Conceptual Priming Research Articles

Energy-Saving Behavior: the Different Roles of Altruism and of Environmentalism

This experimental study, in which 118 university students participated, addresses how environmental and altruistic cues induce energy-saving behavior and intention, and their interaction with environmental and altruistic values, thus testing the influence of context or situational variables in energy-saving behavior and intention. Additionally, it does an empirical approach to the role that environmental and altruistic values may have as individual predictors of energy-saving. Environmental and altruistic situational cues are operationalized by environment and altruism conceptual priming. The results reveal an interaction between situational variables and personal values: environment priming induced more energy-saving behavior among individuals with lower altruistic values. The same effect is not observed for energy-saving intention. When the environment and altruism priming were present, individuals with lower altruistic values had less energy-saving intentions. These results underline the importance of distinguishing environmental and altruistic frames and motives when explaining energy-saving behavior.

Fluency in Commercial Breaks: The Impact of Repetition and Conceptual Priming on Brand Memory, Evaluation, and Behavioral Intentions

Although sold by television channels for high fees, the effectiveness of tandem-spots and brand exclusivity has not been investigated so far. A 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment (N = 325) was conducted to investigate the effects of repetition (tandem-spot) and conceptual priming (competing spot) on brand memory, evaluation, and behavioral intentions toward the brand, while applying the processing fluency construct as theoretical foundation. Tandem-spots improved brand recall, but no significant effects were found concerning brand evaluation or behavioral intentions. Competing spots meanwhile acted as conceptual primes, enhancing brand memory, evaluation, and behavioral intentions. These findings partially contradict offerings and recommendations made by television channels.

Supplemental Material for Conceptual Priming and Context Reinstatement: A Test of Direct and Indirect Interview Techniques

Supplemental Material for Conceptual Priming and Context Reinstatement: A Test of Direct and Indirect Interview Techniques

Question order and student understanding of structure and function

The relationship between structure and function is a core concept in physiology education. Written formative assessments can provide insight into student learning of the structure and function relationship, which can then inform pedagogy. However, question order may influence student explanations. We explored how the order of questions from different cognitive levels affects student explanations. A junior level General Physiology class was randomly split in half. One-half of the students answered, "Define the principle: form reflects function," followed by "Give an example of the principle: form reflects function" (format DX), whereas the other half answered, "Give an example of the principle: form reflects function," followed by "Define the principle: form reflects function" (format XD). Human grading and computerized lexical analysis were used to evaluate student responses. Two percent of students in the format DX group related structure and function in their definition, whereas 48% of students related structure and function in their examples. In the format XD group, 17% related structure and function in their definition, and 26% related structure and function in their example of the principle. Overall, students performed better on the last question in the sequence, which may be evidence for conceptual priming. Computerized lexical analysis revealed that students draw on only a few levels of organization and may be used by instructors to quickly assess the levels of organization students use in their responses. Written assessment coupled with lexical analysis has the potential to reveal student understanding of core concepts in anatomy and physiology education.

Separating Event-related Potential Effects for Conceptual Fluency and Episodic Familiarity.

ERP old/new effects have been associated with different subprocesses of episodic recognition memory. The notion that recollection is reflected in the left parietal old/new effect seems to be uncontested. However, an association between episodic familiarity and the mid-frontal old/new effect is not uncontroversial. It has been argued that the mid-frontal old/new effect is functionally equivalent to the N400 and hence merely reflects differences in conceptual fluency between old and new items. Therefore, it is related to episodic familiarity only in situations in which conceptual fluency covaries with familiarity. Alternatively, the old/new effect in this time window reflects an interaction of episodic familiarity and conceptual processing with each making a unique functional contribution. To test this latter account, we manipulated conceptual fluency and episodic familiarity orthogonally in an incidental recognition test: Visually presented old and new words were preceded by either conceptually related or unrelated auditory prime words. If the mid-frontal old/new effect is functionally distinguishable from conceptual priming effects, an ERP contrast reflecting pure priming (correct rejections in the related vs. unrelated condition) and a contrast reflecting priming plus familiarity (hits in the related vs. correct rejections in the unrelated condition) should differ in scalp distribution. As predicted, the pure priming contrast had a right-parietal distribution, as typically observed for the N400 effect, whereas the priming plus familiarity contrast was significantly more frontally accentuated. These findings implicate that old/new effects in this time window are driven by unique functional contributions of episodic familiarity and conceptual processing.

The role of attention in perceptual and conceptual priming.

The role of attention in perceptual and conceptual priming.

Electrophysiological signals associated with fluency of different levels of processing reveal multiple contributions to recognition memory.

Processing fluency appears to influence recognition memory judgements, and the manipulation of fluency, if misattributed to an effect of prior exposure, can result in illusory memory. Although it is well established that fluency induced by masked repetition priming leads to increased familiarity, manipulations of conceptual fluency have produced conflicting results, variously affecting familiarity or recollection. Some recent studies have found that masked conceptual priming increases correct recollection (Taylor & Henson, 2012), and the magnitude of this behavioural effect correlates with analogous fMRI BOLD priming effects in brain regions associated with recollection (Taylor, Buratto, & Henson, 2013). However, the neural correlates and time-courses of masked repetition and conceptual priming were not compared directly in previous studies. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify and compare the electrophysiological correlates of masked repetition and conceptual priming and investigate how they contribute to recognition memory. Behavioural results were consistent with previous studies: Repetition primes increased familiarity, whereas conceptual primes increased correct recollection. Masked repetition and conceptual priming also decreased the latency of late parietal component (LPC). Masked repetition priming was associated with an early P200 effect and a later parietal maximum N400 effect, whereas masked conceptual priming was only associated with a central-parietal maximum N400 effect. In addition, the topographic distributions of the N400 repetition priming and conceptual priming effects were different. These results suggest that fluency at different levels of processing is associated with different ERP components, and contributes differentially to subjective recognition memory experiences.

Pain of Paying? A Metaphor Gone Literal: Evidence from Neural and Behavioral Science

How do individuals consider the price of a good when making purchase decisions? Standard economic theories assume an analytical process: Individuals consider the opportunity cost. Recent behavioral economic theories suggest an additional, hedonic process: Individuals consider the immediate displeasure or “pain of paying” the price.This paper is the first to present direct empirical evidence that the metaphor is more than a theoretical concept; it stands for a literal pain experience. In addition, the authors characterize its quality as an affective pain experience in three incentive-compatible experiments. First, an fMRI experiment suggests an affective pain experience and rejects a somatosensory (i.e., physical) pain experience.Second, the facilitation of affective pain perception through conceptual priming decreases willingness to pay (WTP). Third, misattributions of pain perception to placebo drugs increases versus decreases WTP for affective pain enhancers versus affective pain relievers. Conversely, facilitation and misattribution of somatosensory pain perceptions do not alter WTP.

刺激呈现方式和时间间隔对重复启动效应的影响

已有研究表明，重复启动效应为刺激预存知识表征所影响，刺激样例变换和启动刺激呈现方向分别能引起概念启动和知觉启动，且重复启动效应和重复启动效应量均受非启动刺激与启动刺激间的时间间隔所影响。然而，尚未有研究同时对引发概念启动和知觉启动的条件进行控制，更未探究上述条件下时间间隔对两类启动的影响。鉴于此，本研究以图形为实验材料，通过变换启动图形的样例、呈现方向以及非启动图形与启动图形间的时间间隔展开研究。结果显示，图形存在重复启动效应，为自上而下的加工观提供可靠证据；样例变换和启动图形呈现方向均可影响重复启动效应和重复启动效应量；由样例变换引起的概念启动和由启动图形呈现方向变换引起的知觉启动均随非启动图形与启动图形间的时间间隔的增加而削弱，支持加工过程框架。 Previous studies have demonstrated that repetition priming effect is modulated by the pre-existing representation of stimuli. In addition, studies have observed the conceptual priming effect in the case of exemplar exchange and the perceptual priming effect in the case of orientation transformation of primed stimuli. However, no research has controlled the conceptual priming and the perceptual priming simultaneously, or has further explored the influence of lag length on the above two types of priming. In order to address these issues, the present experiment adopted 850 pictures as materials, and manipulated the lag length between unprimed and primed stimuli (including immediate and delayed repetition), and the stimulus presentation (exemplar exchange and orientation transformation of primed stimuli). The analysis showed that the repetition priming effects of both accuracy and reaction time were modulated by exemplar exchange, orientation transformation of primed pictures, as well as lag length. The analysis showed that the strength of repetition priming effect of accuracy was sensitive to the factors of exemplar exchange, orientation transformation of primed pictures, and lag length; the strength of repetition priming effect of reaction time was sensitive to the interaction of exemplar exchange and lag length. In conclusion, the robust repetition priming effect and its strength in pictures supports top-down processing. The sensitivity of repetition priming effect and the strength of repetition priming effect to both exemplar exchange and orientation transformation of primed stimuli suggest we record significant conceptual priming and perceptual priming. Our data also show that the conceptual priming induced by exemplar exchange and the perceptual priming induced by orientation transformation of primed stimuli are sensitive to the lag length between unprimed and primed stimuli, strengthening the memory processing framework.

The role of chronic physical exercise and selective attention at encoding on implicit and explicit memory

ABSTRACTDespite the evidence revealing benefits of chronic cardiovascular exercise on executive functions, little research has been conducted on long-term memory. We aimed to investigate the effect of physical exercise on implicit and explicit memory when attention was modulated at encoding in two groups of active and sedentary participants. With this purpose, attention was manipulated in a similar way in the implicit and explicit memory tasks by presenting picture outlines of two familiar objects, one in blue and the other in green, and participants were asked to pay attention only to one of them. Implicit memory was assessed through conceptual priming and explicit memory through a free recall task followed by recognition. The results did not reveal significant differences between groups in conceptual priming or free recall. However, in recognition, while both groups had similar discrimination for attended stimuli, active participants showed lower discrimination between unattended and new stimuli. These results suggested that exercise may have effects on specific cognitive processes, that is, that active participants may suppress non-relevant information better than sedentary participants, making the discrimination between unattended and new items more difficult.

Rethinking spontaneous giving: Extreme time pressure and ego-depletion favor self-regarding reactions.

Previous experimental studies suggest that cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is, on average, spontaneous, rather than calculative. To explain this finding, it has been proposed that people internalize cooperative heuristics in their everyday life and bring them as intuitive strategies in new and atypical situations. Yet, these studies have important limitations, as they promote intuitive responses using weak time pressure or conceptual priming of intuition. Since these manipulations do not deplete participants’ ability to reason completely, it remains unclear whether cooperative heuristics are really automatic or they emerge after a small, but positive, amount of deliberation. Consistent with the latter hypothesis, we report two experiments demonstrating that spontaneous reactions in one-shot anonymous interactions tend to be egoistic. In doing so, our findings shed further light on the cognitive underpinnings of cooperation, as they suggest that cooperation in one-shot interactions is not automatic, but appears only at later stages of reasoning.

Implicit stereotyping against people with disability

Focusing on the two fundamental dimensions underlying stereotype content (warmth/competence), the major aim of the present research was to test implicit stereotyping toward persons with disability. We hypothesized that persons with disability are associated with less warmth than persons without disability and with less competence, especially when a competence-relevant context is activated (work context). Three experimental studies were conducted using two different priming paradigms: conceptual priming (Study 1) and evaluative priming (Studies 2 and 3). In Study 3, context (work vs. control) was introduced as an additional factor. Our results showed that persons with disability were systematically associated with less warmth than persons without disability, and with less competence when priming a work context. These results provide a more comprehensive understanding of discriminatory behaviors toward people with disability, despite legislation promoting equal rights.

Selective lesion to the entorhinal cortex leads to an impairment in familiarity but not recollection

The present research explored the effects of selective impairment to the entorhinal cortex on the processes of familiarity and recollection. To achieve this objective, the performance of patient MR, who has a selective impairment of the left entorhinal cortex, was compared to that of age and IQ-matched controls. Four experiments tested participants’ recognition memory for familiar and unfamiliar faces and words. In all experiments, participants studied lists of items and then completed an old/new recognition test in which they also made remember/know/guess judgements. A fifth experiment tested participants’ priming associated with the familiarity process. MR had intact performance in both face recognition experiments as well as having intact performance in pseudoword recognition. Crucially, however, in the familiar word experiment, whilst MR performed similarly to control participants in terms of recollection, she showed a marked impairment in familiarity. Furthermore, she also demonstrated a reversed conceptual priming effect. MR’s impairment is both material-specific and selective for previously encountered but not new verbal items (pseudowords). These findings provide the first clear evidence that selective impairment of the entorhinal cortex impairs the familiarity process for familiar verbal material whilst leaving recollection intact. These results suggest the entorhinal cortex does not have attributes reflective of both recollection and familiarity as previously assumed, but rather supports context-free long-term familiarity-based recognition memory.

Cultural differences in visual attention: Implications for distraction processing.

We investigated differences between participants of East Asian and Western descent in attention to and implicit memory for irrelevant words which participants were instructed to ignore while completing a target task (a Stroop Task in Experiment 1 and a 1-back task on pictures in Experiment 2). Implicit memory was measured using two conceptual priming tasks (category generation in Experiment 1 and general knowledge in Experiment 2). Participants of East Asian descent showed reliable implicit memory for previous distractors relative to those of Western descent with no evidence of differences on target task performance. We also found differences in a Corsi Block spatial memory task in both studies, with superior performance by the East Asian group. Our findings suggest that cultural differences in attention extend to task-irrelevant background information, and demonstrate for the first time that such information can boost performance when it becomes relevant on a subsequent task.

The impact of dissociation on perceptual priming and intrusions after listening to auditory narratives

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the causal role of dissociation in intrusive memory development and possible underlying aberrant memory processes (e.g., increased perceptual priming). Using an audio-only adaption of the trauma film paradigm, we divided 60 participants into 3 conditions and presented them with different visual tasks—mirror staring, dot staring, or neutral images. The former 2 conditions were hypothesized to induce dissociation. Postaudio, a number of factors were assessed, including state dissociation, perceptual priming and conceptual priming, as well as intrusions over 3 days. Participants in the dissociation conditions displayed an increase in perceptual priming compared to those in the control condition and reported more distressing intrusions. No differences were found in conceptual priming and the overall number of intrusions between conditions. Findings contribute to the growing knowledge on the impact of dissociation and cognitive processing in the etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder intrusions.

Perceptual and conceptual priming of cue encoding in task switching.

Transition effects in task-cuing experiments can be partitioned into task switching and cue repetition effects by using multiple cues per task. In the present study, the author shows that cue repetition effects can be partitioned into perceptual and conceptual priming effects. In 2 experiments, letters or numbers in their uppercase/lowercase or word/numeral forms, respectively, served as cues for perceptual categorization tasks (e.g., the letters B, b, E, and e were cues for a color judgment and the letters D, d, G, and g were cues for a shape judgment). Some cues represented the same concept but had different percepts, allowing nominal repetitions to occur across trials (e.g., d followed by D). Conceptual priming effects were measured by comparing relational repetitions (e.g., G followed by D) with nominal repetitions, whereas perceptual priming effects were measured by comparing nominal repetitions with physical repetitions (e.g., D followed by D). Large conceptual and perceptual priming effects on response time were observed. Implications of the results for understanding cue encoding in task switching situations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Intuitive decision making as a gradual process: investigating semantic intuition-based and priming-based decisions with fMRI.

IntroductionIntuition has been defined as the instantaneous, experience‐based impression of coherence elicited by cues in the environment. In a context of discovery, intuitive decision‐making processes can be conceptualized as occurring within two stages, the first of which comprises an implicit perception of coherence that is not (yet) verbalizable. Through a process of spreading activation, this initially non‐conscious perception gradually crosses over a threshold of awareness and thereby becomes explicable. Because of its experiential basis, intuition shares conceptual similarities with implicit memory processes. Based on these, the study addresses two research questions: (1) Is the gradual nature of intuitive processes reflected on a neural level? (2) Do intuition‐based decisions differ neurally from priming‐based decisions?MethodsTo answer these questions, we conducted an fMRI study using the triads task and presented participants with coherent word triads that converge on a common fourth concept, and incoherent word triads that do not converge on a common fourth concept. Participants had to perform semantic coherence judgments as well as to indicate whether they immediately knew the fourth concept. To enable investigating intuition‐based and priming‐based decisions within the same task and with the same participants, we implemented a conceptual priming procedure into the coherence judgment task. We realized this by priming participants with concepts associated with incoherent triads in separate priming blocks prior to the coherence judgments.ResultsFor intuition‐based decisions, imaging results mainly revealed activity within the orbitofrontal cortex, within the inferior frontal gyrus and the middle temporal gyrus. Activity suppression in the right temporo‐occipital complex was observed for priming‐based decisions.ConclusionsWith respect to research question 1, our data support a continuity model of intuition because the two intuitive stages show quantitatively distinct brain activation patterns. Regarding research question 2, we can draw the preliminary conclusion of a qualitative difference between intuition‐based and priming‐based decisions.

Eating in response to exercise cues: Role of self-control fatigue, exercise habits, and eating restraint

Identifying moderators of compensatory eating is important for understanding the failure of many people to lose weight in response to increased exercise levels. A previous study demonstrated that individuals shown action words (e.g., “active” or “go”) were primed by these words to increase energy intake. Further studies have demonstrated that individual differences (e.g. differences in body mass) affect susceptibility to relevant priming cues. Based on these findings, this study examined individual differences, including exercise habits, tendencies toward compensatory eating, dietary restraint, and body mass that may serve as moderators of compensatory eating in the context of conceptual priming. A 2 × 2 design was utilized to analyze the effects of both priming and a self-control task on energy intake. Participants were presented with several snack foods under the guise of a taste test, with energy intake (kcal) during this taste test as the primary outcome variable. Results of this study indicate that, among those with higher baseline levels of exercise, lower energy intake was found for those exposed to exercise cues relative to those who did not receive these cues. In addition, the influence of the self-control fatigue condition was dependent on body mass index.

Conceptual Priming for In-game BCI Training

Using Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) as a control modality for games is popular. However BCIs require prior training before playing, which is hurtful to immersion and player experience in the game. For this reason, we propose an explicit integration of the training protocol in game by a modification of the game environment to enforce the synchronicity with the BCI system and to provide appropriate instructions to user. We then dissimulate the synchronicity in the game mechanics by using priming to mask the training instruction (implicit stimuli). We conduct an evaluation of the effects on game experience compared to standard BCI training on 36 subjects. We use the game experience questionnaire (GEQ) coupled with reliability analysis (Cronbach's alpha). The integration does not change the feeling of competence (3/4). However, flow and immersion increase sizably with explicit training integration (2.78 and 2.67/4 from 1.79/4 and 1.52/4) and even more with the implicit training integration (3.27/4 and 3.12/4).

Preserved conceptual implicit memory for pictures in patients with Alzheimer’s disease

The current study examined different aspects of conceptual implicit memory in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Specifically, we were interested in whether priming of distinctive conceptual features versus general semantic information related to pictures and words would differ for the mild AD patients and healthy older adults. In this study, 14 healthy older adults and 15 patients with mild AD studied both pictures and words followed by an implicit test section, where they were asked about distinctive conceptual or general semantic information related to the items they had previously studied (or novel items). Healthy older adults and patients with mild AD showed both conceptual priming and the picture superiority effect, but the AD patients only showed these effects for the questions focused on the distinctive conceptual information. We found that patients with mild AD showed intact conceptual picture priming in a task that required generating a response (answer) from a cue (question) for cues that focused on distinctive conceptual information. This experiment has helped improve our understanding of both the picture superiority effect and conceptual implicit memory in patients with mild AD in that these findings support the notion that conceptual implicit memory might potentially help to drive familiarity-based recognition in the face of impaired recollection in patients with mild AD.