Impressionable
Embodied free will beliefs: Some effects of physical states on metaphysical opinions
Michael Ent & Roy Baumeister
Consciousness and Cognition, July 2014, Pages 147-154
Abstract:
The present research suggests that people's bodily states affect their beliefs about free will. People with epilepsy and people with panic disorder, which are disorders characterized by a lack of control over one's body, reported less belief in free will compared to people without such disorders (Study 1). The more intensely people felt sexual desire, physical tiredness, and the urge to urinate, the less they believed in free will (Study 2). Among non-dieters, the more intensely they felt hunger, the less they believed in free will. However, dieters showed a trend in the opposite direction (Study 3).
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Oral approach-avoidance: Affective consequences of muscular articulation dynamics
Sascha Topolinski et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, June 2014, Pages 885-896
Abstract:
Can mouth movements shape attitudes? When people articulate different consonants (e.g., B or K) they press the tongue and the lips against various spots in the mouth. This allows for construction of words that feature systematic wanderings of consonantal stricture spots either from the front to the rear (inward; e.g., BENOKA) or from the rear to the front (outward; e.g., KENOBA) of the mouth. These wanderings of muscular strictures resemble the oral kinematics during either deglution (swallowing-like, inward movement) or expectoration (spitting-like, outward movement). Thus, we predicted that the articulation of inward and outward words induces motivational states associated with deglutition and expectoration - namely, approach and avoidance - which was tested in 9 experiments (total N = 822). Inward words were preferred over outward words, being labeled as nonsense words (Experiments 1, 4, 5, 6, and 9), company names (Experiment 2), or person names (Experiments 3, 7, and 8), with control words falling in between (Experiment 5). As a social-behavioral consequence, ostensible chat partners were more often chosen to interact with when having inward compared to outward names (Experiment 7). The effect was found in German-speaking (Experiments 1-5) and English-speaking (Experiment 6) samples, and it occurred even under silent reading (all experiments) and for negatively labeled targets (names of villains; Experiment 8). Showing articulation simulations as being the causal undercurrent, this effect was absent in aphasia patients who lacked covert subvocalizations (Experiment 9).
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Implicit and Explicit Illusory Correlation as a Function of Political Ideology
Luciana Carraro et al.
PLoS ONE, May 2014
Abstract:
Research has demonstrated that people who embrace different ideological orientations often show differences at the level of basic cognitive processes. For instance, conservatives (vs. liberals) display an automatic selective attention for negative (vs. positive) stimuli, and tend to more easily form illusory correlations between negative information and minority groups. In the present work, we further explored this latter effect by examining whether it only involves the formation of explicit attitudes or it extends to implicit attitudes. To this end, following the typical illusory correlation paradigm, participants were presented with members of two numerically different groups (majority and minority) each performing either a positive or negative behaviour. Negative behaviors were relatively infrequent, and the proportion of positive and negative behaviors within each group was the same. Next, explicit and implicit (i.e., IAT-measured) attitudes were assessed. Results showed that conservatives (vs. liberals) displayed stronger explicit as well as implicit illusory correlations effects, forming more negative attitudes toward the minority (vs. majority) group at both the explicit and implicit level.
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Clare Turner et al.
Appetite, September 2014, Pages 212-219
Abstract:
The presence of carbohydrate in the human mouth has been associated with the facilitation of motor output and improvements in physical performance. Oral receptors have been identified as a potential mode of afferent transduction for this novel form of nutrient signalling that is distinct from taste. In the current study oral exposure to carbohydrate was combined with a motor task in a neuroimaging environment to identify areas of the brain involved in this phenomenon. A mouth-rinsing protocol was conducted whilst carbohydrate (CHO) and taste-matched placebo (PLA) solutions were delivered and recovered from the mouths of 10 healthy volunteers within a double-blind, counterbalanced design. This protocol eliminates post-oral factors and controls for the perceptual qualities of solutions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain was used to identify cortical areas responsive to oral carbohydrate during rest and activity phases of a hand-grip motor task. Mean blood-oxygen-level dependent signal change experienced in the contralateral primary sensorimotor cortex was larger for CHO compared with PLA during the motor task when contrasted with a control condition. Areas of activation associated with CHO exclusively were observed over the primary taste cortex and regions involved in visual perception. Regions in the limbic system associated with reward were also significantly more active with CHO. This is the first demonstration that oral carbohydrate signalling can increase activation within the primary sensorimotor cortex during physical activity and enhance activation of neural networks involved in sensory perception.
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Misleading First Impressions: Different for Different Facial Images of the Same Person
Alexander Todorov & Jenny Porter
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studies on first impressions from facial appearance have rapidly proliferated in the past decade. Almost all of these studies have relied on a single face image per target individual, and differences in impressions have been interpreted as originating in stable physiognomic differences between individuals. Here we show that images of the same individual can lead to different impressions, with within-individual image variance comparable to or exceeding between-individuals variance for a variety of social judgments (Experiment 1). We further show that preferences for images shift as a function of the context (e.g., selecting an image for online dating vs. a political campaign; Experiment 2), that preferences are predictably biased by the selection of the images (e.g., an image fitting a political campaign vs. a randomly selected image; Experiment 3), and that these biases are evident after extremely brief (40-ms) presentation of the images (Experiment 4). We discuss the implications of these findings for studies on the accuracy of first impressions.
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Lucas Keefer et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2014, Pages 12-20
Abstract:
How do people evaluate candidate solutions to abstract problems that are difficult to grasp? According to conceptual metaphor theory, people can conceptualize abstract ideas in terms of well-known bodily states, even if they are not currently experiencing those bodily states. Extending this perspective, we test a novel metaphoric fit hypothesis concerning the (mis)match between embodied-metaphoric framings of an abstract problem (in these studies, depression) and candidate solutions (depression treatments). In Studies 1 and 2, framing depression metaphorically as being physically down or darkened increased the perceived effectiveness of depression medications framed metaphorically as solving those bodily problems ("lifting" and "illuminating," respectively). Consistent with conceptual metaphor theory, this effect was mediated by subjective certainty about depression. Studies 3 and 4 manipulated problem and solution framings to test the interactive effects of metaphoric fit and misfit on solution evaluations. These findings reveal a new route by which embodied knowledge influences problem solving.
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Anuj Pradhan et al.
Journal of Adolescent Health, May 2014, Pages S42-S49
Purpose: There is a higher likelihood of crashes and fatalities when an adolescent drives with peer passengers, especially for male drivers and male passengers. Simulated driving of male adolescent drivers with male peer passengers was studied to examine passenger influences on distraction and inattention.
Methods: Male adolescents drove in a high-fidelity driving simulator with a male confederate who posed either as a risk-accepting passenger or as a risk-averse passenger. Drivers' eye movements were recorded. The visual scanning behavior of the drivers was compared when driving alone with when driving with a passenger and when driving with a risk-accepting passenger or with a risk-averse passenger.
Results: The visual scanning of a driver significantly narrowed horizontally and vertically when driving with a peer passenger. There were no significant differences in the times the drivers' eyes were off the forward roadway when driving with a passenger versus when driving alone. Some significant correlations were found between personality characteristics and the outcome measures.
Conclusions: The presence of a male peer passenger was associated with a reduction in the visual scanning range of male adolescent drivers. This reduction could be a result of potential cognitive load imposed on the driver due to the presence of a passenger and the real or perceived normative influences or expectations from the passenger.
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Looking up to others: Social status, Chinese honorifics, and spatial attention
Aitao Lu et al.
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, June 2014, Pages 77-83
Abstract:
Two experiments were carried out to investigate whether social status encoded in Chinese honorifics has metaphorical effects on up-down spatial orientation. In Experiment 1, participants judged whether a word was an elevating or denigrating term immediately prior to judging whether an arrow was pointing up or down. Arrow orientation was identified faster when its direction was congruent with the perceived social status of the preceding honorific (e.g., elevating word and up arrow). In Experiment 2, participants identified the letter p or q after judging whether honorifics were elevating or denigrating terms. Letters were identified faster when placed at the top of the screen following elevating terms, and faster at the bottom following denigrating terms. These results suggest that the mere activation of social status differences by honorific terms orients attention toward schema-congruent space. Social status appears to have pragmatic effects, not only for lexical decision-making, but also in where Chinese speakers are most likely to look.
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Spontaneous Neural Fluctuations Predict Decisions to Attend
Jesse Bengson et al.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Ongoing variability in neural signaling is an intrinsic property of the brain. Often this variability is considered to be noise and ignored. However, an alternative view is that this variability is fundamental to perception and cognition and may be particularly important in decision-making. Here, we show that a momentary measure of occipital alpha-band power (8-13 Hz) predicts choices about where human participants will focus spatial attention on a trial-by-trial basis. This finding provides evidence for a mechanistic account of decision-making by demonstrating that ongoing neural activity biases voluntary decisions about where to attend within a given moment.
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Hearing brighter: Changing in-depth visual perception through looming sounds
Clare Sutherland, Gregor Thut & Vincenzo Romei
Cognition, September 2014, Pages 312-323
Abstract:
Rapidly approaching (looming) sounds are ecologically salient stimuli that are perceived as nearer than they are due to overestimation of their loudness change and underestimation of their distance. Despite evidence for crossmodal influence by looming sounds onto visual areas, it is unknown whether such sounds bias visual percepts in similar ways. Nearer objects appear to be larger and brighter than distant objects. If looming sounds impact visual processing, then visual stimuli paired with looming sounds should be perceived as brighter and larger, even when the visual stimuli do not provide motion cues, i.e. are static. In Experiment 1 we found that static visual objects paired with looming tones (but not static or receding tones) were perceived as larger and brighter than their actual physical properties, as if they appear closer to the observer. In a second experiment, we replicate and extend the findings of Experiment 1. Crucially, we did not find evidence of such bias by looming sounds when visual processing was disrupted via masking or when catch trials were presented, ruling out simple response bias. Finally, in a third experiment we found that looming tones do not bias visual stimulus characteristics that do not carry visual depth information such as shape, providing further evidence that they specifically impact in-depth visual processing. We conclude that looming sounds impact visual perception through a mechanism transferring in-depth sound motion information onto the relevant in-depth visual dimensions (such as size and luminance but not shape) in a crossmodal remapping of information for a genuine, evolutionary advantage in stimulus detection.
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Ian Boggero et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, October 2014, Pages 140-143
Abstract:
Personality traits and resting mean arterial pressure are known to play a role in how people experience and cope with chronic pain, but their relationships with acute pain responses in healthy adults remain unknown. The current study aims to examine the effects of personality variables, blood pressure variables, and their interactions on pain tolerance in a sample of healthy, pain-free adults. Data were collected from 41 pain-free participants. Results revealed a significant crossover interaction such that those with higher mean arterial pressure (MAP) were able to tolerate more pain only at low levels of neuroticism. At high levels of neuroticism, MAP was inversely related to pain tolerance. The current study is the first to our knowledge to suggest that stable personality traits interact with physiology to influence pain tolerance in healthy populations. These findings could be useful in advancing the theoretical understanding of the psychological correlates of pain.
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When Perception Says "No" to Action: Approach Cues Make Steep Hills Appear Even Steeper
Dario Krpan & Simone Schnall
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2014, Pages 89-98
Abstract:
Previous research has established that people's resources and action capabilities influence visual perception, and for example, make hills appear more or less steep. What has remained unexamined, however, is whether perception also changes when an action is impending. We propose that when action is expected in an environment that is challenging because it poses high energetic costs, perceptual estimates are increased. Experiment 1 showed that motor movements of approach led to steeper slant estimates than motor movements of avoidance, but only if participants were in good physical condition and thus capable of undertaking costly actions. Experiment 2 used a mindset priming task and found that approach resulted in higher slant estimates than either avoidance, or a neutral control condition, again for participants who were in good, but not for those in poor physical condition. Experiment 3 further showed that the approach cue on its own had the same effect as when combined with instructions that climbing was involved, thus suggesting that approach manipulations indeed implied the action of climbing. However, the effect of approach disappeared when climbing was explicitly ruled out. We suggest that inflated perceptual visual estimates in the face of challenging environments are adaptive because they discourage future actions that may be costly to perform.