The affective regulation of cognitive priming.

Semantic and affective priming are classic effects observed in cognitive and social psychology, respectively. The authors discovered that affect regulates such priming effects. In Experiment 1, positive and negative moods were induced before one of three priming tasks; evaluation, categorization, or lexical decision. As predicted, positive affect led to both affective priming (evaluation task) and semantic priming (category and lexical decision tasks). However, negative affect inhibited such effects. In Experiment 2, participants in their natural affective state completed the same priming tasks as in Experiment 1. As expected, affective priming (evaluation task) and category priming (categorization and lexical decision tasks) were observed in such resting affective states. Hence, the authors conclude that negative affect inhibits semantic and affective priming. These results support recent theoretical models, which suggest that positive affect promotes associations among strong and weak concepts, and that negative affect impairs such associations (Clore & Storbeck, 2006; Kuhl, 2000). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facial EMG as an index of affective response to nicotine.

Negative affect reduction has been postulated to be a key feature of cigarette smoking. In the present study, facial electromyography (EMG), heart rate (HR), and skin conductance response (SCR) were used to evaluate the affective significance of acute nicotine administration and overnight withdrawal. Smokers (N = 115) attended four 90-min laboratory assessment sessions scheduled approximately 3 days apart. The sessions provided a complete crossing of 2 prelaboratory deprivation conditions (12-hr deprived vs. nondeprived) with 2 drug conditions (nicotine vs. placebo nasal spray). During each session, smokers viewed affective slides while facial EMG, HR, and SCR were recorded. Results indicated that for women, nicotine nasal spray resulted in lower corrugator EMG activity during both smoking-deprived and nondeprived sessions, compared with placebo. However, nondeprived women also showed an increase in zygomaticus EMG when given nicotine compared with placebo spray, whereas smoking-deprived women demonstrated a decrease in the zygomaticus response to nicotine compared with placebo. With men, nicotine also appeared to lower corrugator during deprivation, but not nondeprivation, compared with placebo spray, though the contrast only approached significance. With zygomaticus EMG, nicotine spray decreased men's zygomaticus responding during nondeprivation but not during deprivation, compared with placebo spray. The HR results reflected the stimulatory properties of the drug rather than nicotine's affective properties, whereas SCR was unresponsive to our experimental manipulations. The corrugator EMG results support negative reinforcement models of smoking that postulate that acute nicotine use reduces withdrawal-driven negative affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extraversion and reward-related processing: Probing incentive motivation in affective priming tasks.

Based on an incentive motivation theory of extraversion (Depue & Collins, 1999), it was hypothesized that extraverts (relative to introverts) would exhibit stronger positive priming effects in affective priming tasks, whether involving words or pictures. This hypothesis was systematically supported in four studies involving 229 undergraduates. In each of the four studies, and in a subsequent combined analysis, extraversion was positively predictive of positive affective priming effects, but was not predictive of negative affective priming effects. The results bridge an important gap in the literature between biological and trait models of incentive motivation and do so in a way that should be informative to subsequent efforts to understand the processing basis of extraversion as well as incentive motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multinomial model for short-term priming in word identification.

A simple multinomial model for short-term priming in perceptual word identification is presented. In the experiments to which the model is applied, prime words are presented just prior to a flashed target word, and subjects must decide which of 2 alternative words matches the target. The model assumes that on some proportion of trials, confusion among the words leads to the decision being based on 1 of the prime words instead of the target. In addition, it is assumed that subjects sometimes discount a prime that matches 1 of the test alternatives and so choose the alternative that does not match. With these assumptions, the model fits the data from 5 experiments (including 4 used to develop the model known as ROUSE [responding optimally with unknown sources of evidence]; D. E. Huber, R. Shiffrin, K. Lyle, & K. Ruys, 2001). The multinomial model fits the data about as well as the ROUSE model and so should lead to further development and critical testing of both models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Common and distinct patterns of affective response in dimensions of anxiety and depression.

The authors examined the time course of affective responding associated with different affective dimensions--anxious apprehension, anxious arousal, and anhedonic depression--using an emotion-modulated startle paradigm. Participants high on 1 of these 3 dimensions and nonsymptomatic control participants viewed a series of affective pictures with acoustic startle probes presented before, during, and after the stimuli. All groups exhibited startle potentiation during unpleasant pictures and in anticipation of both pleasant and unpleasant pictures. Compared with control participants, symptomatic participants exhibited sustained potentiation following the offset of unpleasant stimuli and a lack of blink attenuation during and following pleasant stimuli. Common and unique patterns of affective responses in the 3 types of mood symptoms are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nicotine primes attention to competing affective stimuli in the context of salient alternatives.

Despite the importance of the subject, the effects of nicotine on the interplay between affect and attentional bias are not clear. This interplay was assessed with a novel design of the Primed Attentional Competition Task (PACT). It included a 200-ms duration emotional priming picture (negative, positive, or neutral) followed by a dual-target picture of two emotional faces side-by-side. A second task included an emotional priming picture followed by a single emotional target picture in a classic affective priming (CAP) task, assessing reaction time to identify the valence. Smokers completed the tasks in a double-blind repeated measures design wearing a nicotine patch on one day and a placebo patch on the other day. Consistent with hypotheses, nicotine enhanced the effectiveness of positive primes to bias first gaze-fixations (FGFs) toward neutral pictures relative to negative pictures and attenuated the effectiveness of negative primes on FGFs toward negative pictures, but did not bias performance in the CAP task where competing target stimuli were not present. These effects of nicotine on affective priming and attentional bias toward competing reinforcers may contribute to smoking motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Serotonin transporter genotype and depressive symptoms moderate effects of nicotine on spatial working memory.

Smokers may use nicotine to self-medicate for situation-specific or person-specific cognitive or affective deficits. Although evidence suggests that nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), relative to placebo, enhances spatial working memory (SWM) in smoking-abstinent smokers with schizophrenia, the extent to which NRT may be helpful in attenuating abstinence-related SWM in other groups with deficits in SWM is unknown. Depressive symptoms are associated with both tobacco smoking and deficits in SWM. Previous studies have found that smoking abstinence increases depressive affect and depression-related hemispheric asymmetries in brain activation. Although the serotonin neurotransmitter system is closely associated with depression and the effects of nicotine, the authors are not aware of any studies that have evaluated the possible role of individual differences in serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype and depressive symptoms as moderators of the effects of NRT on SWM. Thus, the current study assessed the effects of NRT (nicotine patch) on SWM in relation to: (1) depressive traits and (2) 5-HTT genotype. Smoking-deprived habitual smokers (N = 64) completed the dot recall test of SWM during counterbalanced and double-blind nicotine and placebo testing sessions. There was a marginal overall effect of NRT on SWM. More importantly, NRT enhanced SWM in 5-HTT short allele carriers, relative to those with two long alleles, and this enhancement in short-allele carriers was greater for individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Arousal contributions to affective priming: Electrophysiological correlates.

Current models of affective processing postulate that not only valence but also the arousal dimension characterizes the emotional experience. However, up-to-date research on affective priming has mainly focused on the contributions of valence congruency to priming. In this study, the authors explored the possible influence of arousal in priming processes. For this purpose, event-related potentials and reaction times were measured in response to high- and low-arousing positive targets that were either congruent or incongruent in arousal with a prime word. Priming arousal did not influence reaction times. By contrast, the processing of high-arousing targets was facilitated by a previous exposure to a congruent prime, as reflected by the reduction in the amplitude of a late positive component around 500 ms that has been thought to reflect attentional and memory processes. These results diverge from the findings of previous studies that primed valence and suggest a differential contribution of arousal and valence to affective priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-term semantic priming of word meaning.

Three experiments investigated facilitation in synonym decisions as a function of prior synonym decision trials that were either identical or semantically related. Experiment 1 demonstrated that semantically related prime trials produced less facilitation than identical prime trials, but facilitation from both persisted over 14 intervening trials. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that word meaning retrieval without meaning comparison in prime trials was sufficient for persistent facilitation in semantically related targets, and meaning comparison was necessary for repetition priming to show greater facilitation than semantic priming. Results suggest that semantic priming in this task may solely reflect strength changes in abstract semantic representations, whereas repetition priming may reflect additional nondeclarative memory for operations performed in prime events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in the organization of emotion knowledge: Effects involving valence and time frame.

Older and younger adults attend to and remember emotion information differently. The present study builds on this work by investigating age-related differences in the schematic organization of emotion knowledge. Younger and older adults reported on their experiences of positive and negative affect, both today and in general. Of primary interest was judgment speed as a function of matches (e.g., positive-positive) or mismatches (e.g., negative-positive) in valence and time frame across consecutive trials. Older adults exhibited stronger valence-related priming effects and weaker time-frame-related priming effects, relative to younger adults. Results remained significant when controlling for individual differences in speed, speed variability, motor priming, temperament, and life satisfaction. The discussion focuses on the manner in which age differences in the schematic organization of emotion knowledge might contribute to age differences in the self-concept, affective processing, and emotional experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult aging effects on semantic and episodic priming in word recognition.

Two experiments compared automatic semantic and episodic priming effects in adult aging. In the 1st experiment, target words were semantically primed; in the 2nd experiment, targets were primed by repetition of semantically unrelated words. Both experiments involved a pronunciation task with response signals at fixed times following target onset. Consequently, priming was measured as improvement in the percentage of correct responses. Priming was also calculated with speed–accuracy measures of intercept and slope. Both types of priming effect were significant in the percentage correct and slope measures, but no age group differences were found. Furthermore, the magnitudes of the priming effects were equivalent. The age-resistant nature of semantic and episodic priming, as well as evidence for a common theoretical mechanism, is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Letter position information and printed word perception: The relative-position priming constraint.

Six experiments apply the masked priming paradigm to investigate how letter position information is computed during printed word perception. Primes formed by a subset of the target's letters facilitated target recognition as long as the relative position of letters was respected across prime and target (e.g., "arict" vs. "acirt" as primes for the target "apricot"). Priming effects were not influenced by whether or not absolute, length-dependent position was respected (e.g., "a-ric-t" vs. "arict"/"ar-i-ct"). Position of overlap of relative-position primes (e.g., apric-apricot; ricot-apricot; arict-apricot) was found to have little influence on the size of priming effects, particularly in conditions (i.e., 33 ms prime durations) where there was no evidence for phonological priming. The results constrain possible schemes for letter position coding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional priming of pop-out in visual search.

When searching for a discrepant target along a simple dimension such as color or shape, repetition of the target feature substantially speeds search, an effect known as feature priming of pop-out (V. Maljkovic and K. Nakayama, 1994). The authors present the first report of emotional priming of pop-out. Participants had to detect the face displaying a discrepant expression of emotion in an array of four face photographs. On each trial, the target when present was either a neutral face among emotional faces (angry in Experiment 1 or happy in Experiment 2), or an emotional face among neutral faces. Target detection was faster when the target displayed the same emotion on successive trials. This effect occurred for angry and for happy faces, not for neutral faces. It was completely abolished when faces were inverted instead of upright, suggesting that emotional categories rather than physical feature properties drive emotional priming of pop-out. The implications of the present findings for theoretical accounts of intertrial priming and for the face-in-the-crowd phenomenon are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The acute effects of nicotine on positive and negative affect in adolescent smokers.

Although adolescent cigarette smoking remains a critical public health concern, little is known about the reinforcing mechanisms governing smoking in this vulnerable population. To assess predictions derived from both positive and negative reinforcement models of drug use, the authors measured the acute effects of nicotine, as administered via tobacco cigarettes, on both positive and negative affect in a group of 15- to 18-year-old smokers. A matched group of nonsmokers served as a comparison group. Findings revealed that whereas adolescents who smoked a cigarette experienced reductions in both positive and negative affect, the observed reductions in negative affect were moderated by nicotine content of the cigarette (high yield vs. denicotinized), level of nicotine dependence, level of baseline craving, and smoking expectancies pertinent to negative affect regulation. Nonsmokers experienced no change in affect over the 10-min assessment period, and no interaction effects were observed for positive affect. Overall, the findings conform to a negative reinforcement model of nicotine effects and strongly suggest that, even among young light smokers, nicotine dependence and resultant withdrawal symptomatology may serve as motivating factors governing smoking behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A preliminary investigation of cognitive flexibility for emotional information in major depressive disorder and non-psychiatric controls.

Clinical research suggests that individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) are cognitively inflexible, exhibiting ruminative, rigid, and automatic thoughts within a negative schema. However, existing neuropsychological research on cognitive flexibility in this population has not employed emotional stimuli. Because research suggests that the performance of individuals with MDD is modulated when emotional stimuli are used, this study investigates the impact of emotional stimuli on cognitive flexibility performance through a novel emotional modification of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Controls were less flexible when stimuli were positive and individuals with MDD were less flexible when stimuli were negative relative to the controls. These divergent styles of responding to emotional information may contribute to the relative risk or protection from depressed mood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood influences on acute smoking responses are independent of nicotine intake and dose expectancy.

Acute responses to smoking are influenced by nicotine and by nonpharmacological factors such as nicotine dose expectancy and sensory effects of smoke inhalation. Because negative mood increases smoking reinforcement, the authors examined whether these effects may be altered by mood context. Smokers (n=200) participated in 2 sessions, negative or positive mood induction, and were randomized to 1 of 5 groups. Four groups comprised the 2×2 balanced placebo design, varying actual (0.6 mg vs. 0.05 mg yield) and expected nicotine dose (expected nicotine vs. denicotinized [denic]) of cigarettes. A fifth group was a no-smoking control. Smoking, versus not smoking, attenuated negative affect, as well as withdrawal and craving. Negative mood increased smoking reinforcement. However, neither actual nor expected nicotine dose had much influence on these responses; even those smokers receiving and expecting a denic cigarette reported attenuated negative affect. A follow-up comparison suggested that the sensory effects of smoke inhalation, but not the simple motor effects of smoking behavior, were responsible. Thus, sensory effects of smoke inhalation had a greater influence on relieving negative affect than actual or expected nicotine intake. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consequences of specific processing of emotional information: Impact of general versus specific autobiographical memory priming on emotion elicitation.

The relation between emotion intensity and the voluntary activation of personal memories was investigated in 2 experiments. Two hypotheses were compared: the specificity hypothesis, which states that emotion intensity is positively related to the specificity of personal memories, and the strategic inhibition hypothesis, which postulates that specifying past experiences requires the inhibition of emotion. Study 1 showed that priming a specific (vs. overgeneral) access mode to autobiographical memory results in less emotion during a subsequent mental imagery trial. Study 2 replicated Study 1 with a wider array of emotions and a different method of emotion induction (films). Overall, results support the strategic inhibition hypothesis. The notion of specificity is discussed as well as implications for cognitive theories of emotion and their clinical applications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neurotransmission-related genetic polymorphisms, negative affectivity traits, and gender predict tobacco abstinence symptoms across 44 days with and without nicotine patch.

Genetic and personality trait moderators of tobacco abstinence–symptom trajectories were assessed in a highly controlled study. Based on evidence suggesting their importance in stress reactivity and smoking, moderators studied were serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) and dopamine D2 receptor gene (DRD2) polymorphisms and personality traits related to negative affect (NA). Smokers were randomly assigned to quit smoking with nicotine or placebo patches. Financial incentives resulted in 80% verified abstinence across the 44-day study. Individuals with 1 or 2 short alleles of 5-HTTLPR (S carriers) experienced larger increases in NA symptoms than did those without a short allele. Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) alleviated anxiety only in S carriers. NRT reduced NA to a greater extent in DRD2 A1 carriers than in A2A2 individuals during the 1st 2 weeks of treatment (when on the 21-mg patch); however, A1 carriers experienced a renewal of NA symptoms when switched to the 7-mg patch and when off the patch, while A2A2 individuals continued to benefit from NRT. The results suggest that the effects of genotype and treatment may vary across different durations of abstinence, treatment doses, and genotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nicotine effects on general semantic priming in Parkinson's disease.

In young healthy nonsmokers, effects of nicotine on semantic processing have been observed under strategy-based priming procedures but not under more general priming procedures (Holmes, Chenery, & Copland, 2008; Holmes, Chenery, & Copland, 2010). Effects of nicotine under general priming procedures, however, may be mediated by baseline priming levels that are below optimum such as when compromised by disease. Nicotinic mechanisms may be involved in the cognitive sequalae of Parkinson's disease (PD). Evidence suggests that semantic processing may be compromised in PD but the potential benefit of nicotinic stimulation is unknown. This study investigated the effects of nicotine on semantic processing in nonsmokers with PD (n = 12) and nonsmoking matched controls (n = 17) using general priming procedures. Specifically, an automatic priming task (0.15 relatedness proportion, RP, and 200 ms stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA) and a controlled priming task (0.8 RP and 1000 ms SOA) were used. Prime-target category relation (category related, noncategory related) was also manipulated. Transdermal nicotine patches (7 mg/24 h) were administered in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design. For the automatic task, nicotine did not influence priming effects for PD. Unexpectedly, compromised automatic priming for controls was ameliorated. For the controlled task, nicotine influenced priming effects for PD but not controls. The patterns of priming and nicotine effects across the tasks suggest an age-related slowing of the rate of semantic activation for controls, which may be exacerbated in PD. Overall, the findings indicate that nicotine can improve compromised semantic processing in PD, and also influence semantic processing in healthy older individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the relationship between lateralized brain function and orienting asymmetries.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 125(1) of Behavioral Neuroscience (see record 2011-02594-005). In the article “On the Relationship Between Lateralized Brain Function and Orienting Asymmetries,” by Christoph Teufel, Asif A. Ghazanfar, and Julia Fischer (Behavioral Neuroscience, 2010, Vol. 124, No. 4, pp. 437–445), we wrote that “the likelihood of obtaining at least one significant result at p n. The probability of obtaining at least one significant result is therefore 1 — (1— α)n.] Hemispheric specializations for language perception constitute one of the classic topic in cognitive neuroscience. Evidence has accumulated to suggest that lateralized acoustic processing is not restricted to humans but is also found in numerous animal species. One of the methods used to track such lateralization is the orienting-asymmetry paradigm, a simple, noninvasive means to study lateralization that has been applied to a range of different species ranging from harpy eagles to humans. Here we summarize and compare the results of studies employing the orienting-asymmetry paradigm, showing that these studies yield largely inconsistent results. We critically discuss the methodology's implicit assumptions and conclude that the empirical inconsistencies produced by the orienting-asymmetry paradigm, and the lack of sufficient evidence supporting the paradigm's underlying assumptions, warrant serious caution when interpreting results obtained by the method. Nontrivial interpretations of orienting-asymmetry results will require a much better understanding of how lateralized brain functions interact with overt behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)