Mental Models
Are Empathic People Better Adjusted?: A Test of Competing Models of Empathic Accuracy and Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Facets of Adjustment Using Self- and Peer Reports
Joyce He & Stéphane Côté
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Are individuals adept at perceiving others’ emotions optimally adjusted? We extend past research by conducting a high-powered preregistered study that comprehensively tests five theoretical models of empathic accuracy (i.e., emotion-recognition ability) and self-views and intra- and interpersonal facets of adjustment in a sample of 1,126 undergraduate students from Canada and 2,205 informants. We obtained both self-reports and peer-reports of adjustment and controlled for cognitive abilities as a potential confounding variable. Empathic accuracy (but not self-views of that ability) was positively related to relationship satisfaction as rated by both participants and informants. Self-views about empathic accuracy (but not actual empathic accuracy) were positively related to life satisfaction as rated by both participants and informants. All associations held when we controlled for cognitive abilities.
Memory Consolidation during Ultra-short Offline States
Erin Wamsley et al.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Traditionally, neuroscience and psychology have studied the human brain during periods of “online” attention to the environment, while participants actively engage in processing sensory stimuli. However, emerging evidence shows that the waking brain also intermittently enters an “offline” state, during which sensory processing is inhibited and our attention shifts inward. In fact, humans may spend up to half of their waking hours offline [Wamsley, E. J., & Summer, T. Spontaneous entry into an “offline” state during wakefulness: A mechanism of memory consolidation? Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32, 1714–1734, 2020; Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330, 932, 2010]. The function of alternating between online and offline forms of wakefulness remains unknown. We hypothesized that rapidly switching between online and offline states enables the brain to alternate between the competing demands of encoding new information and consolidating already-encoded information. A total of 46 participants (34 female) trained on a memory task just before a 30-min retention interval, during which they completed a simple attention task while undergoing simultaneous high-density EEG and pupillometry recording. We used a data-driven method to parse this retention interval into a sequence of discrete online and offline states, with a 5-sec temporal resolution. We found evidence for three distinct states, one of which was an offline state with features well-suited to support memory consolidation, including increased EEG slow oscillation power, reduced attention to the external environment, and increased pupil diameter (a proxy for increased norepinephrine). Participants who spent more time in this offline state following encoding showed improved memory at delayed test. These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that even brief, seconds-long entry into an offline state may support the early stages of memory consolidation.
Individual risk attitudes arise from noise in neurocognitive magnitude representations
Miguel Barretto-García et al.
Nature Human Behaviour, forthcoming
Abstract:
Humans are generally risk averse, preferring smaller certain over larger uncertain outcomes. Economic theories usually explain this by assuming concave utility functions. Here, we provide evidence that risk aversion can also arise from relative underestimation of larger monetary payoffs, a perceptual bias rooted in the noisy logarithmic coding of numerical magnitudes. We confirmed this with psychophysics and functional magnetic resonance imaging, by measuring behavioural and neural acuity of magnitude representations during a magnitude perception task and relating these measures to risk attitudes during separate risky financial decisions. Computational modelling indicated that participants use similar mental magnitude representations in both tasks, with correlated precision across perceptual and risky choices. Participants with more precise magnitude representations in parietal cortex showed less variable behaviour and less risk aversion. Our results highlight that at least some individual characteristics of economic behaviour can reflect capacity limitations in perceptual processing rather than processes that assign subjective values to monetary outcomes.
Differential processing of risk and reward in delinquent and non-delinquent youth
Natasha Duell et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, August 2023
Abstract:
The present study examined the behavioral and neural differences in risky decision-making between delinquent (n = 23) and non-delinquent (n = 27) youth ages 13–17 years (M = 16, SD = 0.97) in relation to reward processing. While undergoing functional neuroimaging, participants completed an experimental risk task wherein they received feedback about the riskiness of their behavior in the form of facial expressions that morphed from happy to angry. Behavioral results indicated that delinquent youth took fewer risks and earned fewer rewards on the task than non-delinquent youth. Results from whole-brain analyses indicated no group differences in sensitivity to punishments (i.e. angry faces), but instead showed that delinquent youth evinced greater neural tracking of reward outcomes (i.e. cash-ins) in regions including the ventral striatum and inferior frontal gyrus. While behavioral results show that delinquent youth were more risk-averse, the neural results indicated that delinquent youth were also more reward-driven, potentially suggesting a preference for immediate rewards. Results offer important insights into differential decision-making processes between delinquent and non-delinquent youth.
Sniffing the distance: Scents can make objects appear closer
Ruta Ruzeviciute et al.
Journal of Environmental Psychology, November 2023
Abstract:
Judging distances between oneself and objects in the environment is vital. Such distance judgments are based mostly on visual cues. But can smelling an object also affect how close the object appears? Building on sensory distance theory, we suggest that scents can make objects seem physically closer. We investigate this effect across four studies (total N = 479) using a range of scents, objects, and distances. Leading to predictable estimation biases, the effect emerges regardless of scent salience and holds across different scent delivery modes: directly from an object (Study 1), surrogate via vial (Study 2 and 3), and ambient (Study 4). The biasing influence of scent persists even when the accuracy of estimates is incentivized (Study 2) and is stronger when cognitive resources are unconstrained (Study 4). While the effect emerges even when scents emanate from targets that are typically unscented (e.g., notepad; Study 1), it is attenuated when the scent is not associated with the target (Study 3). These findings highlight a novel role of scent in spatial cognition and hold implications for distance perception and distancing behaviors.