隱式情緒刺激對演講者評價之影響：情緒對比抑或情緒制約？

Subliminal Affective Priming Effect on TV Lecture: Affective Conditioning or Affective Contrast Effect?

所謂「隱式促發」（subliminal priming）係指在受試者尚無法辨識出（或意識到）刺激的情況下，呈現的刺激卻能經由知識結構網路的激發蔓延，而改變受試者對後續目標項的詞彙觸接或情緒評價反應。「隱式促發」效應不只是瞭解人類意識與無意識運作的重要途徑，更在應用領域上很大的發揮空間。過去雖有很多研究展示了隱式促發的現象，但此現象在理論及技術上仍存在諸多的爭議。其中一個主要的爭議在於：隱式情緒促發項究竟會對目標項產生「情緒制約（affective conditioning;係指會將隱式刺激的情緒轉移至目標刺激）」抑或「情緒對比（contrast effect;係指隱式刺激會成為一個參照點，而使得目標刺激的情緒評價往相反方向移動）」。本研究中讓受試者觀看一段陌生人演講的錄影帶，並在該影帶中有系統地穿插入經過覆疊處理的各類隱式刺激圖片（包括：正／負向文字、正／負向動物、正／負向熟悉臉孔以及正／負向陌生臉孔），結果發現，相對於控制組而言，穿插正／負向文字及動物的閾下刺激並不會對該演講的主角或內容的評價產生影響。然而，正向閾下熟悉臉孔（如：劉德華、金城武）會使得受試者對演講人物的評價趨向負向；負向閾下熟悉臉孔（如：菜頭、黃秋生）則會使受試者對演講者的評價趨向正向（亦即產生「情緒對比效果」）。有趣的是，當穿插的閾下刺激是正／負向的陌生人時，則產生了相反的「情緒制約效果」。本研究顯示，不同的閾下刺激的確會引發截然不同的情緒促發效果，這不但有助於釐清理論上的爭議，更有實際應用的價值。

The phenomenon of subliminal priming refers to that a previous stimulus of which people are unaware can influence people's subsequent lexical access or affective judgment via the spreading activation in their semantic networks. Subliminal priming effect cannot only be an important way to uncover the consciousness and unconsciousness processes, but also bear many empirical applications. Although past research revealed a lot of subliminal priming phenomena, there exist theoretical and technological disagreements still. One major debate is which effect on earth a subliminal affective prime will induce on the subsequent target: affective condition (the affective response to target is assimilated to that to probe) or affective contrast effect (the affective response to target is opposite to that to probe). In this study, participants were asked to watch a video tap embedded with subliminal stimuli displaying a speech made by a stranger and then to make judgments to the speaker. The types of subliminal stimuli included word, animal picture, familiar face, and strange face, in each of which both affectively positive and negative items were included. The results showed that neither words nor animal pictures as subliminal stimuli had effect on the judgments to the speaker and the speech content. However, familiar faces induced affective contrast effect whereas strange faces affective conditioning effect on participants' judgments. These results imply that the type of affective priming effect is contingent on stimulus type.