___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Significant Other Sequential Priming Paradigm* ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Script Author: Vivian Zayas, Ph.D. (vz29@cornell.edu) last updated: 02-28-2022 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Script Copyright © 03-11-2020 Millisecond Software ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ BACKGROUND INFO ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This script implements a sequential priming paradigm that assesses positive and negative evaluations elicited by significant others. In general, priming procedures are simple response-timed binary categorization tasks of items from two target categories (e.g. positive vs. negative adjectives). Priming Procedures are based on the assumption that people respond faster if the target category was already 'mentally activated' by briefly presenting items (called 'primes') that are closely connected in one's mind. Thus, a person should be faster to quickly categorize the target word 'good' as 'positive' after the brief presentation of the prime word 'ice-cream' than after the brief presentation of the prime word 'famine'. If the primes are presented with a temporal duration that can be consciously processed, the primes are called 'supraliminal'. If the duration of the primes is so short that they are outside one's conscious awareness the primes are called 'subliminal'. In this script, target categories GOOD vs. BAD are primed by supraliminal information collected about one's significant other (such as names) and resulting response times are analyzed. The script is based on: Zayas, V. & Shoda, Y. (2015). Love you? Hate you? Maybe it's both: Significant persons trigger bi-valent priming. Social Psychological and Personality Science. Fazio, R., Sanbonmatsu, D., Powell, M., & Kardes, F. (1986). On the automatic activation of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 229–238. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ TASK DESCRIPTION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ After seeing a prime word (either a neutral word such as 'chair' or the name of the current significant other) participants are asked to categorize adjectives as positive or negative using the 'E' and 'I' key on their keyboards. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DURATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ the default set-up of the script takes appr. 15 minutes to complete ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DATA FILE INFORMATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The default data stored in the data files are: (1) Raw data file: 'significantotherspp_raw*.iqdat' (a separate file for each participant)* build: The specific Inquisit version used (the 'build') that was run computer.platform: the platform the script was run on (win/mac/ios/android) date, time: date and time script was run subject, group: with the current subject/groupnumber odd groupnumbers run Version 1 [Unpleasant (on the left) vs. Pleasant (on the right) (Neutral Word: Table)] even groupnumbers run Version 2 [Pleasant (on the left) vs. Unpleasant (on the right) (Neutral Word: Chair)] session: with the current session id blockcode, blocknum: the name and number of the current block (built-in Inquisit variable) trialcode, trialnum: the name and number of the currently recorded trial (built-in Inquisit variable) Note: trialnum is a built-in Inquisit variable; it counts all trials run; even those that do not store data to the data file such as feedback trials. Thus, trialnum may not reflect the number of main trials run per block. response: the participant's response (scancode of response key) 18 = E 23 = I responseCat: the interpreted key re sponse:"good" vs. "bad" correct: accuracy of response: 1 = correct response; 0 = otherwise latency: the response latency (in ms); measured from: onset of target stimulusitem.1: for the practice/test trials: contains the prime word stimulusitem.2: for the practice/test trials: empty stimulusitem.3: for the practice/test trials: contains the target word * separate data files: to change to one data file for all participants (on Inquisit Lab only), go to section "DATA" and follow further instructions (2) Summary data file: 'significantotherspp_summary*.iqdat' (a separate file for each participant)* inquisit.version: Inquisit version run computer.platform: the platform the script was run on (win/mac/ios/android) startDate: date script was run startTime: time script was started subjectid: assigned subject id number groupid: assigned group id number sessionid: assigned session id number elapsedTime: time it took to run script (in ms); measured from onset to offset of script completed: 0 = script was not completed (prematurely aborted); 1 = script was completed (all conditions run) propCorrect_PartnerPleasant: proportion correct responses for trials in which partner name preceded a positive target meanRT_PartnerPleasant: mean correct response time (in ms) in trials in which partner name preceded a positive target propCorrect_PartnerUnpleasant: proportion correct responses for trials in which partner name preceded a negative target meanRT_PartnerUnpleasant: mean correct response time (in ms) in trials in which partner name preceded a negative target propCorrect_NeutralPleasant: proportion correct responses for trials in which Neutral object preceded a positive target meanRT_NeutralPleasant: mean correct response time (in ms) in trials in which Neutral object preceded a positive target propCorrect_NeutralUnpleasant: proportion correct responses for trials in which Neutral object preceded a negative target meanRT_NeutralUnpleasant: mean correct response time (in ms) in trials in which Neutral object preceded a negative target DiffRT_Partner: the difference 'corrRT(unpleasant targets) - corrRT(pleasant targets)' for partner condition positive difference: it took longer to classify negative targets after partner's name than positive ones => partner's name primed positive items negative difference: it took longer to classify positive targets after partner's name than negative ones => partner's name primed negative items DiffRT_Neutral: the difference 'corrRT(unpleasant targets) - corrRT(pleasant targets)' for neutral condition => control condition: the difference is expected to be around 0 the neutral prime words should neither prime positive nor negative targets ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Version EXPT 1: UP: Unpleasant (on the left) vs. Pleasant (on the right) (Neutral Word: Table) Version EXPT 2: PU: Pleasant (on the left) vs. Unpleasant (on the right) (Neutral Word: Chair) Note: Participants are assigned to each version by groupnumber selection *** Primes are partner name and neutral word. Target stimuli are pleasant/unpleasant words. Discrimination is UNPLEASANT - PLEASANT or PLEASANT - UNPLEASANT. BLOCK 3 = practice (16 trials) Note: practice is repeated if mean response time > 1500ms and/or accuracy < 0.8 BLOCK 4,5 = DATA (80 trials each, in total 160 trials- 40 for each critical block, i.e., partner-pleasant, partner-unpleasant, neutral-pleasant, neutral-unpleasant) Trial: PRIME (200MS), PAUSE (100MS), TARGET WORD (until response) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ STIMULI ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ provided by authors (Name of Significant Other entered by participant) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ provided by authors ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EDITABLE CODE ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ check below for (relatively) easily editable parameters, stimuli, instructions etc. Keep in mind that you can use this script as a template and therefore always "mess" with the entire code to further customize your experiment.