare the semantic priming effect between third graders and college students at two different SOAs: 250ms and 500ms. Participants performed lexical decisions to targets which were preceded by semantic related or unrelated primes. Semantic priming effects were found at both SOAs in the third graders' group and in college students. Despite the fact that there was no difference between groups in the magnitude of semantic priming effects when SOA was 250ms, at the 500ms SOA their magnitude was bigger in children, corroborating previous studies. Hypotheses which could explain the presence of semantic priming effects in children's performance when SOA was 250ms are discussed, as well as hypotheses for the larger magnitude of semantic priming effects in children when SOA was 500ms.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark W. Pellowski ◽  
Edward G. Conture

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the influence of lexical/semantic priming on the speech reaction time of young children who do and do not stutter during a picture-naming task. Participants were 23 children who stutter, age-matched (±4 months) to 23 children who do not stutter, ranging in age from 3;0 (years;months) to 5;11. Procedures involved a computer-assisted picture-naming task, during which each participant was presented with the same set of 28 pictures in each of 3 different conditions: (a) no-prime condition, in which no auditory stimulus was presented before picture display; (b) related-prime condition, in which a word, semantically related to the target picture, was presented auditorily 700 ms before picture display; and (c) unrelated-prime condition, in which a semantically unrelated word was presented auditorily 700 ms before picture display. Results indicated that when compared with a no-prime condition, presentation of semantically related words before the picture-naming response led to shorter or faster speech reaction times for children who do not stutter, but for children who stutter, it led to longer or slower speech reaction times. Moreover, children who do not stutter and who had higher receptive vocabulary scores exhibited faster speech reaction times and a greater semantic priming effect, whereas no such relationships were found for children who stutter. Findings were taken to suggest that children who stutter may exhibit subtle difficulties with lexical encoding and that this difficulty with speech-language planning may be one variable that contributes to childhood stuttering.


Author(s):  
Christian Frings ◽  
Christina Bermeitinger ◽  
Dirk Wentura

In the paradigm of repeated masked semantic priming ( Wentura & Frings, 2005 ), prime and mask are repeatedly and rapidly interchanged. Using this technique in a semantic priming task with category labels as primes and category exemplars as targets (related, e.g., BIRD – swan → BIRD – finch; unrelated, e.g., BIRD – lily → FRUIT – finch), Wentura and Frings found a negatively signed priming effect. Here we used the repeated masking technique with category exemplars as targets and primes (i.e., identity priming) for analyzing, whether this effect reflects center-surround or spreading inhibition. If the repeated masked technique reflects spreading inhibition, a negative effect should also appear for identity priming. In contrast, a center-surround approach would predict a positive effect. In accordance with the latter hypothesis, we found a significant positive effect in identity priming (Experiment 1a) and significant difference to the negatively signed semantic priming effect when primes were category labels (Experiment 1b). This is indicative of the repeated masked semantic priming effect being a negatively signed semantic priming effect due to a center-surround mechanism.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Gohier ◽  
C. Senior ◽  
P.J. Brittain ◽  
N. Lounes ◽  
W. El-Hage ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundThere is evidence showing that men and women differ with regard to the processing of emotional information. However, the mechanisms behind these differences are not fully understood.MethodThe sample comprised of 275 (167 female) right-handed, healthy participants, recruited from the community. We employed a customized affective priming task, which consisted of three subtests, differing in the modality of the prime (face, written word, and sound). The targets were always written words of either positive or negative valence. The priming effect was measured as reaction time facilitation in conditions where both prime and target were emotional (of the same positive or negative valence) compared with conditions where the emotional targets were preceded by neutral primes.ResultsThe priming effect was observed across all three modalities, with an interaction of gender by valence: the priming effect in the emotionally negative condition in male participants was stronger compared with females. This was accounted for by the differential priming effect within the female group where priming was significantly smaller in the emotionally negative conditions compared with the positive conditions. The male participants revealed a comparable priming effect across both the emotionally negative and positive conditions.ConclusionReduced priming in negative conditions in women may reflect interference processes due to greater sensitivity to negative valence of stimuli. This in turn could underlie the gender-related differences in susceptibility to emotional disorders.


2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Mondini ◽  
Eva Kehayia ◽  
Brendan Gillon ◽  
Giorgio Arcara ◽  
Gonia Jarema

Two psycholinguistic experiments were carried out in Italian to test the role played by the feature that distinguishes mass nouns from count nouns, as well as by the feature that distinguishes singular nouns from plural nouns. The first experiment, a simple lexical decision task, revealed a sensitivity of the lexical access system to the processing of the features Mass and Plural as shown by longer reaction times. In particular, nouns in the plural yielded longer reaction times than in the singular except when the plural form was irregular. Furthermore, the feature Mass also affected processing, yielding longer reaction times. In the second experiment, a sentence priming task, both the Plural and the Mass effects did not surface when a grammatical sentence fragment was the prime. These data show a direct correlation between the linguistic ‘complexity’ of plural/mass nouns and processing time. They also suggest that this complexity does not affect normal fluent spoken language where words are embedded in a semantic and syntactic context.


2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRIS DAVIS ◽  
ROSA SÁNCHEZ-CASAS ◽  
JOSÉ E. GARCÍA-ALBEA ◽  
MARC GUASCH ◽  
MARGARITA MOLERO ◽  
...  

Spanish–English bilingual lexical organization was investigated using masked cognate and non-cognate priming with the lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, three groups of bilinguals (Spanish dominant, English dominant and Balanced) and a single group of beginning bilinguals (Spanish) were tested with Spanish and English targets primed by cognate and non-cognate translations. All the bilingual groups showed cognate but not non-cognate priming. This cognate priming effect was similar in magnitude to the within-language repetition priming effect; it did not vary across participants who had different second-language acquisition histories, nor was the size of the priming effect modulated by the direction of the translation. The beginning bilingual group only showed cognate priming when the primes were in Spanish (L1) and the targets in English (L2). In Experiment 2, both form-related and unrelated word baselines were used with a single group of bilinguals. The results were the same as Experiment 1: cognate priming and no non-cognate priming. Experiment 3 examined the cognate priming effect with reduced orthographic and phonological overlap. Despite this reduced form overlap, it was found that the cognate effect was the same size as the within-language repetition effect. These results indicate that cognate translations are special and ways of modifying models of bilingual lexical processing to reflect this were considered.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document