Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology最新文献

Eye gaze is an important social signal that people generally cannot help but follow, leading to joint attention. Joint attention has been shown to speed basic processing of objects, enhance memory for them, and even affect immediate value-based appraisal by increasing object likability. Here, across 8 experiments, we investigate for the first time whether jointly attending to other faces positively affects their longer-term social value (liking, trust) and attentional value (attention allocation and prioritisation). Emanating the basic gaze cuing paradigm, a central cue face looked towards or away from a 'target' face, which the participant had to respond to. Unbeknownst to participants, some target faces were always looked at (jointly attended - high value) and others were never looked at ('ignored' - low value). In studies 1 to 6, we investigated how these gaze-induced value conditions positively affected subsequent liking and trust social judgements of a person. Then, in studies 7 and 8, we additionally investigated whether effects of gaze on others may occur implicitly, affecting subsequent attentional engagement with others by using the target faces as gaze cues, or attentional targets in a dot probe task. Confirmed through mini meta-analysis, we found no significant effect of being jointly attended versus ignored on either the social (N = 214) or attentional (N = 77) value of faces. We discuss whether faces are different from objects in this context.

Contesting the viewpoint that personality impressions are spontaneously extracted from triggering facial cues, recent research suggests that such inferences emerge only when instructions are given to judge individuals in terms of the trait characteristics of interest. Notwithstanding this demonstration, however, it is possible that faces displaying fundamental character traits may exert influence over lower-level aspects of cognition that precede-and serve as the foundation for-impression formation. For example, paralleling work on emotional expressions, faces conveying important traits may automatically attract attentional resources. Accordingly, employing a dot-probe task, the current research explored whether faces varying in dominance (Experiments 1 & 2) and trustworthiness (Experiment 3) trigger attentional capture. The results were consistent across all three experiments. Using both naturalistic and computer-generated faces of women and men, neither dominance nor trustworthiness captured attention. The theoretical implications of these findings are considered.

This study examined the effect of time delay on prospective memory (PM) by manipulating the interval between encoding and retrieval of an event-based PM task. Seventy-four participants were randomly assigned to one of three delay conditions (immediate, 1-day, and 1-week) and were instructed on a classic dual event-based PM task during the first online experimental session. They were then asked to undertake the PM task after the designated delay period based on their assigned experimental condition in the second online session. Significant main effects of delay on PM performance (measured in terms of remembrance and accuracy) were found. Post hoc test results revealed that, when compared to the no-delay condition, the 1-week delay condition impacted both remembrance as well as accuracy of the PM task, while the 1-day delay condition affected only accuracy but not remembrance. This study provides a unique contribution to the PM literature by including longer delay intervals between PM encoding and retrieval to improve ecological validity. In future research, this factor should be considered when studying PM in different groups of participants, including children, older individuals, and clinical populations.

Estimation of body weight relies on a cognitive process of social comparison, whereas people compare the perceived weight of two or more people. Social comparison is often carried out from a first-person perspective (i.e., anchored in the perceiver's body). Research has shown that first-person social comparison affects the perceiver's representation of their body, resulting in increased dissatisfaction and weight concerns. We have less knowledge about social comparison when the perceiver estimates the relative weight from a third-person perspective (i.e., when comparing other people). Also, whether it is affected by how the perceiver relates to their own body. This project examines how the ability to detect weight differences in others relates to the perceiver's body image. Body image was measured using the Body Shape Questionnaire, specifically weight concern and body dissatisfaction. Eighty females were given the task of determining if two body images presented on a screen weighed the same. Results showed that perceivers' weight concern predicted a smaller difference in the detection threshold. This finding is discussed in terms of the distinction between body schema and body image, how they influence body perception, and how social media exposes us to images of bodies with messages that can have a negative impact on our body esteem.

Gaze-cueing is subject to social influences; people tend to shift their attention in the same direction as others, but this relationship may be affected by the observer's race and the observed's race. Evidence suggests that Italian (Black and White) and American (Black and White) populations show preferential ingroup gaze-cueing for White participants, but no preferential variance for Black participants. This experimental study aimed to examine the robustness of this effect within a British population, with a secondary aim of understanding processes behind racial differences via the use of implicit racial bias, explicit racial identity and self-esteem measures. Results revealed that Black participants showed an ingroup bias in gaze-cueing, whereas no such bias was observed for White participants, contradicting previous findings. The hypothesised secondary processes did not significantly influence the biases in gaze-cueing between groups. These findings emphasise intergroup variability's importance in gaining a better understanding of how racialised gaze-cueing manifests across different populations.

The emotional oddball paradigm involves sequences of frequently presented standard stimuli and rare (mostly emotional) deviant stimuli. Presenting a highly arousing, emotionally negative deviant in a stream of neutral standard information is usually associated with a weaker recall rate (in a subsequent memory task) for stimuli that had been presented directly before the negative deviant (i.e. retrograde amnesia). This effect has often been explained by the arousal-biased competition (ABC) theory, which states that arousal biases attention towards salient stimuli and away from less salient stimuli; therefore, the focus of the ABC theory is on the arousing effects of the deviant. However, there is also evidence showing that emotionally arousing positive deviants led to enhanced recall rates for stimuli preceding the deviant (Hurlemann et al., 2005; Experiment 1). In this study we replicated the methods used in the aforementioned study from Hurlemann et al. (2005), but did neither find enhanced nor decreased recall performances for stimuli preceding positive deviants. We did, however, find weak evidence of poorer recall rates for stimuli preceding a negative deviant. The implications of these results for the ABC theory and the role of positive valence on memory are discussed.

Iconicity (the extent to which word forms resemble their meanings) is proposed to be based on universally accessible form mappings that depict/express sensory imagery. In the present study, we explored phonological structural features proposed to be characteristic of iconicity and subjective iconicity ratings in two large English and Spanish datasets. Restricting analyses to words with good rating agreement across participants, we show that the distributions of iconicity ratings differ considerably between the two languages, with far fewer Spanish words rated as iconic. Multiple regression analyses showed that structural markedness significantly predicted iconicity ratings in both languages, although the relationship was weaker in Spanish. Highly rated English forms included many phonaesthemes, that is, words with systematic sound-meaning mappings that can be iconic or non-iconic. Surprisingly, English and Spanish words rated higher in iconicity had larger phonological neighbourhoods despite comprising less frequently occurring phoneme sequences. In English, words rated as more iconic were also more likely to be polysemes (i.e. convey multiple, metaphorically-related meanings) than linked to a specific sensory meaning. Regression models revealed phonological/phonetic features, syllable structures and reduplications predicted significant proportions of variance in both English (33.3%) and Spanish iconicity ratings (50.8%), demonstrating both common and language-specific mappings. While our findings support the qualified use of subjective ratings for cross-linguistic comparisons of iconicity, we recommend researchers control for systematicity and polysemy and consider using additional/alternative measures to exclude non-iconic forms.

Gestures can play a role in narrating emotionally valenced autobiographical events, particularly in second language use. We investigated how hand gestures, phenomenological experience, narrative details, and level of emotionality interact during autobiographical memory narration. Forty-one Turkish-speaking individuals (26 females; M_age = 21.12, SD_age = 2.13) narrated emotional autobiographical events (two in English, two in Turkish). Results indicated no effect of the second language on phenomenological ratings, level of emotionality, or narrative details. Representational gestures correlated with phenomenological characteristics and episodic details in nearly all narratives. The primary difference between first- and second- language use involved beat gestures, particularly in negative events. In the first language, they were linked to all details, while in the second language, they correlated only with the phenomenological characteristics. These findings suggest that representational gestures assist in scene construction in both languages for proficient speakers, while beat gestures emphasize details in the first language and enhance fluency in the second language.

This study examines the influence of commas and line breaks on attachment preferences in Spanish preverbal relative clauses with two potential antecedents (e.g., The colleague of the violinist who is a far-right supporter performed with the orchestra yesterday). Previous research in Spanish, which focused on postverbal relative clauses, provided evidence that commas introduce an implicit prosodic boundary that encourages attachment to the higher determiner phrase (DP1, the colleague). Here, we assess the separate and combined effects of commas and line breaks in three offline studies in Spanish. First, we assess attachment preferences of sentences with relative clauses preceded by commas and without commas in the under-researched preverbal position. Then, we test whether line breaks could have the same effect as commas in determining attachment. Our findings suggest that only commas consistently and significantly impact attachment preferences, favoring high attachment, and that visual segmentation through line breaks is not enough to obtain the same effect.

The degree to which face processing abilities inter-relate, and associate with general intelligence, remains a contentious issue. Furthermore, poorer face processing abilities may be a result of reduced social interest associated with higher levels of trait-autism, consistent with the social motivation theory of autism. However, the association between multiple dimensions of face processing (i.e., a general face factor) and trait-autism, specifically autistic-like nonverbal communication, has not been estimated. Consequently, we administered four face processing ability tests (assessing face detection, the perception and memory of face identity, and expression recognition), four cognitive ability tests, and the Autism Quotient to a sample of 253 general community adults. Based on latent variable modelling, we identified a general face processing ability factor (f), and it was positively associated with general intelligence (g; λ = .48). We conclude that face processing abilities may be a candidate ability within the Cattell-Horn-Carroll model of intelligence. Moreover, face memory was positively associated with g (β = .31). We discuss the possibility of developmental prosopagnosia, i.e., deficits in face memory, being diagnosed as a learning disability. Furthermore, autistic-like nonverbal communication was a significant, negative predictor (β = -.45) of f, and g was neither a mediator nor suppressor of the effect. Finally, the unique effect between autistic-like nonverbal communication difficulties and face processing abilities, independently of intelligence, was considered in line with the social motivation theory of autism.