ブックタイトル明星大学 心理学年報 第32号

概要

明星大学 心理学年報 第32号

4明星大学心理学年報2014年第32号Figure 1. Schematic illustration of target trials on SECT (Serial Evaluative Conversion Task). Participantsevaluate the consistency of the emotional valence of two pictures in a trial. In positiveblocks, participants convert the emotional valence of the target to positive. In negative blocks,participants convert the emotional valence of the target to negative.FUMIE test, differences in average responselatencies between positive and negative blocks producescoresrepresenting attitudes toward thetargetpicture.This task has two potential underlying processesthat enlargethedifferences in responselatenciesforthe two block types:positive and negative.At first,participants have to retain the valence of the first(filler)picture in their working memory while theyconvert the valence of the target picture.This dualtask condition is expected to limit participants’cognitive resources for the conversion of thetarget’s valence. Such a cognitive load is known tomake it more difficult to disguise attitudinalresponses(e.g.,Koole,Dijksterhuis,& van Knippenberg,2001);therefore,itis expected that,in a blockthat presents an inconsistency between the target’sconverted and original valence, participants in theSECT will exhibit longer responselatencies relativeto thosein theFUMIE test.Becauseofthis feature,the SECT is expected to be a better attitude measurethantheFUMIE test when measuring attitudestoward pictures.Furthermore, there is another potential processunderlying the SECT that increases the responselatency in a block that presents inconsistencybetween a target’s converted and original valence.Some previous studies have insisted that participantshavea strong automatictendencytojudgetheemotional consistency (and inconsistency) of twoemotional stimuli that appear within a short periodof time.For example, in emotional priming experimentsusing a lexical judgment task (word-nonwordjudgment) for target stimuli, the average responselatencies for participants’affirmative responses totarget stimuli is longer with inconsistent emotionalvalence of the prime and target (e.g., Wentura,2000). On interpreting this phenomenon, Wentura(2000) suggested that participants have an automatictendency to judge the emotional consistency(and inconsistency)of the prime and the target.Healso posited that emotional inconsistency betweenthe prime and the target activates a negativeresponse tendency,so that emotional inconsistencyinterferes with affirmative responses to the targetand increases response latency. A similar processwas also proposed by Klauer and Stern (1992). Asnoted, the SECT also uses two emotional pictures,and a participant’s response is“consistent (affirmative)”or“inconsistent (negative).”Therefore, in ablock of the SECT where there is inconsistencybetween thetarget’s converted and original valence,