Do not prime too much: Prime frequency effects of masked affective stimuli on effort-related cardiovascular response

This experiment investigated the prime frequency effect of masked affective stimuli on effort-related cardiovascular response. Cardiovascular reactivity was recorded during a baseline period and an attention task in which either 1/3, 2/3, or 3/3 of the trials included the presentation of masked emotional facial expressions (sad vs. happy). In the resting trials participants were exposed to masked neutral expressions. As expected, and replicating previous findings (Gendolla and Silvestrini, in press), participants in the 1/3 priming condition showed stronger systolic blood pressure reactivity – indicating more effort – when they were exposed to masked sad faces than when they were exposed to masked happy faces. This effect disappeared in the 2/3 and 3/3 conditions. Findings are interpreted as demonstrating habituation effects of masked affective stimuli on effort mobilization.

Research highlights
► We primed participants with masked emotional facial expressions during an attention task.
► Measures of cardiovascular activity were taken during a baseline period and task performance.
► Sad primes led to stronger SBP reactivity than happy primes when primes occurred in 1/3 of the trials.
► When primes occurred more frequently, their effect diminished.
► results point to boundary conditions of affective primes’ impact on motivation.