On notice
Art and Authenticity: Behavioral and Eye-Movement Analyses
Paul Locher, Elizabeth Krupinski & Alexandra Schaefer
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, forthcoming
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of viewers’ beliefs about the authenticity of paintings on the way they are visually explored and aesthetically evaluated. Thirty art-sophisticated and naïve adults were shown digital versions of paintings by renowned artists under 3 alleged authenticity status conditions: originals, copies, or fakes. Participants’ eye-movements, verbal reactions to the stimuli, and self-perceived scanning strategies were recorded as they evaluated, for unlimited time, the pleasantness, artistic merit, and monetary value of each artwork. Overall, findings provide evidence that viewers’ beliefs about the authenticity status of a painting serve as a context cue that triggers, in a direct and indirect or mediated top-down fashion, naïve and sophisticated viewers’ behavioral and visual responses to art.
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Seeing the world through “Pink Colored Glasses”: The link between optimism and pink
Kalay-Shahin Lior et al.
Journal of Personality, forthcoming
Objective: This study investigated optimism, which is considered a personality trait, from Grounded Cognition perspective. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the association between pink and optimism.
Method: In experiment 1a, 22 undergraduates (10 females, Mage=23.68) were asked to classify words as optimistic or pessimistic as fast as possible. Half the words were presented in pink and half in black. Experiment 1b (n=24, 14 females, Mage=22.82) was identical to 1a except for the color of the words - black and light blue instead of pink - to rule out the possible influence of brightness. Experiment 2 exposed 144 participants (74 females, Mage=25.18) to pink or yellow and then measured their optimism level.
Results: The findings for experiments 1a and 1b indicated an association between pink and optimism regardless of brightness. Experiment 2 found that mere exposure to pink increased optimism levels for females.
Conclusion: These results contribute to the dynamic view of personality, current views on optimism, and the growing literature on Grounded Cognition.
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Jacob Vigil et al.
Human Nature, June 2015, Pages 235-254
Abstract:
This study examines the associations between objective and subjective measurements and impressions of body shape and cold pressor pain reporting in healthy adults. On the basis of sexual selection theory (SST), we hypothesized that body characteristics that are universally preferred by the opposite sex — specifically, lower waist-to-hip ratios (WHR) in women and higher shoulder-to-hip ratios (SHR) in men — and characteristics (e.g., proportion of body fat in women) that infer attractiveness differently across cultures will correspond to higher experimental pain reporting in women and lower pain reporting in males. A convenience sample of young adults (n = 96, 58 females, 18–24 years; mean age = 19.4) was measured for body mass index (BMI), WHR, SHR, and subjective body impressions (SBI), along with cold pressor pain reporting. The findings showed that BMI was positively associated with WHR and less-positive SBI in both sexes. Consistent with SST, however, only BMI and WHR predicted variability in pain expression in women, whereas only SHR predicted variability in men. Subjective body impressions were positively associated with SHR among males and unrelated to WHR among females, yet only females showed a positive association between SBI and higher pain reporting. The findings suggest that sexually selected physical characteristics (WHR and SHR) and culturally influenced somatic (BMI) and psychological (SBI) indicators of attractiveness correspond with variability in pain reporting, potentially reflecting the general tendency for people to express clusters of sexually selected and culturally influenced traits that may include differential pain perception.
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Negative emotional stimuli enhance vestibular processing
Nora Preuss, Andrew Ellis & Fred Mast
Emotion, August 2015, Pages 411-415
Abstract:
Recent studies have shown that vestibular stimulation can influence affective processes. In the present study, we examined whether emotional information can also modulate vestibular perception. Participants performed a vestibular discrimination task on a motion platform while viewing emotional pictures. Six different picture categories were taken from the International Affective Picture System: mutilation, threat, snakes, neutral objects, sports, and erotic pictures. Using a Bayesian hierarchical approach, we were able to show that vestibular discrimination improved when participants viewed emotionally negative pictures (mutilation, threat, snake) when compared to neutral/positive objects. We conclude that some of the mechanisms involved in the processing of vestibular information are also sensitive to emotional content. Emotional information signals importance and mobilizes the body for action. In case of danger, a successful motor response requires precise vestibular processing. Therefore, negative emotional information improves processing of vestibular information.
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The close proximity of threat: Altered distance perception in the anticipation of pain
Abby Tabor et al.
Frontiers in Psychology, May 2015
Abstract:
Pain is an experience that powerfully influences the way we interact with our environment. What is less clear is the influence that pain has on the way we perceive our environment. We investigated the effect that the anticipation of experimental pain (THREAT) and its relief (RELIEF) has on the visual perception of space. Eighteen (11F) healthy volunteers estimated the distance to alternating THREAT and RELIEF stimuli that were placed within reachable space. The results determined that the estimated distance to the THREAT stimulus was significantly underestimated in comparison to the RELIEF stimulus. We conclude that pain-evoking stimuli are perceived as closer to the body than otherwise identical pain-relieving stimuli, an important consideration when applied to our decisions and behaviors in relation to the experience of pain.
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A Mechanistic Link between Olfaction and Autism Spectrum Disorder
Liron Rozenkrantz et al.
Current Biology, 20 July 2015, Pages 1904–1910
Abstract:
Internal action models (IAMs) are brain templates for sensory-motor coordination underlying diverse behaviors. An emerging theory suggests that impaired IAMs are a common theme in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, whether impaired IAMs occur across sensory systems and how they relate to the major phenotype of ASD, namely impaired social communication, remains unclear. Olfaction relies on an IAM known as the sniff response, where sniff magnitude is automatically modulated to account for odor valence. To test the failed IAM theory in olfaction, we precisely measured the non-verbal non-task-dependent sniff response concurrent with pleasant and unpleasant odors in 36 children—18 with ASD and 18 matched typically developing (TD) controls. We found that whereas TD children generated a typical adult-like sniff response within 305 ms of odor onset, ASD children had a profoundly altered sniff response, sniffing equally regardless of odor valance. This difference persisted despite equal reported odor perception and allowed for 81% correct ASD classification based on the sniff response alone (binomial, p < 0.001). Moreover, increasingly aberrant sniffing was associated with increasingly severe ASD (r = −0.75, p < 0.001), specifically with social (r = −0.72, p < 0.001), but not motor (r < −0.38, p > 0.18), impairment. These results uncover a novel ASD marker implying a mechanistic link between the underpinnings of olfaction and ASD and directly linking an impaired IAM with impaired social abilities.
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Making eye contact without awareness
Marcus Rothkirch et al.
Cognition, October 2015, Pages 108–114
Abstract:
Direct gaze is a potent non-verbal signal that establishes a communicative connection between two individuals, setting the course for further interactions. Although consciously perceived faces with direct gaze have been shown to capture attention, it is unknown whether an attentional preference for these socially meaningful stimuli exists even in the absence of awareness. In two experiments, we recorded participants’ eye movements while they were exposed to faces with direct and averted gaze rendered invisible by interocular suppression. Participants’ inability to correctly guess the occurrence of the faces in a manual forced-choice task demonstrated complete unawareness of the faces. However, eye movements were preferentially directed towards faces with direct compared to averted gaze, indicating a specific sensitivity to others’ gaze directions even without awareness. This oculomotor preference suggests that a rapid and automatic establishment of mutual eye contact constitutes a biological advantage, which could be mediated by fast subcortical pathways in the human brain.
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Human preferences are biased towards associative information
Sabrina Trapp et al.
Cognition & Emotion, Summer 2015, Pages 1054-1068
Abstract:
There is ample evidence that the brain generates predictions that help interpret sensory input. To build such predictions the brain capitalizes upon learned statistical regularities and associations (e.g., “A” is followed by “B”; “C” appears together with “D”). The centrality of predictions to mental activities gave rise to the hypothesis that associative information with predictive value is perceived as intrinsically valuable. Such value would ensure that this information is proactively searched for, thereby promoting certainty and stability in our environment. We therefore tested here whether, all else being equal, participants would prefer stimuli that contained more rather than less associative information. In Experiments 1 and 2 we used novel, meaningless visual shapes and showed that participants preferred associative shapes over shapes that had not been associated with other shapes during training. In Experiment 3 we used pictures of real-world objects and again demonstrated a preference for stimuli that elicit stronger associations. These results support our proposal that predictive information is affectively tagged, and enhance our understanding of the formation of everyday preferences.
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The effect of emotional state on taste perception
Corinna Noel & Robin Dando
Appetite, December 2015, Pages 89–95
Abstract:
Taste perception can be modulated by a variety of extraneously applied influences, such as the manipulation of emotion or the application of acute stress. To evaluate the effect of more commonplace day-to-day emotional variation on taste function, taste intensity ratings and hedonic evaluations were collected from approximately 550 attendees following men's hockey games spanning the 2013–2014 season, a period encompassing 4 wins, 3 losses, and 1 tie. Since different outcomes at competitive sporting events are shown to induce varying affective response, this field study presented a unique environment to evaluate the effect of real-life emotional manipulations on our perception of taste, where previous research focused more on extraneous manipulation within a laboratory environment. Analysis revealed that positive emotions correlated with enhanced sweet intensity while negative emotions associated with heightened sour taste. Theoretically, both an increase in sweet and a decrease in sour taste intensity would drive acceptance of a great number of foods. Indeed, hedonic ratings for samples that were less liked (and parenthetically mostly sweet and sour in nature), selectively increased as positive affect grew, possibly due to the perceived decrease in sourness and increase in sweetness. The results of this field study indicate that emotional manipulations in the form of pleasantly or unpleasantly perceived real-life events can influence the intensity perception of taste, driving hedonics for less acceptable foods. These results suggest that such modulation of taste perception could play a role in emotional eating.
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A Detection Advantage for Facial Threat in the Absence of Anger
Jonathon Shasteen, Noah Sasson & Amy Pinkham
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Quickly and accurately perceiving the potential for aggression in others is adaptive and beneficial for self-protection. Superior detection of facial threat is demonstrated by studies in which transient threat indices (i.e., angry expressions) are identified more efficiently than are transient approach indices (i.e., happy expressions). Not all signs of facial threat are temporary, however: Persistent, biologically based craniofacial attributes (e.g., low eyebrow ridge) are also associated with a perceived propensity for aggression. It remains unclear whether such static properties of the face elicit comparable attentional biases. We used a novel visual search task of faces for the present study that lacked explicit displays of emotion, but varied on perceived threat via manipulated craniofacial structure. A search advantage for threatening facial elements surfaced, suggesting that efficient detection of threat is not limited to the perception of anger, but rather extends to more latent facial signals of aggressive potential. Although all stimuli were primarily identified as emotionally neutral, thus confirming that the effect does not require emotional content, individual variation in the perception of structurally threatening faces as angry was associated with a greater detection advantage. These results indicate that attributing anger to objectively emotionless faces may serve as a mechanism for their heightened salience and influence important facets of social perception and interaction.
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Stroke me for longer this touch feels too short: The effect of pleasant touch on temporal perception
Ruth Ogden et al.
Consciousness and Cognition, November 2015, Pages 306–313
Abstract:
Negative, painful, somatosensory stimulation lengthens the perceived duration of time. However, to date, no research has explored the influence of positive, pleasant, somatosensory stimulation on temporal perception. Here we asked whether gentle stroking touch influences perceptions of duration. Pleasant (gentle) and mildly unpleasant (rough) tactile stimulation was delivered whilst participants estimated the duration of a neutral visual stimulus. Pleasant touch resulted in shorter estimates of duration than unpleasant touch. There was no difference in duration perception in the unpleasant and control conditions. Taken together with the results of previous research (Ogden, Moore, Redfern, & McGlone, 2015), the results of this study suggest that pleasant and painful somatosensory stimulation have opposing effects on temporal perception, and additionally that pleasant touch can alter aspects of perceptual and attentional processing outside the purely affective domain.
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Words Jump-Start Vision: A Label Advantage in Object Recognition
Bastien Boutonnet & Gary Lupyan
Journal of Neuroscience, 24 June 2015, Pages 9329-9335
Abstract:
People use language to shape each other's behavior in highly flexible ways. Effects of language are often assumed to be “high-level” in that, whereas language clearly influences reasoning, decision making, and memory, it does not influence low-level visual processes. Here, we test the prediction that words are able to provide top-down guidance at the very earliest stages of visual processing by acting as powerful categorical cues. We investigated whether visual processing of images of familiar animals and artifacts was enhanced after hearing their name (e.g., “dog”) compared with hearing an equally familiar and unambiguous nonverbal sound (e.g., a dog bark) in 14 English monolingual speakers. Because the relationship between words and their referents is categorical, we expected words to deploy more effective categorical templates, allowing for more rapid visual recognition. By recording EEGs, we were able to determine whether this label advantage stemmed from changes to early visual processing or later semantic decision processes. The results showed that hearing a word affected early visual processes and that this modulation was specific to the named category. An analysis of ERPs showed that the P1 was larger when people were cued by labels compared with equally informative nonverbal cues — an enhancement occurring within 100 ms of image onset, which also predicted behavioral responses occurring almost 500 ms later. Hearing labels modulated the P1 such that it distinguished between target and nontarget images, showing that words rapidly guide early visual processing.
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Amir-Homayoun Javadi et al.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
One of the multiple interacting systems involved in the selection and execution of voluntary actions is the primary motor cortex (PMC). We aimed to investigate whether the transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of this area can modulate hand choice. A perceptual decision-making task was administered. Participants were asked to classify rectangles with different height-to-width ratios into horizontal and vertical rectangles using their right and left index fingers while their PMC was stimulated either bilaterally or unilaterally. Two experiments were conducted with different stimulation conditions: the first experiment (n = 12) had only one stimulation condition (bilateral stimulation), and the second experiment (n = 45) had three stimulation conditions (bilateral, anodal unilateral, and cathodal unilateral stimulations). The second experiment was designed to confirm the results of the first experiment and to further investigate the effects of anodal and cathodal stimulations alone in the observed effects. Each participant took part in two sessions. The laterality of stimulation was reversed over the two sessions. Our results showed that anodal stimulation of the PMC biases participants' responses toward using the contralateral hand whereas cathodal stimulation biases responses toward the ipsilateral hand. Brain stimulation also modulated the RT of the left hand in all stimulation conditions: Responses were faster when the response bias was in favor of the left hand and slower when the response bias was against it. We propose two possible explanations for these findings: the perceptual bias account (bottom–up effects of stimulation on perception) and the motor-choice bias account (top–down modulation of the decision-making system by facilitation of response in one hand over the other). We conclude that motor responses and the choice of hand can be modulated using tDCS.