MCAT Behavioral Sciences Question 189: Answer and Explanation

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Question: 189

1. Suppose that a researcher subliminally flashed words for negative and positive emotions (i.e., sad, happy) for a millisecond before showing subjects a neutral picture of people in a room. The words flashed so quickly that they were only perceived as a flash of light, but subjects were more likely to describe the scene in negative or positive terms (corresponding to the word that was flashed before the image), than subjects who did not see a subliminal word beforehand. What phenomenon does this describe?

  • A. Primacy effect
  • B. Priming
  • C. Divided attention
  • D. Episodic memory

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

The scenario in this question stem is describing priming, whereby subjects are provided with some sort of subliminal information (in this instance, the word for a negative or positive emotion) before another stimulus, and their response is impacted by the primed word (choice B is correct). The primacy effect refers to the phenomenon that people are more likely to recall the first information they hear or see, and less likely to recall later information (choice A is wrong). Divided attention refers to the ability to complete multiple tasks at once, and the ability to pay attention to one or both of those tasks; because the images were not flashed simultaneously, nor were the subjects even aware of the subliminal image, this scenario is not demonstrating divided attention (choice C is wrong). Episodic memory refers to the type of memory that would be encoded surrounding an event that is of personal significance; this scenario is not demonstrating episodic memory (choice D is wrong).

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