Effects of Conceptual Priming on the Perceptual Interpretation of an Ambiguous Visual Stimulus among Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The effect of priming on interpretation of an ambiguous visual stimulus (Dallenbach cow image) for undergraduate students was studied. Using a between-groups experimental design with convenience sampling, 144 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to an Animal Prime condition, a Geographic Prime condition or a Control condition. In the Animal Prime condition, participants were primed with animal-related cues prior to watching the image. For the Geographic Prime condition, the participants were asked to read the sentence "I Love Paris in the Springtime" first and then to look at the image. The control group were presented with the image without any initial priming. The responses of the participants were taped and grouped into 5 categories: Geographic, Nature, Animal, Human and Others. Using a chi-square test of independence, there was a significant relationship between the priming condition and the response category, χ²(8, N = 144) = 25.98, p = .001. Results indicated that priming successfully shifted participants' perceptual interpretations in the direction of the prime, with Geographic primed participants more frequently reporting geographic responses (43.1%) and Animal primed participants more frequently reporting animal responses (65.4% of all Animal responses). These findings demonstrate that conceptual priming significantly influences the interpretation of ambiguous visual stimuli, supporting theories of top-down perceptual processing and highlighting the role of prior cognitive activation in visual perception.