Talk:Priming (psychology)

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 September 2019 and 18 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Arnoldo FC.

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lish scicomm.

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Untitled
The current entry is more a definition of spreading activation rather than priming (in either the way that cognitive or social psychologists use that term). (Nickyee 20:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC))
 * Yeah, I noticed that too. The dutch, french and german-language articles are somewhat better in that respect. GL 12:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Could you maybe import some information from those articles? I can't read those languages, but I can tell this entry needs work. Priming is an important topic in psychology and deserves a more in-depth treatment.

The 1st paragraph needs to be replaced, it is about activation and activation spreading, not priming (as pointed out above). Also I don't see what priming has to do with neurons etc (except in the sense that any human phenomena does). TheBrainSlug 15:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Now all mentioning of neurons and nervous system is gone! Lova Falk 08:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Added evidence, citation, and a research study to the topic of semantic priming to further support the information that is presented. Derekrodenbeck (talk) 20:36, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

To the BrainSlug
Hi! I just undid your revision. The text that you changed was well referenced and comes from authors that are experts. You can't just change that text and still keep the same reference!

Actually, I think we agree. :) You wrote: "However this interpretation is undermined by normal or near normal priming using nonverbal materials in amnesic subjects." If you read the first line of the paragraph, it says: "An important feature of a priming task is that amnesic subjects perform as well on it as control subjects do." So I can't see any disagreement on this! It is just the fact that amnesic subjects perform well on priming and not on explicit learning tests, that is taken as evidence that implicit and explicit memory are different.

Maybe the order in which I have written is confusing, so I'll see if I can change the order of the sentences. Lova Falk 16:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

To lova falk
I have no argument with the implicit-explicit memory distinction. My issue was with the "dependent on existing memory traces" bit. These are two separate issues. Perhaps I was not clear. Amnesiacs experience priming with NOVEL non-verbal materials, just not with non-words. Non-word priming is rather fragile in normals, and many people who do priming work do not believe in it, so it is not clear that there is a difference between normals and amnesics here. I said: "That amnesic subjects do not show priming when nonsense words are used as stimuli has been argued to demonstrate that priming depends on existing memory[1], however this interpretation is undermined by normal or near normal priming using nonverbal materials in amnesic subjects." I had presumed that the argument was: 1. Amnesics cannot form new memory traces. 2. Normals can. 3. Normals show priming for all kinds of materials BUT 4. Amnesics only show priming for materials they already know. 5. Since amnesics cannot establish new "memory traces" and they don't show priming for novel materials, priming must depend upon existing "memory traces". Of course, as I pointed out, amnesics do show such priming (just not for non-words) so this argument does not follow. In other words the argument from amnesia is an argument for activation theory, and the argument is at odds with the data. In response to this Eysenck and Keane comment "the fact that one of the main predictions of activation theory has been disconfirmed repeatedly reduces it's value" (cognitive psychology, 3rd edition).

Also I referenced an original source (Bowers and Schacter, 1993), not just the under-grad text book you referenced. I will change this back AGAIN. Please read Bowers and Schacter before changing it again. If there is more recent data which puts a different light on all this then please reference it so that we can all be clear on the current state of affairs.

ALSO I would like to get the references to the brain, neurons, etc. out of this article at some point in the future. We do not understand the neurological basis of priming at all, and talking about priming in those therm is therefore pseudo-scientific. Any help on this would be appreciated. 60.242.91.158 11:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi User:60.242.91.158! Thank you for your explanation. As you can see, I changed it back again, though with slight rephrasing (because I have a reference, I want to be exact). By the way, why don't you register and log in, it's always nice to know whom I'm talking with. :) Lova Falk 15:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Question
Lova falk, thanks for adding some references and information. I temporarily removed the following paragraph, though, because it's unclear to me: "Another distinction that is made is between semantical priming and associative priming. In semantic priming, the prime and the target are from the same category; in associative priming, the prime and the target are from the same category and elicit the target in a verbal word association test. For example, the prime dog elicits the target cat but not the target lion as an associate. Thus, dog is a prime for lion in semantic priming, and a prime for cat in associative priming." Why is "dog" a prime for "lion" in semantic priming, rather than not a prime at all? The description above gives the impression that dog doesn't prime lion at all. Are "dog" and "lion" both in an "animal" category and thus able to prime each other, whereas "dog" and "cat" are not only in an animal category but also appear together frequently and are more "associated" with one another? If so, we can probably try to make that a bit clearer to lay readers before re-adding this. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 13:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Rjanag! In the article I use as a reference to this statement (found on: boris.new.googlepages.com/Semantic-final-2003.pdf), it says that it was hard to find evidence for semantic priming for words that were not associated, but: "In their analyses of the literature, Lucas (2000) and Hutchison (2003) nevertheless conclude that it is possible to obtain a "pure semantic" priming effect when great care is taken to select semantically related but unassociated stimuli."
 * The example with the cat, dog and lion comes from this article: Junko Matsukawa, Joan Gay Snodgrass, and Glen M. Doniger: Conceptual versus Perceptual Priming in Incomplete Picture Identification. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 34, No. 6, November 2005
 * Please, feel free to rephrase what I wrote to make it more clear, but I think it is important that semantic priming and associative priming are mentioned in the article on priming. (I wrote this paragraph because I read "associative priming" in an article this morning and I did not know what it was, so I found out.) Lova Falk (talk) 13:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, same here. My impression is that semantic priming is claimed to be more conceptual, whereas associative priminig is claimed to be more statistical/frequency-based...but without having read the article, I figured I should check with you first. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 13:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I put the paragraph back. Explaining what associative and semantic priming is, is totally relevant to an article on priming. Furthermore, it is well referenced. Please, rephrase if you think it is incomprehensible. Lova Falk (talk) 16:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll give it a whack this afternoon. I have some bike repairing to do and then when I get back to the wiki I need to do some template coding before I can get around to t his, but hopefully I can be done by the end of the day. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 16:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Great! Lova Falk (talk) 18:28, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, how does this look? Is that an accurate way of describing the two? (I slightly modified Matsukawa et al.'s example, to make the semantic connection a bit clearer.) r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 18:33, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Great job. Thank you! Lova Falk (talk) 08:25, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Grammar and style
My edit was reverted; But this phrase seems awkward to me: "Priming of amnesic subjects with words that were unknown to them prior to the injury is impaired has been argued to demonstrate that priming depends on the activation of existing memory." - such a big clause ("priming..impaired") treated as a single word, that might baffle the reader. -- C opper K ettle  06:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like I was misreading the sentence at the time. I have restored your edit. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 07:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I was wondering where I'd mistaken. (0: Planning to start the Priming article at Russian Wikipedia. (0: -- C opper K ettle  16:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds great! This article is on my to-do list for some additions, so maybe sometime in the next couple of months I can do some work on it. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 16:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Great! You may also be interested in Reelin - a protein hypothetically related to schizophrenia, autism, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, lissencephaly. It is my favourite article that I work on from time to time.. and I would be grateful for a new "reelin" article in some other-language Wiki. Already pushed it up to 13 languages.. (0: -- C opper K ettle  17:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit Daily Life section
I would like to edit "In daily life" section of the Priming (psychology) page that I put below to discuss the effect of priming on food consumption. After the last paragraph (sentence about how consumers peace lemonade sweeter when the logo of the drink is more saturated towards yellow), I would like to add:

Priming also plays a large role in eating behaviors and food consumption. For example, a study conducted by Harris et al. demonstrated the priming effects of food advertising on eating behaviors. Subjects were exposed to advertising that contained either food or other products; the amount of snack foods consumed during and after advertising exposure was measured. Children consumed 45% more food when exposed to advertising that involved food, illustrating how advertising plays a massive role in priming. A study by Harrison et al. in 2005 demonstrated similar conclusions, as snacking at non-meal times occurred in 58% of food ads during children's programming.

As obesity for children aged 2 to 16 has tripled and about one in five children are obese, it is important to understand how priming can increase obesity. Children watch an average of 30 minutes of food advertisements a day, which can equal up to 94 additional kcal; this is equal to approximately 10 pounds per year. If food ads went from 80.5 min/week to 0min/week, consumption would decrease by 4.5% and consequently, children would weigh about 2.1% less than current weight.

What do you guys think? Thank you!! Lish scicomm (talk) 18:06, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Link Added
I created a link to the affect priming article, since I noticed there is no mention on that. I put that under the kindness priming subsection but it might be worth adding a little subsection for affect priming itself. Arnoldo FC (talk) 17:39, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Is Ref #2 a 'classic finding in the field of social priming which has failed to replicate' ?
(Note: Ref #2 may cite a later publication than the 'classic finding' itself.) Hi, I came to this wiki article from an article about ESP research and how its findings apparently ultimately revealed a problem in at least psychological research, and I think the 2nd reference in this wiki article on priming may be (or may be derived from?) one of the instances of potential errors subsequently discovered. I don't know what to make of this, I'm not a psychologist, but I thought it might be relevant to those who are. In 2010 Psychologist Daryl Bem sent a manuscript to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology called “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect.”, about ESP studies he had conducted. And an article originally from Slate about his submission describes a generalized science 'replication crisis' which developed from & subsequent to his paper. An online reprint of the Slate article is, "Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real" (who perhaps unintentionally revealed/suggested that experimental scientific methodology is broken), is at: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/daryl-bem-proved-esp-is-real?utm_source=pocket-newtab. And the 2012 article mentioned in the Slate article which found methodology errors in either this wiki Priming article's ref. #2, or previous work upon which ref.#2 is based, is: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029081. Again, I'm not sure what it all means nor what that might mean for this wiki article, but both may be interesting reads nonetheless. UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 04:12, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Cultural priming: images
The text under "Cultural priming" mentions the US capitol building and a Chinese temple, but the images are of the US white house and the hall of supreme harmony in the Forbidden City in Beijing (not a temple). Since sourcing images of the capitol and a temple would be so simple it makes one wonder if this is intentional? Ylleman (talk) 07:45, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Bargh's findings and replication
The "In daily life" sections heavily uses Bargh's 1996 study (5 citations out of 10). This study was one of the victims of the replication crisis ("Replication efforts that cast doubt on key findings started to appear, including a 2012 report that repeated Bargh’s ageing study and found no effect of priming unless the people observing the experiment were told what to expect" ), which is mentioned in a different section of this article. I think that currently we may be misleading the reader by not mentioning these issues in the same section where the findings are discussed? Any suggestions how it can be fixed? Alaexis¿question? 09:54, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

"distractor inhibition model" versus "episodic retrieval model"
From the text, I don't see any difference! Perhaps they are the same, or I don't understand enough to tell the difference. 81.157.175.78 (talk) 11:43, 14 March 2023 (UTC)