An ERP Study Of The Reverse Of Affective Priming Effect With Pictures Of Different Valence

In recent years, researchers are becoming more and more interested in the relation between emotion and cognition and the same situation happens in the affective priming while is an important paradigm of research about emotion and cognition. The latest researches indicated that familiarity and valence bias of target would induced the reverse of affective priming effect, therefore this study selects picture-picture combination as stimulus and college students as subjects, meanwhile this study applies ERP to explore the influence of valence bias.This study consists of two parts. The first experiment employs2x2x2within-subjects design and independent variable includes priming stimulation (positive, negative)and target stimulation(positive, negative) and the intensity of valence(high, low) and SOA is controlled at200ms. The second experiment employs2x2x2within-subjects design and independent variable includes priming stimulation (positive, negative)and target stimulation(positive, negative) and the value of SOA(200ms,300ms,400ms,500ms) and the intensity of valence of target is high. The task in two experiments is the same classification task based on emotional valence. The first experiment explores that whether the reverse effect exists or not and the influence of valence bias of target on it, the second experiment explores the best value of SOA on reverse effect.The result of the first experiment indicates that interaction between priming stimulation and target stimulation whose valence is different is significant, when the valence of priming stimulation is negative and the intensity high, the reaction time of inconsistent group is shorter and the average range of LPC is more positive, however, when the valence of priming stimulation is negative and the intensity medium, the difference between inconsistent group and consistent group is not significant. when the valence of priming stimulation is positive and the intensity high, the reaction time of inconsistent group is longer and the average range of LPC of consistent group is more positive, however, when the valence of priming stimulation is positive and the intensity medium, the result is similar to the situation that when the valence of priming stimulation is negative and the intensity high.The result of the second experiment indicates that interaction between the type of consistency and the value of SOA is significant, when the valence of priming stimulation is positive, the reaction time of inconsistent group is longer on any condition, however, when the valence of priming stimulation is negative, the difference between inconsistent group and consistent group is significant when SOA is200ms and300ms and not significant when SOA is400ms and500ms.On the basis of the two experiments, we can reach the following conclusion:1. Valence bias of target pictures will influence the appearance of affective priming:when the intensity of valence of target is high, we will discover the existence of reverse effect;2.Affective priming effect in the the target stimuli high titer, positive picture primes follow the response competition model, negative picture primes emotional start reverse effect, follow the emotional transition model;3.Under the condition of this study, the best value of SOA is200ms-300ms.