Affective priming in the lexical decision task: Evidence for post-lexical judgemental tendencies

In an affective priming study using the lexical decision task (N = 91) a spreading activation hypothesis was contrasted with a judgmental tendency model. With regard to the spreading activitation account a positive or negative prime activates all concepts sharing the same connotation. Responses to positive or negative targets will then be faster following a prime with the same valence. With regard to the judgmental tendency model affective congruent prime-target pairs trigger an affirmative response tendency whereas incongruent pairs trigger a tendency to negate. Responses will therefore be (relatively) faster, if the response tendency matches the appropriate target response. In a lexical decision task, half of the participants had to respond with "Yes tit is a word)" to target words whereas the remaining sample had to respond with "NO tit is not a pseudoword)." In the word=yes sample an affective congruency effect emerged (i.e. responses to affectively congruent prime-target pairs were faster), whereas the reverse was true for the word=no sample. This result is compatible with the judgmental tendency model but not with the spreading activation hypothesis. It will be discussed with regard to theories of affective information processes.