Priming (psychology)

The term priming or facilitation referred to in psychology to influence the processing (cognition ) of a stimulus by the fact that a previous stimulus has implicit memory contents enabled. This activation of specific associations in memory due to prior experience with the relevant information is often done and for the most part unconsciously.

Such a ground- forming stimulus can be a word, an image, a smell, a gesture, or the like. The priming and railway- end stimulus activated bottom-up memory contents that determine top down how fast the subsequent stimulus is processed, or whether it is recognized correctly, or - in ambiguous stimuli - how it is interpreted, or they affect the state of mind or subsequent behavior. The concept is based on the activation spread of associations.

• 3.1 Example of the psychology of perception
• 3.2 Examples from social psychology

Differentiation from related effects and terms

In experimental psychology we speak generally of a cue (English cue), indicating in an experiment of the subject that a target stimulus ( engl. target) will be published soon ( ms range). The design of the stimulus should note here so be neutral, such as a normal-sized black bar so that it can fulfill its display function, but does not otherwise affect the reaction rate or quality of the reaction. The subject is asked to ignore the cue. Prime stimuli are thus a kind of special cues. This should be indeed ignored by the subject, what do you but not possible due to the design of the Primes. Example: The person is a left and right button on left and right arrows to respond ( target), the Primes are the arrows pointing to the left or right. This similarity affects the response significantly.

If the prime is presented long enough, he is conscious perception accessible. Can not be consciously perceived prime as it is called subliminal. Subliminal Primes can still achieve an effect (see also subliminal perception).

The framing effect states that different formulations of a message - with the same content - affect the behavior of the receiver differently.

General types of priming

There are many special forms of the general priming concept.

Positive versus negative priming

A distinction is then possible, for example, whether the Prime accelerates the processing of the subsequent stimulus or delays, improved the correct identification or deteriorated. In each case the first case one speaks of positive, in the second case of negative priming.

The distinction of positive action or negative effect can be transferred to the other mentioned priming species. Thus, in the semantic priming: semantically related words lead to Bahnungseffekten (lower response time, fewer errors ), semantically related words, however, more likely to cause inhibition effects.

Affective priming

If the processing of subsequent stimuli influenced because of previous " priming " stimulus emotional states were selected, one speaks of affective priming.

Semantic priming

Semantic priming is done via the activation of conceptual associations, for example the word fields.

Response priming

Response priming is a form of priming with rapidly successive stimuli, each associated with motor response alternatives. Response priming is particularly suited to investigate the influence of hardly or not consciously perceivable stimuli.

Media priming

The media effects research indicated priming effects that explain the context of the mass media specific behavior or attitude changes, as media priming.

Concrete examples

In all experiments described below, the subjects were influenced without this it noted.

Example from the psychology of perception

Steven Palmer showed in 1975 his subjects very briefly the image of an object ( for example, a loaf of bread, a mailbox or a drum ), they correctly identified in 40 % of cases. However, they previously saw a picture of a kitchen, the correct identification of the loaf rose to 80 %, but not of objects that do not fit in a kitchen image.

Examples from social psychology

• If you hold a pencil with his teeth ( similar to a smile ), you will find comics funnier than when you hold it with the pre- everted lips in the mouth ( similar to a " pouty " face).
• On the topic of "money" primed people are more individualistic than the control group. They work longer on difficult tasks before they ask for help; they are less helpful and they are rather alone.
• On the topic of "aging" primed people move slower.
• People who have five minutes moved slowly, better recognize words that are associated with the theme of " aging".
• Who remembers a shameful experience, gets the urge to wash.
• If you geprimet on the theme of " fear of dying ", it is more susceptible to authoritarian ideas.
• An experiment by Bargh and Pietro Monaco revealed that subjects an ambiguous statement (such as " A representative knocked, but Donald did not let him come. " ) Emotionally hostile rated if they subliminally through emotionally hostile colored concepts ( for example, " insult", "unfriendly" ) were geprimet.
• The order of questions in interviews or questionnaires can affect the outcome: Fritz Strack et al. put a group of subjects before a questionnaire in which occurred the following questions: