Automatic non-associative semantic priming: episodic affective priming of naming responses.
Affective priming for associatively unrelated prime-target pairs was investigated using (a) the naming task, (b) a short stimulus onset asynchrony (250 ms), and (c) primes that had acquired their affective connotation during a differential evaluative conditioning procedure. Despite the fact that the primes and the targets were related on the affective dimension only, significant priming emerged. This finding indicates that mere affective overlap is sufficient to produce automatic priming. As such, our results are in line with theoretical accounts of automatic priming that are based on semantic relatedness.
Spruyt
Adriaan
A
Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, Leuven B-3000, Belgium. adriaan.spruyt@psy.kuleuven.ac.be
Hermans
Dirk
D
De Houwer
Jan
J
Eelen
Paul
P
D000339:Affect; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001244:Association; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012660:Semantics