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Affective Priming with Pictures of Emotional Scenes: The Role of Perceptual Similarity and Category Relatedness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

Pedro Avero  and
Manuel G. Calvo
Pedro Avero*
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna
Manuel G. Calvo
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna
*
Address correspondence to: Pedro Avero, Departamento de Personalidad, Evaluación y Tratamientos Psicológicos, Universidad de La Laguna, 38205 Tenerife (Spain). Fax: + 34 922 317 461. E-mail: paverode@ull.es
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Abstract

Prime pictures portraying pleasant or unpleasant scenes were briefly presented (150-ms display; SOAs of 300 or 800 ms), followed by probe pictures either congruent or incongruent in emotional valence. In an evaluative decision task, participants responded whether the probe was emotionally positive or negative. Affective priming was reflected in shorter response latencies for congruent than for incongruent prime-probe pairs. Although this effect was enhanced by perceptual similarity between the prime and the probe, it also occurred for probes that were physically different, and the effect generalized across semantic categories (animals vs. people). It is concluded that affective priming is a genuine phenomenon, in that it occurs as a function of stimulus emotional content, in the absence of both perceptual similarity and semantic category relatedness between the prime and the probe.

En un paradigma de activación o priming afectivo, se presentaron pares de fotografías: primero una como activadora (prime), brevemente (exposición de 150 ms; SOAs de 300 u 800 ms), y a continuación otra como prueba (probe). Las dos fotografías podían ser congruentes o incongruentes en valencia emocional (agradables vs. desagradables). Los participantes tenían que responder si la foto de prueba era emocionalmente positiva o negativa. Se observó un efecto de priming afectivo al producirse latencias de respuesta más cortas cuando la foto de prueba era congruente en valencia con la foto activadora que cuando eran incongruentes. Aunque este efecto se incrementó en función de la semejanza física entre los estímulos de cada par, ocurrió también cuando éstos eran físicamente diferentes. Además, dicho efecto se generalizó a categorías semánticas distintas (escenas de animales vs. de personas). Se concluye que el fenómeno de procesamiento afectivo temprano es genuino, que ocurre en función del contenido emocional de los estímulos, y en ausencia de semejanza perceptual y de relación semántica entre el estímulo activador y el de prueba.

Keywords

affectiveprimingpicturesemotional processingperceptionafectivoactivaciónfotografíasprocesamiento emocionalpercepción
Type
Articles
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 2006 , pp. 10 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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