Abstract
The negative compatibility effect (NCE) is the surprising result that low-visibility prime arrows facilitate responses to opposite-direction target arrows. Here we compare the priming obtained with simple arrows to the priming of emotions when categorizing human faces, which represents a more naturalistic set of stimuli and for which there are no preexisting response biases. When inverted faces with neutral expressions were presented alongside emotional prime and target faces, only strong positive priming occurred. However, when the neutral faces were made to resemble the target faces in geometry (upright orientation), time (flashing briefly), and space (appearing in the same location), positive priming gradually weakened and became negative priming. Implications for theories of the NCE are discussed.
Article PDF
References
Eimer, M., &Schlaghecken, F. (1998). Effects of masked stimuli on motor activation: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,24, 1737–1747.
Enns, J. T., &Di Lollo, V. (2001). Origins of substitution: Reply to Bachmann.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,5, 54.
Huber, D. E., Shiffrin, R. M., Lyle, K. B., &Ruys, K. I. (2001). Perception and preference in short-term word priming.Psychological Review,108, 149–182.
Jaśkowski, P. (2007). The effect of nonmasking distractors on the priming of motor events.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,33, 456–468.
Jaśkowski, P., &Przekoracka-Krawczyk, A. (2005). On the role of mask structure in subliminal priming.Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis,65, 409–417.
Jiang, F., Blanz, V., &O’Toole, A. J. (2006). Probing the visual representation of faces with adaptation: A view from the other side of the mean.Psychological Science,17, 493–500.
Klapp, S. T. (2005). wo versions of the negative compatibility effect: A reply to Lleras and Enns (2004).Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,134, 431–435.
Klapp, S. T., &Hinkley, L. B. (2002). The negative compatibility effect: Unconscious inhibition influences reaction time and response selection.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,131, 255–269.
Lingnau, A., &Vorberg, D. (2005). The time course of response inhibition in masked priming.Perception & Psychophysics,67, 545–557.
Lleras, A., &Enns, J. T. (2004). Negative compatibility or object updating? A cautionary tale of mask-dependent priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,133, 475–493.
Lleras, A., &Enns, J. T. (2005). Updating a cautionary tale of masked priming: A reply to Klapp (2005).Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,134, 436–440.
Lleras, A., &Enns, J. T. (2006). How much like a target can a mask be? Geometric, spatial, and temporal similarity in priming. A reply to Schlaghecken and Eimer (2006).Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,135, 495–500.
Matsumoto, D., &Ekman, P. (1988).Japanese and Caucasian facial expressions of emotion (JACFEE) [Slides]. San Francisco: San Francisco State University.
Mitroff, S., Scholl, B., &Wynn, K. (2004). Divide and conquer: How object files adapt when a persisting object splits into two.Psychological Science,15, 420–425.
Murray, J. E., Yong, E., &Rhodes, G. (2000). Revisiting the perception of upside-down faces.Psychological Science,6, 492–496.
Neumann, O. (1990). Direct parameter specification and the concept of perception.Psychological Research,52, 207–215.
Praamstra, P., &Seiss, E. (2005). The neurophysiology of response competition: Motor cortex activation and inhibition following subliminal response priming.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,17, 483–493.
Ristic, J., &Kingstone, A. (2006). Attention to arrows: Pointing to a new direction.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,59, 1921–1930.
Schlaghecken, F., &Eimer, M. (2006). Active masks and active inhibition: A comment on Lleras and Enns (2004) and on Verleger, Jaśkowski, Aydemir, van der Lubbe, and Groen (2004).Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,135, 484–494.
Sumner, P. (2007). Negative and positive masked-priming—Implications for motor inhibition.Advances in Cognitive Psychology,3, 317–326.
Verleger, R., Jaśkowski, P., Aydemir, A., van der Lubbe, R., &Groen, M. (2004). Qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious processing? On inverse priming induced by masked arrows.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,133, 494–515.
Weidemann, C. T., Huber, D. E., &Shiffrin, R. M. (2005). Confusion and compensation in visual perception: Effects of spatiotemporal proximity and selective attention.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,31, 40–61.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by a Discovery Grant to J.T.E. and an Undergraduate Student Research Award to J.D.B., both from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bennett, J.D., Lleras, A., Oriet, C. et al. A negative compatibility effect in priming of emotional faces. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14, 908–912 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194120
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194120