[Does the unintended evaluation for the ambiguous stimulus vary according to the context?]

Research on affective priming effect has studied the process for which the positive or negative stimulus is evaluated unintentionally as such, despite the fact that many objects in our environment have ambiguous valences. This study investigated whether the ambiguous stimulus can be evaluated as positive or as negative unintentionally in accordance with the positive or negative consequences of the context in which the ambiguous stimulus is presented. One experiment (N=30) was conducted to examine whether the positive or negative target word was evaluated faster when the consequence of the context in which the preceding ambiguous stimulus was presented was consistent with the valence of the target word. The consequence of the context was controlled by using easy or difficult reward-induced-task for each priming trial. The results showed that the ambiguous stimulus was evaluated in accordance with the valence of the context in which the stimulus was presented. The process for which the evaluation changes was discussed.