Priming Effect
Design Pattern
Problem summary
Decisions are unconsciously shaped by what we have recently experienced
Usage
- Use to guide users to the right choice.
- Use to instil relevant emotions in your target audience that will bring forth emotions relevant for a future decision
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- 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.
Rationale
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.
Discussion
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.
Although semantic, associative, and form priming have been well examined with solid evidence, longer-term priming effects have come under scrutiny casting doubt on their effectiveness or even existence. Daniel Kahneman called for a general check on the research robustness in the priming community in 2012.
2 Priming and the Psychology of Memory by Kendra Cherry
3 Priming, explained by The Decision Lab
4 Reisberg D (2007). Cognition: Exploring the Science of the Mind, page 255, 517
5 Meyer DE (2014). “Semantic priming well established”. Science. 345 (6196): 523.
6 The Priming Effect at Learning Loop
User Interface Design Patterns
- Forms
- Explaining the process
- Community driven
- Tabs
- Jumping in hierarchy
- Menus
- Content
- Gestures
- Tables
- Formatting data
- Images
- Search
- Reputation
- Social interactions
- Shopping
- Increasing frequency
- Guidance
- Registration
Persuasive Design Patterns
- Loss Aversion
- Other cognitive biases
- Scarcity
- Gameplay design
- Fundamentals of rewards
- Gameplay rewards