Identity Priming Research Articles

A matter of identity: Promoting plant-based food among meat-eaters through a common identity priming

Meat production and consumption has been identified as a significant contributor to climate change, however its consumption is not declining. Through four experimental studies we propose an identity-based intervention to promote plant-based food among meat-eaters. In particular, we demonstrated that meat-eaters are more willing to buy plant-based food when it is primed through a common (vs. vegan) identity, because of lower meat-eaters identification and, in turn, lower identity threat. Our results contribute to the understanding of the identity-based factors in influencing food consumption and offer insights for marketers, retailers, and policymakers to encourage a more sustainable diet.

The role of identity priming on the (unconscious) bodily self-attribution

It has been recently demonstrated that hand stimuli presented in a first-, with respect to a third-, person perspective were prioritized before awareness independently from their identity (i.e., self, or other). This pattern would represent an unconscious advantage for self-related bodily stimuli rooted in spatial perspective. To deeper investigate the role of identity, we employed a breaking-Continuous Flash Suppression paradigm in which a self- or other-hand presented in first- or third-person perspective was displayed after a conscious identity-related prime (i.e., self or other face). We replicated the unconscious advantage of the first-person perspective but, crucially, we reported that within the first-person perspective, other-hand stimuli preceded by other-face priming slowed down the conscious access with respect to the other conditions. These findings demonstrate that a top-down conscious identity context modulates the unconscious self-attribution of bodily stimuli. Within a predictive processing framework, we suggest that, by adding ambiguous information, the prime forces a prediction update that slows conscious access.

Resolving competing predictions in speech: How qualitatively different cues and cue reliability contribute to phoneme identification.

Listeners have many sources of information available in interpreting speech. Numerous theoretical frameworks and paradigms have established that various constraints impact the processing of speech sounds, but it remains unclear how listeners might simultaneously consider multiple cues, especially those that differ qualitatively (i.e., with respect to timing and/or modality) or quantitatively (i.e., with respect to cue reliability). Here, we establish that cross-modal identity priming can influence the interpretation of ambiguous phonemes (Exp. 1, N = 40) and show that two qualitatively distinct cues - namely, cross-modal identity priming and auditory co-articulatory context - have additive effects on phoneme identification (Exp. 2, N = 40). However, we find no effect of quantitative variation in a cue - specifically, changes in the reliability of the priming cue did not influence phoneme identification (Exp. 3a, N = 40; Exp. 3b, N = 40). Overall, we find that qualitatively distinct cues can additively influence phoneme identification. While many existing theoretical frameworks address constraint integration to some degree, our results provide a step towards understanding how information that differs in both timing and modality is integrated in online speech perception.

Exploring the efficacy of identity priming and message framing in influencing American attitudes toward trophy hunting.

In the United States, the general public typically disapproves of trophy hunting. Given the global ubiquity of the practice, its potential to benefit conservation when properly managed, and the substantial role played by American hunter-tourists, changing these attitudes can help to maintain the practice as a wildlife management tool. Existing trophy hunting communications, which are currently neither well-designed nor widely distributed, are unable to effectively do so. We used an online survey to explore current American attitudes regarding trophy hunting and assess the efficacy of different messaging strategies in influencing these attitudes. Respondents were randomly sorted into nine treatment groups, each of which received both an identity-focused priming item (or lack thereof, as a control) and a message about trophy hunting. The priming items prompted respondents to consider either their personal values (personal identity) or political affiliation (social identity) before reading their assigned message. All three messages evaluated in this study contained a brief informative paragraph about trophy hunting, and additional information concerning either the ecological or socioeconomic benefits associated with the practice was appended onto this paragraph for respondents assigned to treatments featuring an experimental message frame. Based on the responses of 2000 U.S. residents, we found that negative attitudes regarding trophy hunting were pervasive and resistant to change. Messages framed around the ecological or socioeconomic benefits of managed trophy hunting slightly increased approval for the practice, but identity-focused priming items had no comparable effect. Additionally, respondents' trust in the messages varied by source. This research represents a novel approach to understanding and changing public attitudes toward a highly controversial form of hunting through scientifically informed messaging. While our findings suggest several areas of improvement specifically for future trophy hunting communications, they may also be applied to outreach efforts concerning other contentious wildlife management issues.

Long-lag repetition priming in natural text reading

Abstract Most of the empirical evidence that lays the ground for research on recognition of printed morphologically complex words comes from experimental paradigms employing morphological priming, e.g., exposure to morphologically related forms. Furthermore, most of these paradigms rely on context-less presentation of isolated words. We examined whether well-established morphological priming effects (i.e., faster recognition of a word preceded by a morphologically related word) are observable under more natural conditions of fluent text reading. Using the GECO database of eye-movements recorded during the reading of a novel, we examined the long-lag morphological and identity priming in one’s first language (L1, English and Dutch) or second language (L2, English). While the effects of identity priming were ubiquitous, no evidence of morphological priming was observed in the L1 or L2 eye-movement record. We discuss implications of these findings for ecological validity and generalizability of select current theories of morphological processing.

Letters away from the looking glass: Developmental trajectory of mirrored and rotated letter processing within words.

Discrimination of reversible mirrored letters (e.g., d and b) poses a challenge when learning to read as it requires overcoming mirror invariance, an evolutionary-old perceptual tendency of processing mirror images as equivalent. The present study investigated when, in reading development, mirror-image discrimination becomes automatic during visual word recognition. The developmental trajectory of masked priming effects was investigated from 2nd to 6th grade and in adults, by manipulating letter type (nonreversible; reversible) and prime condition (control; identity; mirrored; rotated). Standardized identity priming increased along reading development. Beginning readers showed mirror invariance during reversible and nonreversible letter processing. A mirror cost (slower word recognition in mirrored-letter than identity prime condition) was found by 5th-grade but only for reversible letters. By 6th grade, orthographic processing was no longer captive of mirror invariance. A multiple linear regression showed that letter representations, but not phonological processes or age, were a reliable predictor of the rise of mirror-image discrimination in 2nd-4th-graders. The present results suggest a protracted development of automatic mirror-image discrimination during orthographic processing, contingent upon the quality of abstract letter representations. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We traced the developmental trajectory of mirrored-letter and rotated-letter priming effects (e.g., ibea and ipea as primes of IDEA) in visual word recognition. Beginning readers (2nd-4th-graders) showed mirror invariance and plane-rotation sensitivity in orthographic processing, thus still being susceptible to the perceptual biases in charge in object recognition. A mirror cost was found in 5th-graders but only for reversible letters; orthographic processing was no longer captive of mirror invariance by 6th-grade. The automation of mirror-image discrimination during orthographic processing depends on the quality of letter representations but not on phonological processes or age.

Candidate Identity and Campaign Priming: Analyzing Voter Support for Pete Buttigieg’s Presidential Run as an Openly Gay Man

Pete Buttigieg’s candidacy in the 2020 Democratic primaries caught fire more than most predicted. An openly gay man, Buttigieg is also a veteran and a Christian. Did voters penalize Buttigieg for being gay and in a same-sex relationship? Did his other traits offset voter negative bias? We conducted a survey with over 6000 likely voters during the primaries. We included a priming experiment that manipulated the salience of Buttigieg’s identity traits. We then asked respondents how much they liked Buttigieg and who they would support in a match-up between Buttigieg and Trump. Overall, voters penalized Buttigieg for being in a same-sex relationship. The penalty surprisingly increased when his religiosity was highlighted. In contrast, Buttigieg’s military background mitigated voter discrimination when he was presented as a veteran married to a man. This article reveals how double standards and heterosexism penalize gay candidates, and contributes to discussions on minority candidates and electability.

Global and local priming in a multi-modal context.

Perceptual information can be processed at many different scales, from featural details to entire scenes. Attentional selection of different scales has been studied using hierarchical stimuli, with research elucidating a variety of biases in local and global attentional selection (due to, e.g., stimulus properties, brain injury, and experience). In this study, the emphasis is on biases produced through recent experience, or level-specific priming effects, which have been demonstrated within both the visual and auditory modalities. Namely, when individuals attend to local information, they are subsequently biased to attend locally (and similarly so with global attention). Here, these level-specific priming effects are investigated in a multi-modal context to determine whether cross-modal interactions occur between visual and auditory modalities during hierarchical processing. Specifically, the study addresses if attentional selection of local or global information in the visual modality subsequently biases auditory attentional selection to that level, and vice versa (i.e., level-priming). Though expected identity priming effects emerged in the study, no cross-modal level-priming effects manifested. Furthermore, the multi-modal context eliminated the well-established within-modality level-specific priming effects. Thus, though the study does reveal a multi-modal effect, it was not a level-based effect. Instead, paradoxically, the multi-modal context eliminated attentional scope biases (i.e., level-priming) within uni-modal transitions. In other words, when visual and auditory information are equally likely require attention, no persistence emerges for processing local or global information over time, even within a single modality.

Long-lag identity priming in the absence of long-lag morphological priming: evidence from Mandarin tone alternation

The present study tested whether listeners hearing one form of a morpheme activate other forms of the same morpheme. Listeners performed lexical decisions while hearing Mandarin monosyllables; crucially, critical targets could be primed by related syllables that occurred 18–52 trials earlier (long-lag priming). The use of long-lag priming ensures that any facilitation effects are due to morphological relatedness and not to semantic or form relationships, which do not prime lexical decisions at long lags. Across three experiments (total N = 458), we consistently found that lexical decisions were primed when the same pronunciation of a morpheme occurred as prime and target (e.g., shiL – shiL) but were not primed when two different variants of the same morpheme occurred as prime and target (e.g., shiR – shiL, where both of these syllables are potential pronunciations of the same morpheme). In other words, we observed identity priming but not morphological priming, unlike other long-lag priming experiments, which almost invariably observe intramodal morphological priming if they test it. This surprising finding suggests that there are boundary conditions on the elicitation of long-lag morphological priming effects.

How Political Identity and Misinformation Priming Affect Truth Judgments and Sharing Intention of Partisan News

The current research investigated (a) if political identity predicts perceived truthfulness of and the intention to share partisan news, and (b) if a media literacy video that warns of misinformation (priming-video) mitigates the partisan bias by enhancing truth discernment. To evaluate if heightened salience of misinformation accounts for the effects of the media literacy intervention, we also tested if recalling prior exposure to misinformation (priming-question) would yield the same results as watching the literacy video does. Two web-based experiments were conducted in South Korea. In Study 1 (N = 384), both liberals and conservatives found politically congenial information more truthful and shareworthy. Although misinformation priming lowered perceived truthfulness and sharing intention of partisan news, such effects were greater for false, rather than true information, thereby improving truth discernment. Study 2 (N = 600) replicated Study 1 findings, except that the misinformation priming lowered perceived truthfulness and the sharing intention across the board, regardless of the veracity of information. Collectively, our findings demonstrate the robust operation of partisan bias in the processing and sharing of partisan news. Misinformation priming aided in the detection of falsehood, but it also induced distrust in reliable information, posing a challenge in fighting misinformation.

Training peripheral vision to read: Using stimulus exposure and identity priming.

Reading in the periphery can be improved with perceptual learning. A conventional training paradigm involves repeated practice on a character-based task (e.g., recognizing random letters/words). While the training is effective, the hours of strenuous effort required from the trainees makes it difficult to implement the training in low-vision patients. Here, we developed a training paradigm utilizing stimulus exposure and identity priming to minimize training effort and improve training accessibility while maintaining the active engagement of observers through a stimulus visibility task. Twenty-one normally sighted young adults were randomly assigned to three groups: a control group, a with-repetition training group, and a without-repetition training group. All observers received a pre-test and a post-test scheduled 1 week apart. Each test consisted of measurements of reading speed, visual-span profile, the spatial extent of crowding, and isolated-letter profiles at 10° eccentricity in the lower visual field. Training consists of five daily sessions (a total of 7,150 trials) of viewing trigram stimuli (strings of three letters) with identity priming (prior knowledge of target letter identity). The with-repetition group was given the option to replay each stimulus (averaged 0.4 times). In comparison to the control group, both training groups showed significant improvements in all four performance measures. Stimulus replay did not yield a measurable benefit on learning. Learning transferred to various untrained tasks and conditions, such as the reading task and untrained letter size. Reduction in crowding was the main basis of the training-related improvement in reading. We also found that the learning can be partially retained for a minimum of 3 months and that complete retention is attainable with additional monthly training. Our findings suggest that conventional training task that requires recognizing random letters or words is dispensable for improving peripheral reading. Utilizing stimulus exposure and identity priming accompanied by a stimulus visibility task, our novel training procedure offers effective intervention, simple implementation, capability for remote and self-administration, and an easy translation into low-vision reading rehabilitation.

Transposed and substituted letter effects across reading development: A longitudinal study.

Reading development involves several changes in orthographic processing. A key question is, "how does the coding of letters develops in children learning to read?" Masked priming effects of transposition and substitution primes have been taken to index the importance of letter position and identity coding. Somewhat contradicting results for developing readers have led to opposing theories. Here, we present new evidence from a large longitudinal study with over 100 children from grade 2 to 4. We investigate three different issues concerning transposition and substitution priming: (a) comparing priming both against an all-different and an identity baseline, (b) testing priming effects for nonword targets, and (c) taking into account interindividual differences in orthographic knowledge. The analyses of the longitudinal data show, respectively, (a) an increase of priming effects over development in comparison to both baselines, (b) identity priming for nonword targets in the elementary school years, and (c) an additional impact of orthographic knowledge on priming effects for word, but not nonword, targets that is similar to the effect of grade. Taken together, our examination suggests that letter identity is coded relatively strictly, whereas letter position is coded relatively flexibly already early in reading development for words, but not for nonwords. We discuss how this pattern fits with different developmental models of orthographic processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

On the time course of the tolerance of letter detectors to rotations: A masked priming ERP investigation

A straightforward prediction of the Local Combination Detectors [LCD] model of word recognition (Dehaene et al., 2005) is that letter rotations above 40–45° should disrupt the mapping of the visual input onto orthographic representations. However, the evidence supporting this claim is scarce and not conclusive. To shed light on this issue, we conducted a masked repetition priming lexical decision experiment while recording the participants’ EEG measures. Targets were always presented in the standard horizontal format, and we rotated the individual letters of the identity/unrelated primes (0°, 45°, or 90°). Behavioral and Event-Related Potentials (ERP) results revealed that the identity priming effect decreased as a function of letter rotation. Importantly, the ERP data allowed us to examine in detail the time course of processing of words with rotated letters. Amplitude comparisons showed that identity priming followed the typical course for 0° primes (i.e., it started around 100 ms, in the visual feature encoding stage, and strengthened with processing time). The parallel effect for 45° primes emerged later, at around 175 ms. This pattern strongly suggests that letter rotations at around 45° have a processing cost, thus providing evidence in favor of the LCD model of word recognition (Dehaene et al., 2005).

The use of exemplars differs between native and non-native listening

AbstractThis study compares the role of exemplars in native and non-native listening. Two English identity priming experiments were conducted with native English, Dutch non-native, and Spanish non-native listeners. In Experiment 1, primes and targets were spoken in the same or a different voice. Only the native listeners showed exemplar effects. In Experiment 2, primes and targets had the same or a different degree of vowel reduction. The Dutch, but not the Spanish, listeners were familiar with this reduction pattern from their L1 phonology. In this experiment, exemplar effects only arose for the Spanish listeners. We propose that in these lexical decision experiments the use of exemplars is co-determined by listeners’ available processing resources, which is modulated by the familiarity with the variation type from their L1 phonology. The use of exemplars differs between native and non-native listening, suggesting qualitative differences between native and non-native speech comprehension processes.

Is the fast-same phenomenon that fast? An investigation of identity priming in the same-different task.

The same-different task is a classic paradigm that requires participants to judge whether two successively presented stimuli are the same or different. While this task is simple, with results that have been replicated many times, response times (RTs) and accuracy for both same and different decisions remain difficult to model. The biggest obstacle in modeling the task lies within its effect referred to as the fast-same phenomenon whereby participants are much faster at responding "same" than "different," while most standard cognitive models predict the opposite. In this study, we investigated whether this effect is the result of identity priming activated by the first stimulus. We ran four variants of the same-different task in which identity priming is intended to be attenuated or cancelled in half of the trials. Results for all four variants show that a complete visual match between both stimuli is necessary to observe a fast-same effect and that hampering this relation attenuates same RTs while different RTs remained relatively unchanged. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Does online masked priming pass the test? The effects of prime exposure duration on masked identity priming

Masked priming is one of the most important paradigms in the study of visual word recognition, but it is usually thought to require a laboratory setup with a known monitor and keyboard. To test if this technique can be safely used in an online setting, we conducted two online masked priming lexical decision task experiments using PsychoPy/PsychoJS (Peirce et al., 2019). Importantly, we also tested the role of prime exposure duration (33.3 vs. 50 ms in Experiment 1 and 16.7 vs. 33.3 ms in Experiment 2), thus allowing us to examine both across conditions and within-conditions effects. We found that our online data are indeed very similar to the masked priming data previously reported in the masked priming literature. Additionally, we found a clear effect of prime duration, with the priming effect (measured in terms of response time and accuracy) being stronger at 50 ms than 33.3 ms and no priming effect at 16.7 ms prime duration. From these results, we can conclude that modern online browser-based experimental psychophysics packages (e.g., PsychoPy) can present stimuli and collect responses on standard end user devices with enough precision. These findings provide us with confidence that masked priming can be used online, thus allowing us not only to run less time-consuming experiments, but also to reach populations that are difficult to test in a laboratory.

A sensitive triple nanoparticle-assisted PCR assay for detection of fowl adenovirus, infectious bursal disease virus and chicken anemia virus

Fowl adenovirus (FAdV) infections in chickens have resulted in global economic losses in the poultry industry. Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) and chicken anemia virus (CAV) infections lead to immunosuppression in chickens, and concomitant co- infection with FAdV usually produces severe and lethal infections. These co-infections are common occurrences on chicken farms and affect large number of chickens. Thus, a rapid, sensitive and specific diagnostic test for these viruses becomes a prerequisite to effective control and isolation measures. We developed a triplex nanoparticle-assisted PCR (nano-PCR) assay that can simultaneously detect these 3 viruses in a single assay tube using PCR primers directed at respective specific genes of each virus. The assay was specific for FAdVs, CAV and IBDV, and it did not amplify Newcastle disease virus, infectious bronchitis virus, egg drop syndrome virus or Marek’s disease virus. The minimum detection limit was 27.2 femtogram (fg) for all three viruses and was 1000-fold more sensitive than multiplex PCR using identical primers. Screening of 69 clinical samples from 40 to 50 days old chickens with obvious lesions in liver using the nano-PCR compared with a multiplex PCR yielded identical results. Of the 69 samples, 13 were detected positive including 4 for FAdV, 4 for IBDV and 6 for CAV single virus infections, respectively, as well as 5 for FAdV/CAV, 2 for FAdV/IBDV and 3 for IBDV/CAV co-infections. The triple nano-PCR assay developed in our laboratory is a sensitive, specific and simple method that can be used for detection of FAdV, CAV and IBDV as single or mixed infections.

Bicultural Identity and Social Support Seeking Processes: The Effects of Cultural Priming Among East Asian Americans

Research has discovered that those from individualistic cultures are more likely to seek social support and view it as effective when coping with stress compared to those from collectivistic cultures. However, many individuals have a bicultural background rooted in both individualistic and collectivistic values, which can enable them to adapt their support seeking behavior to different contexts, depending on which cultural values are salient. The present research evaluated the effects of identity priming on support seeking and support expectations among East Asian Americans. Participants (N = 146) recruited from undergraduate populations were randomly primed with either American (individualistic) or East Asian (collectivistic) cultural icons, followed by questionnaires evaluating their support seeking behaviors and perceptions of support for a current stressor. Generational status and cultural identification were assessed as potential moderators. Contrary to our hypothesis, cultural prime had no impact on support seeking behavior, but did affect perceptions of support. Participants primed with East Asian (vs. American) icons perceived significantly higher overall support (b = –0.42, β = –.21, p = .014) and family support (b = –0.49, β = –.18, p = .038). We also found that those who strongly identified with their American identity reported significantly higher overall perceived support (bsimple = –0.71, bsimple = –.73, p = .003, ΔR2 = .030) and friend support (bsimple = –0.72, bsimple = –.68, p = .005) when primed with East Asian (vs. American) icons. This study considers the within-group differences among East Asian Americans and expands understanding of the relationship between culture and social support.

Emotional Expressiveness in Trauma Narratives across Asian and European Americans: Effects of Implicit Audience and Ethnic Identity

Previous studies have reported that emotional expression carries different meanings for different people depending on ethnicity and the context of measuring emotional expressiveness. This study examined the effects of ethnicity, implicit audience, and ethnic identity on emotional expressiveness. We collected data from 136 female undergraduate students (68 East Asian Americans and 68 European Americans). Self-disclosure, emotional expressivity, and ethnic identity were also assessed. The participants were asked to write an essay about their traumatic experiences. For half of the participants, their ethnic identity was primed before writing the essays. Within each of the two conditions, half of the participants were asked to imagine that their own ethnic group would read their narratives, whereas the other half were asked to imagine that another ethnic group would read theirs. A multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted. Contrary to expectations, Asian Americans expressed more pride and sad words in their narratives, and more sadness in the ingroup condition than European Americans. Across both ethnic groups, participants with higher ethnic identity expressed less affect and positive emotions. Ethnic identity priming did not affect emotional expressiveness. The findings indicate that cultural differences in emotional expressiveness are complex, with ethnic identity, participants’ ethnicity, and ethnicity of the implicit audience assuming significant roles.

Memory for affixes in a long-lag priming paradigm.

Psycholinguistic research on the processing of morphologically complex words has largely focused on debates about how/if lexical stems are recognized, stored, and retrieved. Comparatively little processing research has investigated similar issues for functional affixes. In Word or Lexeme Based Morphology (Aronoff 1994), affixes are not representational units on par with stems or roots. This view is in stark contrast to the claims of linguistic theories like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993), which assign rich representational content to affixes. We conducted a series of eight visual lexical decision studies, evaluating effects of derivational affix priming along with stem priming, identity priming, form priming, and semantic priming at long and short lags. We find robust and consistent affix priming (but not semantic or form priming) with lags up to 33 items, supporting the position that affixes are morphemes, i.e., representational units on par with stems. Intriguingly, we find only weaker evidence for the long-lag stem priming effect found in other studies. We interpret this potential asymmetry in terms of the salience of different morphological contexts for recollection memory.