Evaluation the effectiveness of tobacco-pack pictorial warnings using subliminal priming paradigm
Description
To examined the effectiveness of GWL, we developed an experiment where GWL was used as a subliminal priming. The experiment was structured as follows. The number was presented to the participants and it was necessary to determine whether it was even or not. There were three experimental series: without a subliminal stimulus, exposure of GWL as subliminal, exposure of nasty stimuli (similar to GWL) as subliminal. An experiment program was developed using the Mouse Tracker program. The subject was presented with an instruction on the monitor screen: “The numbers from 0 to 9 will appear on the screen. Your task is to press the EVEN button for even numbers, ODD for odd numbers, ZERO for zero. Try to respond as quickly and accurately as possible”. Before the experiment was started, the participants were asked to go through it in test mode to get used to the program and mouse control. Study 1. Exposure of a task without a subliminal stimulus. The part without subliminal stimulus measured the normal performance of motor characteristics. In this part of experiment, a mask was presented instead of a subliminal stimulus. Exposure time of mask and subliminal stimulus was 30 ms [4]. Study 2. Exposure of GWL as subliminal. The second part of experiment included subliminal stimuli before target task. As subliminal stimulus was used GWL which demonstrate the effects of smoking, that used in Russia. We have 10 different stimulus that image such disease: periodontal disease, impotence, emphysema, oncological diseases, premature birth, amputation, gangrene, throat cancer, lung cancer, blindness. Study 3. Exposure of nasty stimuli as subliminal. In this part, we examined how emotionally unpleasant stimuli that aren’t related with GWL influence to the reaction time. This part useful to share the reaction to GWL and just unpleasant emotional stimuli, which can cause fear and shock. We used images from the atlas on pathological anatomy as subliminal stimuli, which are comparable to images on the GWL. There were 10 stimuli demonstrated. Images of the following pathologies were taken: Tuberculosis Lymphadenitis, Oncocytoma, Condyloma acuminatum: Scrotum, Adrenal Cortical Adenoma, Adenocarcinoma, Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas, Lymphomatoid Granulomatosis, Atrial Myxoma, Infective Endocarditis, Follicular Lesions of Ovary . The experiment included 30 presentations of each stimuli group. Cognitive processes take time. Reaction time is the dominant measure of cognitive processing. Reaction time spending for choose stimulus and the reaction time before (decision time) mouse movement were estimated.