Abstract
The ability of an organism to rapidly process parafoveal information to identify motivationally significant stimuli is important for survival. The evaluative priming paradigm is useful for examining whether evaluation of hostile/hospitable stimuli in the parafovea has occurred. Three evaluative priming experiments that varied the valence and arousal of prime stimuli were conducted. In the first experiment, primes were presented foveally and prime arousal did not moderate the standard evaluative priming effect (i.e., faster responses when prime and target valence matched). In the next two experiments, primes were presented parafoveally and prime arousal moderated evaluative priming such that priming was greater for high than low arousing primes. These findings are aligned with dual competition models positing that sensory and response systems compete for limited resources during emotional processing. Greater stimulus arousal enhances this dual competition during parafoveal processing, enabling the organisms to disengage and attend to the periphery.
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Notes
By “parafoveal processing”, we mean the processes involved in detecting stimuli that are outside of central focus. These processes may very well overlap with many of the “covert attentional” processes that have been extensively reviewed elsewhere (Carrasco 2011). However, because we are not directly manipulating nor measuring covert attention, we prefer terminology more in line with the actual manipulation of the present work.
The rationale for this criterion is that most participants' accuracy that is 2.5 SDs below the grand mean in this paradigm is either slightly above chance (e.g., 54 %) or grossly deviant from the grant mean (e.g. 23 %). These participants' responses were deemed aberrant and therefore these participants were not included in the main analysis (as in Herring et al. 2011). Including this participant in the analysis yielded the same findings reported below. The evaluative congruity effect was F(1, 51) = 17.23, p < .001, ηη 2p = .25, and was evident for both high, t(51) = 3.43, p = .001, d = 0.47, and low arousing prime conditions, t(51) = 3.43, p = .001, d = 0.51.
With primes and targets varying in arousal level (high vs. low) we performed an exploratory analysis when primes and targets were congruent (e.g., high arousing prime-high arousing target) or incongruent in arousal (e.g., low arousing prime-high arousing target). Only was there evidence of arousal congruity in Experiment 2, F(1, 53) = 4.35, p = .04, ηη 2p = .08. When target arousal was low, RTs were slower to high (M = 746 ms, SD = 86 ms) than low (M = 735, SD = 87 ms) arousing primes, t(53) = 3.62, p < .001, d = 0.49. There were no difference in RTs for high arousing targets preceded by high (M = 743, SD = 88) and low (M = 740 ms, SD = 87 ms) arousing primes, t(53) = 0.76, p = .44, d = 0.10. Thus, there was some evidence of arousal priming but only for low but not high arousing targets.
We suggested in our meta-analytic review of the evaluative priming literature that prime by target valence interaction be reported instead of collapsing these variables into a congruity main effect as reported here (Herring et al. 2013). This recommendation was made to develop more sophisticated theoretical models of evaluative priming taking prime and target valence into consideration (see Unkelbach et al. 2008). For didactic reasons, we report the congruency analyses in the body of the text and review the findings from the analysis involving prime by target valence in footnotes. In Experiment 1, there was a main effect of target valence, F(1, 50) = 21.30, p < .001, ηη 2p = 0.30, such that unpleasant targets (M = 691 ms, SD = 87 ms) were responded to more quickly than pleasant targets (M = 724 ms, SD = 100 ms). .
The interaction test between evaluative congruity and prime arousal was F(1, 50) = .66, p = .42, ηη 2p = 0.01.
Including these three participants in the analysis (n = 1 for Experiment 2 and n = 2 from Experiment 3) yielded the same findings reported below. The evaluative congruity effects were F(1, 54) = 6.51, p = .01, η 2p = 0.11, and F(1, 58) = 6.60, p = .01, η 2p = 0.10. Evaluative priming remained evident for high, t(54) = 3.62, p < .001, d = 0.48, t(58) = 3.02, p = .003, d = 0.39, but not low arousing prime conditions, t(54) = 0.75, p = .45, d = 0.10 and t(58) = 0.68, p = .49, d = 0.09, respectively, for experiments 2 and 3.
There was also a significant prime arousal by prime valence interaction, F(1, 53) = 4.75, p = .03, ηη 2p = 0.08. Targets preceded by low arousing, pleasant primes were responded to more quickly (M = 734 ms, SD = 85 ms) than those preceded by low arousing, unpleasant primes (M = 741 ms, SD = 89 ms), t(53) = 2.08, p = .04, d = 0.28. However, there was no difference between targets preceded by high arousing, pleasant primes (M = 746, SD = 88 ms) and high arousing, unpleasant primes (M = 742 ms, SD = 86 ms), t(53) = 1.29, p = .19, d = 0.17.
The interaction tests between evaluative congruity and prime arousal were F(1, 53) = 5.52, p = .022, ηη 2p = 0.09, and F(1, 56) = 1.96, p = .16, ηη 2p = 0.03, respectively, for Experiments 2 and 3.
Replicating Experiment 2, there was a prime arousal by prime valence interaction, F(1, 56) = 8.50, p = .005, ηη 2p = 0.13. Targets preceded by low arousing, pleasant primes were responded to more quickly (M = 711 ms, SD = 103 ms) than low arousing, unpleasant primes (M = 719 ms, SD = 101 ms), t(56) = 2.95, p = .004, d = 0.39. However, there was no difference between targets preceded by high arousing, pleasant primes (M = 721, SD = 99 ms) than high arousing, unpleasant primes (M = 719 ms, SD = 100 ms), t(56) = .76, p = .44, d = 0.10.
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We thank Larry Cohn, Wendy Francis, and Joe Tomaka for comments on earlier drafts.
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Portions of this research were performed under an appointment awarded to the first author from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Scholarship Program, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) through an interagency agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and DHS. ORISE is managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) under DOE contract number DE-AC05-06OR23100. All opinions expressed in this paper are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of DHS, DOE, or ORAU/ORISE.
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Herring, D.R., White, K.R., Jabeen, L.N. et al. Something (important) is out there! Effects of prime arousal and location on evaluative priming. Motiv Emot 39, 742–752 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9492-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9492-z