Loading working memory enhances affective priming

• Published in: Psychonomic bulletin & review Vol. 11; no. 2; pp. 326 - 331
• Main Authors: ROTTEVEEL, Mark, PHAF, R. Hans
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Austin, TX Psychonomic Society 01.04.2004; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Affect; Affectivity. Emotion; Attention; Biological and medical sciences; Consciousness; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Memory; Personality. Affectivity; Psychology of learning; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Visual Perception; Human; Affect affectivity; Priming effect; Cognition; Emotion emotionality; Working memory; Experimental study
• ISSN: 1069-9384; 1531-5320
• DOI: 10.3758/BF03196578

Stronger affective priming (Murphy & Zajonc, 1993) with suboptimal (i.e., reduced consciousness) than with optimal (i.e., full consciousness) prime presentation suggests that nonconscious processes form an important part of emotions. Merikle and Joordens (1997) have argued that both impoverished presentation and divided attention can produce suboptimal conditions and result in parallel effects. We manipulated attention by means of a concurrent working memory load while keeping presentation duration constant, as participants evaluated Japanese ideographs that were preceded by happy, neutral, or angry faces (affective priming) and male or female faces (nonaffective priming). In contrast to nonaffective priming, affective priming was larger with divided attention than with focused attention. It is concluded that manipulations of stimulus quality and of attention can both be used to probe the distinction between conscious and nonconscious processes and that the highest chances of obtaining the pattern of stronger priming with suboptimal presentation than with optimal presentation occur in the affective domain.