Negative Priming

Background

Negative Priming refers to the implicit memory effect in which actively suppressing or ignoring information can impair processing of related material shortly thereafter and shows how the brain actively inhibits or blocks out unwanted information.

E.C. Dalrymple-Alford and B. Budayr (1966) first observed the effect during a Stroop color-word experiment. They noticed that people took longer to read a word if it matched the ink color they were forced to ignore on the previous line. Steven P. Tipper (1985) officially coined the term "negative priming". He expanded the research beyond words to show that the exact same phenomenon happens when ignoring abstract shapes, pictures, and spatial locations.

Negative Affective Priming (NAP) paradigms use stimuli of different valences (positive vs. negative). It is a cognitive-behavioral experimental method to measure how efficiently a person can mentally suppress emotional information. In 1999, Dirk Wentura pioneered NAP research by successfully adapting traditional cognitive negative priming frameworks to study if the brain applies the same "inhibitory" mechanisms to emotional valences (positive vs. negative). Jutta Joormann and colleagues continued the research and applied the framework to clinical psychopathology. In 2004, they successfully showed that people suffering from depression lacked the NAP priming effect, thus showing that depressed brains fail to block out negative information.

The Millisecond NAP procedure is based on the procedure described in a paper by Jutta Joorman and Ian Gotlib from 2010, in which they studied individual differences in information repression and emotion regulation. In this study, they used trial sequences that consisted of a priming trial (PT), followed by a target trial (TT). Each of these trials showed two stimuli on top of each other: one of the stimuli was printed in red and the other one was printed in blue. Participants were asked to ignore the red words and to categorize the blue words as 'positive' or 'negative' via corresponding keyboard responses in each trial. For NAP trial sequences, only positive and negative words were used. In addition, the valences of the ignored (red) word and the valences of the focus (blue) word were always opposite in the PT trial (=distractor trial) and TT trial. Thus, NAP would be expected in healthy participants: response times should be slower to the blue focus stimuli in the TT trials as its valence category was suppressed during the preceding PT trial. In contrast, Control (Ctrl) trial sequences used valence-neutral ignored (red) words in the PT trial. The valence of the targets words (blue) in PT and TT trials, however, were opposite just like in the NAP trial sequences. But because the valence category of the blue focus word in Ctrl TT trials was not suppressed, no NAP effect was expected (neither for healthy participants nor for participants suffering from depression). Results replicated that people suffering from depression lacked the typical NAP effect.

The stimuli used in the Millisecond NAP procedure are not the original ones used by Joorman and Gotlib. Like the original stimuli, they were taken from the 'Affective Norms of English Words' database, published by Bradley and Lang in 1999, following the guidelines outlined by Joorman and Gotlib.

Task Procedure

The Millisecond NAP procedure starts with a practice session of 10 trials to familiarize participants with the response procedure. The test itself is divided into 5 test blocks. Each of these test blocks runs 32 test trial sequences (consisting of a PT, followed by a TT trial). Half the test trial sequences are NPA sequences, the other half are Ctrl sequences. In addition, the procedure adds 16 single filler trials. Although PT trials and TT trials are individual trials from a participant's perspective (both require a response), participants may nonetheless catch on the predictable response pattern created by PT and TT trials always requiring opposite responses. Thus, the Millisecond NAP script provides the built-in functionality to add filler trials to obscure this response pattern. Each block therefore runs 48 trials; order is randomized (Note that from a participant's perspective, each block runs 80 trials as test trials consist of two parts => 2x32 test trials + 16 filler trials). Target valences in TT trials as well as target positions (top vs. bottom) in PT and TT trials are balanced in each block. Each individual trial starts out with a fixation cross that is presented for 500ms and is followed by the red/blue word combo. Participants are asked to press the left 'A' key for a negative target (blue words) valence and the right 'L' key for a positive target valence as quickly as possible. No response feedback is provided during the test.

Stimuli are chosen randomly (with some constraints) from the available pool of negative/positive/neutral stimuli. The script ensures that no stimuli are repeated in PT and TT trials.

What it Measures

The NAP Procedure measures cognitive inhibition of emotional information

Psychological domains

• Implicit Cognition: Cognitive Processes not under conscious control
• Selective Attention: Ability to choose which stimuli to process and which to ignore
• Inhibitory Control: Ability to override responses that interfere with one's goals
• Emotion Processing: The perception, interpretation and responding to emotional stimuli
• Emotion Regulation: Ability to monitor, evaluate, and modify one's emotional reactions

Main Performance Metrics

• NAP Score: response time differential between NAP and Ctrl target trials; main measure of NAP

Psychiatric Conditions

Negative Affective Priming (NAP) paradigms are predominantly used in clinical psychology to study populations with deficits in emotional processing, cognitive control, or executive functioning.

• Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
• Schizophrenia
• Williams Syndrome (WS)
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

References

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

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Goeleven E, De Raedt R, Baert S, Koster EHW. Deficient inhibition of emotional information in depression. Journal of Affective Disorders 2006;93:149–157. [PubMed: 16647141]

Joormann, J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2010). Emotion regulation in depression: Relation to cognitive inhibition. Cognition and Emotion, 24(2), 281–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930903407948

Lemche, E., Sierra-Siegert, M., David, A. S., Phillips, M. L., Gasston, D., Williams, S. C. R., & Giampietro, V. P. (2016). Cognitive load and autonomic response patterns under negative priming demand in depersonalization-derealization disorder. The European Journal of Neuroscience, 43(7), 971–978. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.13183

Yaple, Z., & Arsalidou, M. (2017). Negative priming: a meta-analysis of fMRI studies. Experimental Brain Research, 235(11), 3367–3374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-017-5065-6