Rebernjak, B.
Department of Psychology, University of Zagreb
In affective priming a presentation of positively or negatively valenced stimuli facilitates the reaction to subsequent stimuli if they are congruent in valence with the first one as compared to the situation when they are not. Numerous paradigms have been developed to measure this effect, and the question remains - do they all measure the same thing? In this study we wanted to explore how different setups of the affective priming paradigm relate to one another and to the several external criteria. Three versions of the design were used: Classical evaluative decision task (EDT), response window technique (RWT) and continuous presentation (CP). In EDT participants react to target words preceded by valenced primes and evaluate them as positive or negative. In RWT, participants are forced to react very fast (usually within 700ms), and the dependent variable is not reaction time like in the EDT, but the items correct. CP is similar like EDT, but the primes and targets are not explicitly distinct, and every stimulus acts as a target for a preceding one and a prime for subsequent one. These methods are compared to one another and evaluated regarding criteria like susceptibility to current mood and implicit affect.