Evaluative Priming Task

Background

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 assume 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. For example, 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'. Priming procedures that use emotion-related primes are generally known as Affective Priming Procedures. Priming Procedure can thus be used to study implicit attitudes. Faster reaction times to targets after primes from a specific emotion-related category are interpreted as indicative of an existing (emotional) relationship/association between the categories in the person's mind.

The Evaluative Priming Procedure by Russel H. Fazio and colleagues from 2005, used to study implicit racial bias, is a specialized affective priming paradigm that allows the calculations of specific facilitation scores for each of the individual prime stimuli:

• Positive facilitation scores imply that the prime sped up the categorization of the positive(negative) adjective.
• Negative facilitation scores imply that the prime slowed down the categorization of the positive (negative) adjective.
Due to the sensitive nature of the study, Fazio and colleagues utilized deception to distract participants from the true purpose of the study and included several (irrelevant) phases such as a memory test for faces that were not central to the research question.

The Millisecond Evaluative Priming Procedure implements a template for the relevant phases only. The target categories under investigation are "flowers" and "insects". Filler categories "cars" and "appliances" are used to "obscure" the study of attitudes towards flowers and insects in this template script. 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'. This script uses supraliminal primes in the form of images.

Task Procedure

The Millisecond Evaluative Priming Procedure tests 6 prime images of category A (flowers) and 6 prime images of category B (insects). As distractors it also runs 6 prime images of category C (cars) and category D (appliances), respectively, but these categories are only included as filler categories. The targets to categorize are 12 positive and 12 negative adjectives.

At the beginning of the script, two images of category A and category B (category C and category D) are randomly paired, and each pair gets randomly assigned one positive and one negative target adjective. Throughout the procedure, these primes are only followed by these assigned target stimuli. In each trial, a prime image is presented for 315ms and is followed by a blank screen for 135ms. The target adjective is presented for max. 1750ms or until a response is made. A relatively long intertrial interval of 2500ms ends each trial sequence. Participants are tasked with categorizing the target adjectives as "positive" or "negative" by pressing the E or I key, respectively, as fast as possible.

The procedure consists of three phases: a practice phase during which 12 adjectives (6 positive, 6 negative) are categorized. The practice phase familiarizes participants with the basic task and provides performance feedback. After the practice session, a performance baseline session is run. A character string such as '+++' is used as a 'neutral prime' which should neither boost nor inhibit categorization performance of the targets. The baseline runs 2 blocks of 24 trials (12 positive, 12 negative targets). The test session runs 1 block of 96 trials. It runs 24 trials for each of the four categories.

What it Measures

The Evaluative Priming Procedure measures implicit bias towards target categories

Psychological domains

• Implicit Cognition: Cognitive Processes not under conscious control
• Social Cognition: People's thoughts and perceptions of themselves and others in the social world

Main Performance Metrics

• Overall Facilitation Scores: A latency-based measure of the extend that items of a specific category can boost or inhibit categorization speed; measure of bias
• Item Facilitation Scores: An latency-based measure of the extend that individual items can boost or inhibit categorization speed; measure of bias

Psychiatric Conditions

Evaluative Priming is used with the following patient groups

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Trauma and Phobias
• Substance Abuse
• Eating Disorders

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Evaluative Priming Task.

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Fazio, R.H., Jackson, J.R. Dunton, B.C. & Williams, C.J. (1995). Variability in Automatic Activation as an Unobtrusive Measure of Racial Attitudes: A Bona Fide Pipeline? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 1013-1027.