Cognitive processes in categorical and associative priming: a diffusion model analysis

Cognitive processes and mechanisms underlying different forms of priming were investigated using a diffusion model approach. In a series of 6 experiments, effects of prime-target associations and of a semantic and affective categorical match of prime and target were analyzed for different tasks. Significant associative and categorical priming effects were found in standard analyses of response times (RTs) and error frequencies. Results of diffusion model analyses revealed that priming effects of associated primes were mapped on the drift rate parameter (v), while priming effects of a categorical match on a task-relevant dimension were mapped on the extradecisional parameters (t(0) and d). These results support a spreading activation account of associative priming and an explanation of categorical priming in terms of response competition. Implications for the interpretation of priming effects and the use of priming paradigms in cognitive psychology and social cognition are discussed

How Emotion Relates to Language and Cognition, Seen Through the Lens of Evaluative Priming Paradigms

Affect and emotion are essential aspects of human life. These states or feelings signal personally relevant things or situations and color our memories and thoughts. Within the area of affective or emotion processing, evaluation-the assessment of the valence associated with a stimulus or event (i.e., its positivity or negativity)-is considered a fundamental process, representing an early and crucial stage in constructivist emotion theories. Valence evaluation is assumed to occur automatically when encountering a stimulus. But does this really apply always, even if we simply see a word? And if so, what exactly is processed or activated in memory? One approach to investigating this evaluative process uses behavioral priming paradigms and, first and foremost, the evaluative priming paradigm and its variants. In the present review, we delineate the insights gained from this paradigm about the relation of affect and emotion to cognition and language. Specifically, we reviewed the empirical evidence base with regard to this issue as well as the proposed theoretical models of valence evaluation, specifically with regard to the nature of the representations activated via such paradigms. It will become clear that affect and emotion are foremost (and, perhaps, even exclusively) triggered by evaluative priming paradigms in the sense that semantic affective knowledge is activated. This knowledge should be modeled as being active in working memory rather than in long-term memory as was assumed in former models. The emerging evidence concerning the processing of more specific emotion aspects gives rise to the assumption that the activation of these semantic aspects is related to their social importance. In that sense, the fast and (conditionally) automatic activation of valence and other emotion aspects in evaluative priming paradigms reveals something about affect and emotion: Valence and specific emotion aspects are so important for our daily life that encountering almost any stimulus entails the automatic activation of the associated valence and other emotion aspects in memory, when the context requires it

It occurs after all: Attentional bias towards happy faces in the dot-probe task

Many studies have shown that not only threatening but also positive stimuli capture visual attention. However, in the dot-probe task, a common paradigm to assess attention to emotional stimuli, usually no bias towards happy faces occurs. Here, we investigated whether such a bias can occur and, if so, under which conditions. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether the bias is contingent on the simultaneous presentation of distractor stimuli with the targets. Participants performed a dot-probe task with either stand-alone targets or targets that were accompanied by distractors. We found an attentional bias towards happy faces that was not moderated by target type. To rule out perceptual low-level confounds as the cause of the bias towards happy faces, Experiments 2a and 2b comprised dot-probe tasks with inverted face cues. No attentional bias towards inverted happy faces occurred. In Experiment 3, we investigated whether a bias towards happy faces is contingent on a social-processing mode. Participants performed a dot-probe task with socially meaningful (schematic faces) or socially meaningless (scrambled schematic faces) targets. Again, a bias towards happy faces, which was not moderated by target type, occurred. In Experiment 4, we investigated the attentional bias towards happy faces when another highly relevant expression was present. Participants performed a dot-probe task with both happy and angry face cues. A significant attentional bias towards emotional faces occurred that did not differ between both cue emotions. These results suggest that happy faces are sufficiently relevant for observers to capture attention in the dot-probe task

Involuntary evaluation of others' emotional expressions depends on the expresser's group membership. Further evidence for the social message account from the extrinsic affective Simon task

The social message account (SMA) hypothesizes that the evaluation of emotional facial expressions depends on the ethnicity of the expressers. For example, according to SMA, a happy face of a member of a prejudiced ethnicity is immediately interpreted as potentially malevolent. Evidence for this approach was found initially in evaluative priming (EP) and approach-avoidance tasks (AA) by showing an emotion × ethnicity interaction on positivity scores (EP) and approach scores (AA), respectively. Recently, attempts to replicate the EP results failed. Due to the inconclusive EP results, it was important to examine the influence of ethnicity on processing of emotional expression with another task testing involuntary evaluations. The extrinsic affective Simon task was used with stimuli varying on emotion (happy vs. fear) and ethnicity (White-Caucasian vs. Middle-Eastern men). This task was chosen because in contrast to EP (where faces are presented as task-irrelevant primes) faces are task-relevant. Experiment 1 yielded an emotion × ethnicity interaction with regard to positivity scores that fit SMA predictions. The results are also important in challenging a recent theoretical alternative to SMA, namely the processing conflict account. A generalization of the emotion × ethnicity pattern to learned arbitrary in- and out-groups (Experiment 2) failed, suggesting that involuntary processing of (task-irrelevant) group status depends on perceptual features

Incongruency effects in affective processing: automatic motivational counter-regulation or mismatch-induced salience?

Attention is automatically allocated to stimuli that are opposite in valence to the current motivational focus (Rothermund, 2003; Rothermund, Voss, Wentura, 2008). We tested whether this incongruency effect is due to affective-motivational counter-regulation or to an increased salience of stimuli that mismatch with cognitively activated information. Affective processing biases were assessed with a search task in which participants had to detect the spatial position at which a positive or negative stimulus was presented. In the motivational condition, positive or negative affective-motivational states were induced by performance feedback after each trial. In the cognitive activation condition, participants memorised the word ogoodo or obado during the search task. The affective incongruency effect was replicated in the motivational condition, whereas an affective congruency effect obtained in the cognitive activation condition. These findings support an explanation of affective incongruency effects in terms of automatic counter-regulation that is motivational in nature

Implicit Prejudice in Eight-Graders

This study examines the automatic activation of negative prejudices towards Turks using a masked affective priming paradigm in a sample of German adolescents (aged 13 to 15). Pictures of Turks and Germans were used as masked primes; positive and negative adjectives conveying either other-relevant valence (e.g., honest, evil) or possessor-relevant valence (e.g., talented, dull) were used as targets. Results revealed that both explicit prejudices towards Turks living in Germany as well as prejudiced behaviour in a virtual ball-tossing game are meaningfully related to automatic prejudice activation. As expected, these correlations were found only for priming indices based on other-relevant targets, thereby emphasising the differentiation of implicit prejudice into (imputed) hostility and depreciation

Adolescents' attitudes towards foreigners: associations with perceptions of significant others' attitudes depending on sex and age

'The present study examines associations between adolescents' attitudes towards foreigners and their perceptions of the same attitudes among their parents, friends, and teachers. Questionnaire data from a sample of 518 students attending 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grade of German high-track schools addressed students' own attitudes and their reports on the reference persons m their proximal contexts. Analyses of individual profile correlations suggest strong correspondences between adolescents and their perceived contexts which slightly decrease depending on age. Processes of projection are discussed as a possible explanation of the strong associations observed as well as to the age-graded pattern of correlations.' (author's abstract)

The Functional Self : The Minimal Self-Concept Is Protected Against Negative Content

Current research describes a particular component of the self-concept that influences a wide variety of cognitive processes while it depicts a rather basic component of the self-concept. However, this minimal self seems to be anything but simple; in fact, it seems to be highly functional. Based on previous findings on newly formed self-associations, we put the postulated functionality of this minimal self to another test by retesting its protection mechanisms against negative content. In a pilot experiment, we did not find an overall reduction of negative selfassignments against neutral self-assignments. However, the results indicated an initial difference (as hypothesized) between negative and neutral self-assignments, which decreases over the course of the experiment. We put this interactive effect of valence and block to test in our main experiment, which replicated the data pattern of the pilot experiment. In sum, the results indicate a mandatory integration of stimuli into the self-concept and also a reduction of the integration due to negative valence, thereby supporting a robust protection mechanism

Social Message Account or Processing Conflict Account – Which Processes Trigger Approach/Avoidance Reaction to Emotional Expressions of In- and Out-Group Members?

Faces are characterized by the simultaneous presence of several evaluation-relevant features, for example, emotional expression and (prejudiced) ethnicity. The social message account (SMA) hypothesizes the immediate integration of emotion and ethnicity. According to SMA, happy in-group faces should be interpreted as benevolent, whereas happy out-group faces should be interpreted as potentially malevolent. By contrast, fearful in-group faces should be interpreted as signaling an unsafe environment, whereas fearful out-group faces should be interpreted as signaling inferiority. In contrast, the processing conflict account (PCA) assumes that each face conveys two rather independent evaluative features, emotion and ethnicity. Thus, stimuli might be either affectively congruent or incongruent, and thereby exert influences on behavior. The article reviews the evidence with regard to the two accounts before reporting an experiment that aims at disentangling them. In an approach/avoidance task (AAT), either happy/fearful faces of German and Turks were presented or happy/fearful faces of young and old persons. There are prejudices against Turk/Middle-eastern persons (in Germany) as well as against old persons. For SMA, the two prejudices are of different type; thus prediction for the AAT diverge for the two group conditions. In contrast, for PCA both group features (i.e., Turk ethnicity and old age) are negative features (in comparison to their counterparts) which are affectively congruent or incongruent to the emotional expression. Hence, the results pattern in the AAT should be comparable for the two group conditions. In accordance with SMA but in contrast to PCA, we found different patterns for the two group conditions