85 Psychological Priming

Introduction:

Priming is the idea that exposure to one stimulus may influence a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention. This phenomenon reveals the intricate ways in which our minds process information, as seemingly unrelated cues can subtly influence our perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Through various experiments, researchers have uncovered some of the reasons on how priming works.  As a captivating facet of cognitive psychology, priming sheds light on the intricate interplay between external stimuli and the intricate workings of the human mind.

Karl Lashley, a pioneering figure in psychology and neuroscience, is not directly associated with the concept of priming in the traditional sense. Lashley’s influential work primarily focused on understanding brain function, particularly in the realms of learning and memory. His renowned studies involved lesioning specific areas of the brain in rats to investigate memory localization, ultimately leading to the formulation of the concepts of “mass action” and “equipotentiality.” While Lashley’s research did not explicitly delve into the phenomenon of priming as understood in contemporary psychology, his foundational contributions laid the groundwork for later investigations into how external stimuli, like those explored in priming experiments, can influence cognitive processes. The principles derived from Lashley’s work contributed to the broader understanding of how the brain processes and stores information, providing a backdrop for the exploration of related concepts, including priming, in subsequent psychological research.

Experiments

Researchers wanted to find out if emotions and emotion-laden word processing differed. An experiment was run on undergraduate students from Albany State University to try and find out. The procedure for this experiment was that subjects were to stare at a cross in the middle of a screen, then a priming word would be flashed for 250 ms, then the target word would be shown and the subjects were given 2000 ms to respond. The subjects had to press a key if the target word was an actual word or another key if it was a nonword. First, the researchers found that response time was faster when the words were related than when they were not. Then the researchers found that emotion positive words that were related(example: passion-love)had a faster response time than emotion negative words that were related(example: blackmail-tomb). The researchers found that the effect of emotion priming was larger than emotion-laden priming. Another experiment was run with different students from Albany State University. This experiment flashed a priming word for 50 ms followed by ######### for 200 ms and then finally the target word where the student had 2000 ms to respond. This second trial was used so that the subject could see but didn’t explicitly process the priming word. The researchers found that again the response time was faster when the words were related than when they were not. They also found that there was a shorter response time when there were emotion targets versus when there were emotion-laden targets. They also found that again emotion positive words that were related(example: passion-love)had a faster response time than emotion negative words that were related(example: blackmail-tomb).

In both of these studies we found that people can be influenced by just seeing words. By seeing a word for a fraction of a second, people’s response time would change. When the priming word was related to the target word it was found that people’s response time was faster than when the priming word was not related. They also found that the more positive words also caused people to have a faster reaction time than when negative words were used.

connection to STS

how priming connects to sts

references

Dean G. Purcell, Alan L. Stewart; Reacting to Emotion: Anger Arrests and Happiness Helps. The American Journal of Psychology 1 December 2016; 129 (4): 363–380. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.129.4.0363