Priming Effect

Design Pattern

• Use metaphors. Conceptual metaphors refer to information that can unconsciously help bring specific decision outcomes to mind.
• Trigger relevant emotions. Use imagery or video to create associative priming with the subsequent expected experience.
• Use visual imagery. Colors, pictures and videos all have the power to unconsciously bring up cues that might be replicated at a later point in the user experience.

Exposure to a word, sign, picture, or meaning anchors the idea and allows us to more quickly recognise related options. After being primed in one direction, our instinctive preference thereafter will be in a related direction. Being semantically primed eases mental processing of that information at a later stage, creating a sense of cognitive fluency and ease of use.

Types of priming:

• Conceptual priming. When related ideas are used to prime the response (e.g. ‘hat’ may prime for ‘head’).
• Semantic priming. When the meaning created influences later thoughts. Semantic and conceptual priming are similar and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
• Non-associative semantic priming. Related concepts but one is less likely to trigger thoughts of the other (e.g. ‘Sun’ and ‘Venus’).
• Perceptual priming. Based on the form of the stimulus, for example where a part-picture is completed based on a picture seen earlier (like the camel example above).
• Associative priming. When a linked idea is primed (e.g. ‘bread’ primes the thought of ‘butter’).
• Masked priming. When word or image is presented for a very short time but is not consciously noticed.
• Repetitive priming. Repetition of a word or phrase leads to influencing later thoughts.
• Reverse priming. When people realize they’re being primed and overcorrect in the other direction.