[Affective priming: empirical data and theoretical models]

Abstract

The automaticity of evaluative processing is one of the most important issues in cognitive psychology of emotions. The affective priming paradigm has been created specifically in order to provide some evidence regarding this issue. For 20 years, this paradigm has resulted in a significant number of studies. Originally focused on the automaticity of evaluation, investigation rapidly moved to the underlying mechanisms and it has led to a theoretical dichotomy. Some studies suggest that a spreading activation mechanism underlies affective priming effects, whereas other studies suggest that this priming effect is determined by a response competition mechanism similar to that found in compatibility tasks such as the Stroop task. The clarification of the theoretical models of affective priming therefore appears to be necessary in order to improve the understanding of the effect, possibly leading to its justified use as an indirect measure.