Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2012 Feb;38(1):169-79. doi: 10.1037/a0025981. Epub 2011 Oct 24.
Affective evaluations of previously ignored visual stimuli are more negative than those of novel items or prior targets of attention or response. This has been taken as evidence that inhibition has negative affective consequences. But inhibition could act instead to attenuate or "neutralize" preexisting affective salience, predicting opposite effects for stimuli that were initially positive or negative in valence. We tested this hypothesis by presenting trustworthy and untrustworthy faces (Experiment 1), strongly positive and negative photographs (Experiment 2), and monetary gain- and loss-associated patterns (Experiment 3) in a Go/No-Go task and assessing subsequent affective ratings. Evaluations of prior No-Go (inhibited) stimuli were more negative than of prior Go (noninhibited) stimuli, regardless of a priori affective valence. Ratings of No-Go stimuli also became increasingly negative (vs. increasingly neutral) when preexisting salience was increased via stimulus repetition (Experiment 4). Our results suggest inhibition leads to affective devaluation, not affective neutralization.
先前被忽视的视觉刺激的情感评价比新异刺激或先前注意或反应的目标更消极。这被认为是抑制具有消极情感后果的证据。但是，抑制可能反而会减弱或“中和”预先存在的情感显著性，从而对最初在效价上为正或负的刺激产生相反的影响。我们通过在 Go/No-Go 任务中呈现可信赖和不可信赖的面孔（实验 1）、强烈的正性和负性照片（实验 2）以及与货币收益和损失相关的模式（实验 3）来检验这一假设，并评估随后的情感评级。先前的 No-Go（抑制）刺激的评价比先前的 Go（非抑制）刺激更消极，而不论先验情感效价如何。当通过刺激重复增加预先存在的显著性时（实验 4），No-Go 刺激的评价也变得越来越消极（而不是越来越中性）。我们的结果表明，抑制导致情感贬值，而不是情感中和。
