Perceptive
Mood migration: How enfacing a smile makes you happier
Ke Ma et al.
Cognition, June 2016, Pages 52–62
Abstract:
People tend to perceive the face of another person more as their own if own and other face are stroked in synchrony — the enfacement illusion. We conceptually replicated the enfacement illusion in a virtual reality environment, in which participants could control the movements of a virtual face by moving and touching their own face. We then used this virtual enfacement illusion to study whether enfacing a virtual face would also involve adopting the emotion that this face is expressing. As predicted, participants adopted the expressed emotion, as indicated by higher valence scores and better performance in a mood-sensitive divergent-thinking task when facing a happy virtual face, if the virtual face moved in synchrony with their own head movements. This suggests that impact on or control over another person’s facial movements invite “mood migration” from the person one identifies with to oneself.
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Joshua Tybur et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
When consumed, meats and plants have presented asymmetric threats to humans and their hominid ancestors for hundreds of thousands of years. Here, we test the hypothesis that human food learning mechanisms are functionally specialized to navigate these asymmetric threats. Specifically, we predict that pathogen cues condition evaluations of meat differently than they condition evaluations of plants. Data across three studies are consistent with this prediction. In each study, participants who first viewed images of meats paired with cues to pathogens subsequently reported less desire eat those meats. In contrast, participants who first viewed plants paired with the same cues to pathogens did not report less desire to eat those plants. Further, a meta-analysis of effects across the three studies (total N = 398) indicated that pairings with cues to pathogens affected both desires to eat meats and anticipated tastes of meats, but not desires to eat plants or anticipated tastes of plants. These findings present novel evidence for functionally specialized, pathogen-based meat learning.
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Attention Alters Perceived Attractiveness
Viola Störmer & George Alvarez
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can attention alter the impression of a face? Previous studies showed that attention modulates the appearance of lower-level visual features. For instance, attention can make a simple stimulus appear to have higher contrast than it actually does. We tested whether attention can also alter the perception of a higher-order property — namely, facial attractiveness. We asked participants to judge the relative attractiveness of two faces after summoning their attention to one of the faces using a briefly presented visual cue. Across trials, participants judged the attended face to be more attractive than the same face when it was unattended. This effect was not due to decision or response biases, but rather was due to changes in perceptual processing of the faces. These results show that attention alters perceived facial attractiveness, and broadly demonstrate that attention can influence higher-level perception and may affect people’s initial impressions of one another.
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Human Brain Reacts to Transcranial Extraocular Light
Lihua Sun et al.
PLoS ONE, February 2016
Abstract:
Transcranial extraocular light affects the brains of birds and modulates their seasonal changes in physiology and behavior. However, whether the human brain is sensitive to extraocular light is unknown. To test whether extraocular light has any effect on human brain functioning, we measured brain electrophysiology of 18 young healthy subjects using event-related potentials while they performed a visual attention task embedded with emotional distractors. Extraocular light delivered via ear canals abolished normal emotional modulation of attention related brain responses. With no extraocular light delivered, emotional distractors reduced centro-parietal P300 amplitude compared to neutral distractors. This phenomenon disappeared with extraocular light delivery. Extraocular light delivered through the ear canals was shown to penetrate at the base of the scull of a cadaver. Thus, we have shown that extraocular light impacts human brain functioning calling for further research on the mechanisms of action of light on the human brain.
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The drawing effect: Evidence for reliable and robust memory benefits in free recall
Jeffrey Wammes, Melissa Meade & Myra Fernandes
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, September 2016, Pages 1752-1776
Abstract:
In 7 free-recall experiments, the benefit of creating drawings of to-be-remembered information relative to writing was examined as a mnemonic strategy. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were presented with a list of words and were asked to either draw or write out each. Drawn words were better recalled than written. Experiments 3–5 showed that the memory boost provided by drawing could not be explained by elaborative encoding (deep level of processing, LoP), visual imagery, or picture superiority, respectively. In Experiment 6, we explored potential limitations of the drawing effect, by reducing encoding time and increasing list length. Drawing, relative to writing, still benefited memory despite these constraints. In Experiment 7, the drawing effect was significant even when encoding trial types were compared in pure lists between participants, inconsistent with a distinctiveness account. Together these experiments indicate that drawing enhances memory relative to writing, across settings, instructions, and alternate encoding strategies, both within- and between-participants, and that a deep LoP, visual imagery, or picture superiority, alone or collectively, are not sufficient to explain the observed effect. We propose that drawing improves memory by encouraging a seamless integration of semantic, visual, and motor aspects of a memory trace.
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As time goes by: Oxytocin influences the subjective perception of time in a social context
Valentina Colonnello, Gregor Domes & Markus Heinrichs
Psychoneuroendocrinology, June 2016, Pages 69–73
Abstract:
Time perception depends on an event’s emotional relevance to the beholder; a subjective time dilation effect is associated with self-relevant, emotionally salient stimuli. Previous studies have revealed that oxytocin modulates the salience of social stimuli and attention to social cues. However, whether the oxytocin system is involved in human subjective time perception is unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether increased oxytocin levels would induce a time dilation effect for self-relevant, positive social cues. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject design, heterosexual men self-administered intranasal oxytocin or placebo. After about 50 min, participants completed a time-bisection task in which they estimated lengths of exposure to happy female faces (self-relevant positive stimuli, based on sexual orientation), emotionally neutral and negative female faces (control), and happy, neutral, and negative male faces (control). Oxytocin induced a subjective time dilation effect for happy female faces and a time compression effect for happy male faces. Our results provide evidence that oxytocin influences time perception, a primary form of human subjectivity.