Biomedical subjects

Dirk Hermans

Publications and source records attributed to Dirk Hermans.

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed2004

Automatic non-associative semantic priming: episodic affective priming of naming responses.

Affective priming for associatively unrelated prime-target pairs was investigated using (a) the naming task, (b) a short stimulus onset asynchrony (250 ms), and (c) primes that had acquired their affective connotation during a differential evaluative conditioning procedure. Despite the fact that the primes and the targets were related on the affective dimension only, significant priming emerged. This finding indicates that mere affective overlap is sufficient to produce automatic priming. As such, our results are in line with theoretical accounts of automatic priming that are based on semantic relatedness.

Affect↗

PubMed2004

An exploration of affective priming as an indirect measure of food attitudes.

During the last few years indirect measures of attitudes have been increasingly promoted. Because they are assumed to be less influenced by demand effects, these indirect measures would constitute a better basis to predict behaviour in some circumstances. In two studies, we examined the usefulness of the affective priming paradigm as an indirect measure of food likes and dislikes. Participants were asked to evaluatively categorize word targets, which were primed by individually selected positive and negative food pictures. The first experiment was a basic exploration of the usefulness of the affective priming paradigm to uncover food likes and dislikes, by making use of food stimuli that elicit strong evaluative reactions. The second experiment examined whether the paradigm can also be used in the context of weaker food (dis)likes. It could be demonstrated that both strongly (Experiments 1 and 2) and moderately (Experiment 2) evaluated food primes influenced the speed of responding to the positive and negative target words. No differential sensitivity for attitudes of moderate or extreme evaluative meaning could be demonstrated, however. The implications for future research and the applicability of this indirect index of food (dis)likes are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Trauma and autobiographical memory specificity in depressed inpatients.

Research on autobiographical memory has shown that clinical depression is associated with a difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories in response to cue words. This study examined the relation between lack of autobiographical memory specificity and self-reported trauma in a group of depressed adults (N = 23). In addition to the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986) participants completed a number of questionnaires assessing the presence of traumatic experiences in the past, level of depression and neuroticism. The number of specific responses was not related to depression severity, but was significantly associated with the presence and severity of reported physical abuse. Participants who had been victim of physical abuse were less specific than participants who had not been confronted with such physical adversities. The results are discussed in the context of a functional hypothesis about the developmental relations between memory specificity, trauma and depression.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

On the replicability of the affective priming effect in the pronunciation task.

Bargh, Chaiken, Raymond, and Hymes (1996) and Hermans, De Houwer, and Eelen (1994) showed that a valenced target word is pronounced faster after the presentation of an affectively related prime word than after the presentation of an affectively unrelated prime word. This finding is important because it provides crucial evidence for the hypotheses that stimulus evaluation (a) is goal-independent and (b) facilitates the encoding of stimuli that have the same valence. However, recent studies indicate that the affective priming effect is not a reliable finding in the standard pronunciation task. We report the results of a nearly exact replication of Bargh et al.'s (1996) Experiment 2. In line with previous replication studies, we failed to detect the affective priming effect.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Reality monitoring and metacognitive beliefs related to cognitive confidence in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The present study investigated general reality monitoring ability, and selective reality monitoring ability for anxiety relevant actions in a group of individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and a group of non-anxious controls. In addition, reality monitoring confidence was assessed, as well as specific meta-cognitive beliefs related to cognitive confidence (by means of the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire (MCQ)). No differences were found between both groups in actual reality monitoring ability. Unlike previous studies, the reality monitoring task included actions that were related to the individual concerns of the OCD patients and were ideographically selected. Nevertheless, no differential reality monitoring effect was observed for the anxiety relevant stimuli. Data from the MCQ, however, revealed that OCD patients had less overall confidence in their memory for actions and their reality monitoring ability. Analysis of the confidence ratings of the reality monitoring task showed that this reduced confidence was restricted to the neutral actions. No differences were observed for patients that reported low or high frequencies of checking behaviour. The whole of these data do not support memory deficit models of OCD, but are in line with recent emphasis on the importance of memory confidence and other meta-cognitive beliefs in OCD.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Implicit attitude towards pictures of back-stressing activities in pain-free subjects and patients with low back pain: an affective priming study.

In this paper, it is investigated whether an implicit evaluative-negative attitude towards back-stressing activities exists in pain-free subjects and in chronic low back pain patients. Using an affective priming task, it was investigated whether pictures of threatening back-stressing movements (primes) facilitate (respectively, slow down) the categorisation of subsequent evaluative-negative (evaluative-positive) words (targets). In study 1 using 20 pain-free subjects, the affective priming effect indicated evidence for an implicit negative attitude towards pictures of back-stressing activities. In study 2 using 30 low back pain patients, a reverse priming effect was found. In line with previous research, it is argued that this reverse priming effect is owing to the evaluative extremity of the primes: patients recognize the possibility that extreme primes will interfere with the categorisation of the targets and overcompensate for this possible effect. The implications for the prevention of negative attitudes towards back-stressing activities in non-clinical and clinical samples are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Autobiographical memory specificity and affect regulation: an experimental approach.

This study investigated J. M. G. Williams's (1996) affect-regulation hypothesis that level of specificity of autobiographical memory (AM) is used to minimize negative affect. It was found that a negative event leads to more reports of subjective stress in high- as compared with low-specific participants. Also, afterward, high-specific participants rated their unprompted memories for the event as more unpleasant. The results indicate that, relative to high specificity, being less specific in the retrieval of AMs is associated with less affective impact of a negative event. Results are discussed within the affect-regulation model. It is suggested that future research take a more functional perspective on AM specificity.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Affective priming with subliminally presented pictures.

Affective priming studies have demonstrated that subliminally presented prime words can exert an influence on responses towards positive or negative target stimuli. In the present series of experiments, it was investigated whether these findings can be extended to pictorial stimuli. Ideographically selected positive, neutral, and negative picture primes that were sandwich-masked immediately preceded positive or negative target pictures (Experiment 1) or words (Experiments 2 & 3). Evaluative categorization responses to these target stimuli were significantly influenced by the valence of the prime. First, it was demonstrated that high anxious participants were selectively slowed when the subliminally presented prime was negative (Experiments 1 & 2). Second, the affective congruence between primes and targets also exerted an influence on the responses, but in a direction that is opposite to what is typically observed in affective priming research. These reverse priming effects are situated within a series of recent similar findings, and implications for theories of affective priming are discussed.

Affect↗

PubMed2003

Autobiographical memory specificity and trauma in inpatient adolescents.

Investigated the relation between memory specificity and self-reported trauma, depressive symptoms, and other emotional characteristics in a group of adolescent inpatients. Research with adults has shown that clinical depression is associated with a difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories in response to cue words, and this pattern of overgeneral memory is related to the prognosis of depression. Research has also shown a clear positive association between self-reported trauma and overgeneral memory. This study's results showed that higher levels of trauma--both in terms of total number and in terms of severity or related distress--were associated with reduced autobiographical memory specificity (AM). None of the other emotional variables, such as depression, anxiety, worry, hopelessness, or subjective stress, were significantly related to the retrieval of specific memories. The results are reconcilable with Williams' (1996) developmental idea that a pattern of overgeneral AM retrieval originates in childhood trauma as a way of regulating affect.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Expectancy-learning and evaluative learning in human classical conditioning: affective priming as an indirect and unobtrusive measure of conditioned stimulus valence.

It has been argued that in classical conditioning two processes might be operative. First, one may learn that the conditioned stimulus (CS+) is a valid predictor for the occurrence of the biologically negative or positive event (US; expectancy-learning). Second, one may learn to perceive the conditioned stimulus itself as a negative or positive stimulus, depending on the valence of the event it has been associated with (evaluative learning). Until the present, however, both forms of learning have been investigated using rather different conditioning procedures. Using a differential aversive conditioning preparation with pictures of human faces as CSs and an electrocutaneous stimulus as US, we were able to demonstrate that both forms of learning can co-occur. Moreover, the extent of evaluative learning in this aversive conditioning procedure did not significantly differ from the amount of evaluative learning in an evaluative conditioning procedure with positive and negative adjectives as USs, which was administered to the same participants. In the present study evaluative learning was not only indexed by direct evaluative ratings, but we introduced affective priming as an indirect and unobtrusive, reaction time based measure of stimulus valence. Finally, imagery instructions during acquisition did not facilitate expectancy-learning nor evaluative learning.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Reinstatement of extinguished conditioned responses and negative stimulus valence as a pathway to return of fear in humans.

The present study investigated reinstatement of conditioned responses in humans by using a differential Pavlovian conditioning procedure. Evidence for reinstatement was established in a direct (fear rating) and in an indirect measure (secondary reaction time task) of conditioning. Moreover, the amount of reinstatement in the secondary reaction time task was significantly correlated with the difference in valence between the conditioned stimulus (CS)+ and the CS-after extinction. These data provide clear evidence for reinstatement and for the role of negative stimulus valence in the return of conditioned responding after extinction.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Extinction and renewal of Pavlovian modulation in human sequential Feature Positive discrimination learning.

Using a conditioned suppression task, we investigated extinction and renewal of Pavlovian modulation in human sequential Feature Positive (FP) discrimination learning. In Experiment 1, in context a participants were first trained on two FP discriminations, X-->A+/A- and Y-->B+/B-. Extinction treatment was administered in the acquisition context a (aaa group) or in a new context b (aba group), and comprised X-->A- extinction and Y- control trials. Discriminative X-->A/A responding was lost in both groups when tested in the extinction context, but partially recovered in the aba and not in the aaa group when tested in the acquisition context, suggesting extinction and renewal of extinguished modulation. The same was observed for the Y-->B/B control pair, however, questioning whether the loss of discriminative X-->A/A responding represented genuine extinction of modulation. In Experiment 2, including only aba groups, participants were trained in context a on two FP discriminations, X-->A+/A- and Y-->B+/B-, after which the group "Extinction" was exposed to X-->A- extinction trials in context b, whereas the group "Control" was exposed to X- control trials; concurrently, both groups received further Y-->B+/B- training. In the group Control, differential Y-->B/B and X-->A/A responding were acquired and maintained throughout the experiment. In the group Extinction, while Y-->B/B responding was also maintained throughout, differential X-->A/A responding disappeared because of X-->A- extinction treatment when tested in the extinction context b, but partially reappeared when tested in the acquisition context a. This evidences aba-renewal of extinguished modulation.

Adolescent↗