The cross-modal affective priming effect: Effects of the valence and arousal of primes

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.

Lack of affective priming indicates attitude-behaviour discrepancy for COVID-19 affiliated words

The ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in the enforcement of national public health safety measures including precautionary behaviours such as border closures, movement restrictions, total or partial lockdowns, social distancing, and face mask mandates in order to reduce the spread of this disease. The current study uses affective priming, an indirect behavioural measure of implicit attitude, to evaluate COVID-19 attitudes. Explicitly, participants rated their overall risk perception associated with contracting COVID-19 significantly lower compared to their perception of necessary precautions and overall adherence to public health measures. During baseline trials, participants explicitly rated COVID-19 affiliated words as unpleasant, similar to traditional unpleasant word stimuli. Despite rating the COVID-19 affiliated words as unpleasant, affective priming was not observed for congruent prime-target COVID-19 affiliated word pairs when compared to congruent prime-target pleasant and unpleasant words. Overall, these results provide quantitative evidence that COVID-19 affiliated words do not invoke the same implicit attitude response as traditional pleasant and unpleasant word stimuli, despite conscious explicit rating of the COVID-19 words as unpleasant. This reduction in unpleasant attitude towards COVID-19 related words may contribute towards decreased fear-related behaviours and increased incidences of risky-behaviour facilitating the movement of the virus.

The Role of the Valence, Arousing Properties and Subjective Significance of Subliminally Presented Words in Affective Priming

In the verbal affective priming paradigm, the properties of a subliminally presented stimulus alter the interpretation of neutral target stimulus. In the experiment reported here, we tested the role of four factors (valence, origin, arousing properties and subjective significance) that determine the emotional reactions to words in affective priming. Subliminal masked presentation of words preceded the explicit task, which was assessment of neutral Quick Response code (QR code) stimuli. The QRs were codes for words representing personality traits. The results showed the effect of assimilation (negative words caused a negative interpretation, positive caused a positive interpretation) for words’ emotional valence and no effects for origin. Concerning arousal, we found a weak negative trend. In the case of subjective significance, a moderate positive trend was found. These results suggest that affective priming effects are susceptible not only to the valence of priming stimuli but also to activation factors.

Mixed Evidence for Name Priming Effects as a Measure of Implicit Self-Esteem: A Conceptual Replication of Krause Et Al. (2012)

Krause et al. (2012) demonstrated that evaluative responses elicited by self-related primes in an affective priming task have incremental validity over explicit self-esteem in predicting self-serving biases in performance estimations and expectations in an anagram task. We conducted a conceptual replication of their experiment in which we added a behavioral and an affective outcome and presented names instead of faces as self-related primes. A heterogeneous sample (N = 96) was recruited for an online data collection. Name primes produced significantly positive and reliable priming effects, which correlated with explicit self-esteem. However, neither these priming effects nor explicit self-esteem predicted the cognitive, affective, or behavioral outcomes. Despite the lack of predictive validity of the implicit measure for affective and behavioral outcomes, the positive and reliable priming effects produced by name primes warrant the further investigation of the validity of the affective priming paradigm as a measure of implicit self-esteem.

Are explicit and implicit affective attitudes toward different body shape categories related to the own body-satisfaction in young women? The role of mindfulness, self-compassion and social media activity

Implicit and explicit attitudes influence our behavior. Accordingly, it was the main goal of the paper to investigate if those attitudes are related to body image satisfaction. 134 young women between 18 and 34 years completed an explicit affective rating and an implicit affective priming task with pictures of women with different BMIs. Because it is well known that mindfulness, self-compassion and social media activity influence body image satisfaction, these variables were registered as well. The results confirmed an explicit positive affective bias toward pictures of slim women and a negative bias toward emaciated and obese body pictures. It adds to the literature that the explicit positive bias does not hold true for the strongest form of underweight, suggesting that instead of dividing different body shapes into two groups, different gradings of under- and overweight should be considered. Concerning the affective priming task, no significant differences between the different pictures could be carved out. Implicit and explicit affective attitudes were not related to the body satisfaction of the participating women. In line with former studies, body satisfaction was predicted by the actual-ideal weight discrepancy, the BMI, aspects of mindfulness and self-compassion. This study indicates that implicit and explicit affective attitudes toward underweight and overweight women are unrelated to the participants’ body satisfaction.

Unlocking the power of productive classroom talk for early second language acquisition

This study investigates whether participation in classroom interaction and a specific type of affective priming using parents’ pictures had positive effects on ethnic minority children’s L2 vocabulary acquisition. A quasi-experimental study was set up in which preschoolers-at-risk were engaged in a task-based intervention with different types of affective priming while they were participating in, or overhearing, classroom interaction in the L2. The results of the study indicated significant main effects of (1) the children’s prior proficiency in the second language and (2) their participation in productive classroom interaction on their vocabulary acquisition. A significant interaction effect was found for overhearing and school disliking. For affective priming, no significant effects were found. This present study provides evidence that both participating in, and overhearing, productive classroom talk are powerful ways to boost young children’s L2 vocabulary acquisition.

Exploring Affective Priming Effect of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An Event-Related Potential Study

In order to explore the affective priming effect of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words, the current study used unmasked (Experiment 1) and masked (Experiment 2) priming paradigm by including emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, anger) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, gift) as primes and examined how the two kinds of words acted upon the processing of the target words (all emotion-laden words). Participants were instructed to decide the valence of target words, and their electroencephalogram was recorded at the same time. The behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) results showed that positive words produced a priming effect whereas negative words inhibited target word processing (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, the inhibition effect of negative emotion-label words on emotion word recognition was found in both behavioral and ERP results, suggesting that modulation of emotion word type on emotion word processing could be observed even in the masked priming paradigm. The two experiments further supported the necessity of defining emotion words under an emotion word type perspective. The implications of the findings are proffered. Specifically, a clear understanding of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words can improve the effectiveness of emotional communications in clinical settings. Theoretically, the emotion word type perspective awaits further explorations and is still at its infancy.