Attentional bias towards angry faces is moderated by the activation of a social processing mode in the general population

ABSTRACT

Dot-probe studies usually find an attentional bias towards threatening stimuli only in anxious participants, but not in non-anxious participants. In the present study, we conducted two experiments to investigate whether attentional bias towards angry faces in unselected samples is moderated by the extent to which the current task requires social processing. In Experiment 1, participants performed a dot-probe task involving classification of either socially meaningful targets (schematic faces) or meaningless targets (scrambled schematic faces). Targets were preceded by two photographic face cues, one angry and one neutral. Angry face cues only produced significant cueing scores (i.e. faster target responses if the target replaced the angry face compared to the neutral face) with socially meaningful targets, not with meaningless targets. In Experiment 2, participants classified only meaningful targets, which were either socially meaningful (schematic faces) or not (schematic houses). Again, mean cueing scores were significantly moderated by the social character of the targets. However, cueing scores in this experiment were non-significant in the social target condition and significantly negative in the non-social target condition. These results suggest that attentional bias towards angry faces in the dot-probe task is moderated by the activation of a social processing mode in unselected samples.     

The interoception and imagination loop in hypnotic phenomena

We tested a working hypothesis that the ideomotor and motor-control suggestions measured by current hypnotizability scales depend on the activation of an interoception-imagination processing loop. In three experiments, participants were exposed to an induction phase, Items 3 (mosquito hallucination) and 8 (arm immobilization) of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C, and a new version of Item 8 involving the additional activation of imaginative and interoception processes. We found that this modified version of Item 8 elicited greater responsiveness to suggestion, irrespective of its position in the sequence of hypnotic items. We argue that this interoception-imagination loop hypothesis provides a useful information processing analysis for understanding several hypnotic phenomena.     

The mutual influence of gaze and head orientation in the analysis of social attention direction

Three experiments are reported that investigate the hypothesis that head orientation and gaze direction interact in the processing of another individual's direction of social attention. A Stroop-type interference paradigm was adopted, in which gaze and head cues were placed into conflict. In separate blocks of trials, participants were asked to make speeded keypress responses contingent on either the direction of gaze, or the orientation of the head displayed in a digitized photograph of a male face. In Experiments 1 and 2, head and gaze cues showed symmetrical interference effects. Compared with congruent arrangements, incongruent head cues slowed responses to gaze cues, and incongruent gaze cues slowed responses to head cues, suggesting that head and gaze are mutually influential in the analysis of social attention direction. This mutuality was also evident in a cross-modal version of the task (Experiment 3) where participants responded to spoken directional words whilst ignoring the head/gaze images. It is argued that these interference effects arise from the independent influences of gaze and head orientation on decisions concerning social attention direction.     

Involuntary processing of social dominance cues from bimodal face-voice displays

Social-rank cues communicate social status or social power within and between groups. Information about social-rank is fluently processed in both visual and auditory modalities. So far, the investigation on the processing of social-rank cues has been limited to studies in which information from a single modality was assessed or manipulated. Yet, in everyday communication, multiple information channels are used to express and understand social-rank. We sought to examine the (in)voluntary nature of processing of facial and vocal signals of social-rank using a cross-modal Stroop task. In two experiments, participants were presented with face-voice pairs that were either congruent or incongruent in social-rank (i.e. social dominance). Participants’ task was to label face social dominance while ignoring the voice, or label voice social dominance while ignoring the face. In both experiments, we found that face-voice incongruent stimuli were processed more slowly and less accurately than were the congruent stimuli in the face-attend and the voice-attend tasks, exhibiting classical Stroop-like effects. These findings are consistent with the functioning of a social-rank bio-behavioural system which consistently and automatically monitors one’s social standing in relation to others and uses that information to guide behaviour.     

How prioritized is self-prioritization during stimulus processing?

Recent research has suggested that self-relevance automatically enhances stimulus processing (i.e., the self-prioritization effect). Notably, information associated with one’s self elicits faster responses than comparable material associated with other targets (e.g., friend, stranger). Challenging the assertion that self-prioritization is an obligatory process, here we hypothesized that self-relevance only facilitates performance when task sets draw attention to previously formed target-object associations. The results of two experiments were consistent with this viewpoint. Compared with arbitrary objects owned by a friend, those owned by the self were classified more rapidly when participants were required to report either the owner or identity of the items (i.e., semantic task set). In contrast, self-relevance failed to facilitate performance when participants judged the orientation of the stimuli (i.e., perceptual task set). These findings demonstrate the conditional automaticity of self-prioritization during stimulus processing.     

自我概念威胁以及与重要他人的比较共同削弱自我面孔优势效应

内隐积极联想理论(implicit positive association, IPA)认为自我面孔识别以及与之伴随的自我意识激发了自我概念的积极属性, 促进了对自我面孔的识别优势, 因此通过自我概念威胁可以削弱自我面孔识别的优势效应。本研究旨在探讨自我概念威胁以及与重要他人的比较对自我面孔优势效应的共同影响。实验一为自我-朋友对比实验, 10对同性好友(20名被试)在接受完自我概念威胁启动或者非威胁性启动后对自我面孔和朋友面孔进行朝向的判断, 结果发现非威胁性启动后, 自我面孔的优势效应依然存在, 而在自我概念威胁启动后, 自我面孔优势效应消失。实验二为自我-陌生人对比实验, 另外20名被试在接受完自我概念威胁启动或者非威胁性启动后, 对自我面孔和陌生人面孔进行朝向的判断, 结果发现, 无论是自我概念威胁启动还是非威胁性启动后, 自我面孔识别优势效应都依然存在。两个实验的结果均主要体现在用左手进行反应的时候。结果表明：自我概念威胁以及与重要他人的比较共同削弱自我面孔优势效应; 而左手效应的发生似乎表明了大脑右半球对自我面孔识别的主导和调节作用。     

Does 'hypnosis' by any other name smell as sweet? The efficacy of 'hypnotic' inductions depends on the label 'hypnosis'

Hypnosis is associated with profound changes in conscious experience and is increasingly used as a cognitive tool to explore neuropsychological processes. Studies of this sort typically employ suggestions following a hypnotic induction to produce changes in perceptual experience and motor control. It is not clear, however, to what extent the induction procedure serves to facilitate suggested phenomena. This study investigated the effect on suggestibility of (a) a hypnotic induction and (b) labelling that procedure 'hypnosis.' Suggestibility of participants was tested before and after an adapted hypnotic procedure, which was either labelled as 'hypnosis' or as 'relaxation.' The hypnotic procedure produced a modest increase in suggestibility when it was called 'relaxation,' but a very significant increase if it was labelled 'hypnosis.' The results are important for both clinical and experimental applications and indicate that labelling an induction procedure 'hypnosis' is an important determinant of subsequent responses to suggestion.     

Attention control and susceptibility to hypnosis

The present work aimed at assessing whether the interference exerted by task-irrelevant spatial information is comparable in high- and low-susceptible individuals and whether it may be eliminated by means of a specific posthypnotic suggestion. To this purpose high- and low-susceptible participants were tested using a Simon-like interference task after the administration of a suggestion aimed at preventing the processing of the irrelevant spatial information conveyed by the stimuli. The suggestion could be administered either in the absence or following a standard hypnotic induction. We showed that, outside from the hypnotic context, the Simon effect was similar in high and low-susceptible participants and it was significantly reduced following the posthypnotic suggestion in high-susceptible participants only. These results show that a specific posthypnotic suggestion can alter information processing in high-susceptible individuals and reduce the interfering effect exerted by arrow stimuli.     

Self-relevance enhances the benefits of attention on perception

ABSTRACT

Considerable efforts have focused on elucidating the influence that self-relevance exerts on perceptual decision-making. To explore this issue further, the current research explored the extent to which stimulus applicability facilitates the benefits of covert attention on early visual processing. In two experiments, we manipulated the personal-relevance of peripheral cues (i.e., geometric shapes) that preceded the appearance of target stimuli (i.e., Gabors) and asked participants to report the orientation of the stimulus with the highest contrast. The results revealed a significant effect of self-relevance on task performance. First, compared to cues associated with a friend or stranger, self-relevant cues enhanced the apparent contrast of a stimulus. Second, the benefits of self-relevance were most pronounced when cues pertained to identities that were significant (vs. trivial or irrelevant) to observers. Together, these findings demonstrate that self-relevance potentiates the benefits of transient attention on stimulus processing.     

Deployment dynamics of hypnotic anger modulation

To understand the role that attention plays in the deployment timeline of hypnotic anger modulation, we composed an Attentional Blink paradigm where the first and second targets were faces, expressing neutral or angry emotions. We then suppressed the salience of angry faces through a “hypnotic numbing” suggestion. We found that hypnotic suggestion only attenuated the emotional salience of the second target (T2). By implementing drift-diffusion decision modelling, we also found that hypnotic suggestion mainly affected decision thresholds. These findings suggest that hypnotic numbing resulted from belated changes in response strategy. Interestingly, a contrast against non-hypnotized participants revealed that the numbing suggestion had the instruction-like feature of incorporating emotional valence into the attentional task-set. Together, our results portray hypnotic anger modulation as a two-tiered process: first, hypnotic suggestion alters the attentional task-set; second, provided processing and response preparation are not interrupted, a hypnotizability-dependent response based on said altered task-set is produced through late cognitive control strategies.     

Effects of geometric distortions on face-recognition performance

The importance of 'configural' processing for face recognition is now well established, but it remains unclear precisely what it entails. Through four experiments we attempted to clarify the nature of configural processing by investigating the effects of various affine transformations on the recognition of familiar faces. Experiment 1 showed that recognition was markedly impaired by inversion of faces, somewhat impaired by shearing or horizontally stretching them, but unaffected by vertical stretching of faces to twice their normal height. In experiment 2 we investigated vertical and horizontal stretching in more detail, and found no effects of either transformation. Two further experiments were performed to determine whether participants were recognising stretched faces by using configural information. Experiment 3 showed that nonglobal vertical stretching of faces (stretching either the top or the bottom half while leaving the remainder undistorted) impaired recognition, implying that configural information from the stretched part of the face was influencing the process of recognition--ie that configural processing involves global facial properties. In experiment 4 we examined the effects of Gaussian blurring on recognition of undistorted and vertically stretched faces. Faces remained recognisable even when they were both stretched and blurred, implying that participants were basing their judgments on configural information from these stimuli, rather than resorting to some strategy based on local featural details. The tolerance of spatial distortions in human face recognition suggests that the configural information used as a basis for face recognition is unlikely to involve information about the absolute position of facial features relative to each other, at least not in any simple way.     

Creating false memories of infancy with hypnotic and non‐hypnotic procedures

This study was designed to test the conditions under while false memory reports are likely to be elicited from hypnotic and non‐hypnotic participants. Low, medium and high hypnotizables were administered either a hypnotic or non‐hypnotic suggestion for regression to the day after birth. False memories of infancy were generated in 68 of 78 age‐regressed participants, nearly half of whom reported strong beliefs in the reality of their recovered ‘memories’. Non‐hypnotic participants were slightly but significantly more likely to report infancy experiences than were hypnotic participants. However, hypnotizability did not have a significant effect on the classification of these experiences as memories or as fantasies. Implications for the experimental and clinical contexts are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seeing is believing: the reality of hypnotic hallucinations

Two experiments investigated the reality attributed to hypnotic suggestion through subtle projection of a visual image during simultaneous suggestion for a visual hallucination that resembled the projected image. In Experiment 1, high and low hypnotizable participants were administered either a hypnotic induction or wake instructions, given a suggestion to hallucinate a shape, and then the projected image was subsequently introduced. Although highs in both conditions rated the projected image more vividly than lows, highs in the hypnosis (but not wake) condition made comparable reality ratings when the projected image was absent and present. In Experiment 2, high hypnotizable participants were administered a suggestion to see a shape on a wall. For half the participants the suggested image was projected on the wall and then removed, and for half the projection was initially absent and then introduced. Participants who had the projection absent and then present reported comparable reality and vividness ratings when the projection was absent and present. These findings indicate that elevated hypnotizability and hypnosis are associated with attributions of external reality to suggested experiences.     

Can expectation enhance response to suggestion? De-automatization illuminates a conundrum

Disparate theoretical viewpoints construe hypnotic suggestibility either as a stable trait, largely determined by underlying cognitive aptitude, or as a flexible skill amenable to attitudinal factors including beliefs and expectations. Circumscribed findings support both views. The present study attempted to consolidate these orthogonal perspectives through the lens of expectancy modification. We surreptitiously controlled light and sound stimuli to convince participants that they were responding strongly to hypnotic suggestions for visual and auditory hallucinations. Extending our previous findings, we indexed hypnotic suggestibility by de-automatizing an involuntary audiovisual phenomenon-the McGurk effect. Here we show that, regardless of expectancy modification, the experimental procedure led to heightened expectations concerning future hypnotic response. We found little effect of expectation, however, on actual response to suggestion. Our findings intimate that, at least in the present experimental context, expectation hardly correlates with--and is unlikely to be a primary determinant of--high hypnotic suggestibility.     

Gaze control and recollective experience in face recognition

In two experiments, we examined the relation between gaze control and recollective experience in the context of face recognition. In Experiment 1, participants studied a series of faces, while their eye movements were eliminated either during study or test, or both. Subsequently, they made remember/know judgements for each recognized test face. The preclusion of eye movements impaired explicit recollection without affecting familiarity-based recognition. In Experiment 2, participants examined unfamiliar faces under two study conditions (similarity vs. difference judgements), while their eye movements were registered. Similarity vs. difference judgements produced the opposite effects on remember/know responses, with no systematic effects on eye movements. However, face recollection was related to eye movements, so that remember responses were associated with more frequent refixations than know responses. These findings suggest that saccadic eye movements mediate the nature of recollective experience, and that explicit recollection reflects a greater consistency between study and test fixations than familiarity-based face recognition.     

Direct Gaze Blurs Self-Other Boundaries

Self-other merging can arise not only between acquainted people but also between strangers. To date, the factors determining self-other merging between strangers remain to be elucidated. We investigate whether strangers’ facial appearance (i.e. gaze direction) modulates such initial processes of self-other merging. In the two experiments, participants viewed strangers’ faces whose gaze either directed to or averted from them. The extent of self-other merging was measured in terms of perception of face resemblance, Inclusion of the Other in the Self (IOS) scale, and correlations of personality judgments. We found that direct gaze blurred the self-other boundaries at both facial and conceptual levels. Participants felt a stranger who directly gazed at them to be closer and more similar to themselves about face and personality.     

Categorising intersectional targets: An “either/and” approach to race- and gender-emotion congruity

Research on the interaction of emotional expressions with social category cues in face processing has focused on whether specific emotions are associated with single-category identities, thus overlooking the influence of intersectional identities. Instead, we examined how quickly people categorise intersectional targets by their race, gender, or emotional expression. In Experiment 1, participants categorised Black and White faces displaying angry, happy, or neutral expressions by either race or gender. Emotion influenced responses to men versus women only when gender was made salient by the task. Similarly, emotion influenced responses to Black versus White targets only when participants categorised by race. In Experiment 2, participants categorised faces by emotion so that neither category was more salient. As predicted, responses to Black women differed from those to both Black men and White women. Thus, examining race and gender separately is insufficient to understanding how emotion and social category cues are processed.     

Internal reinstatement hides cuing effects in source memory tasks

Reinstating source details at test often has no impact on source memory. We tested the proposition that participants internally reinstate source cues when such cues are not provided by the experimenter, thus making the external cues redundant. Participants studied words paired with either a male or a female face and were later asked to specify the gender of the face studied with each word. To disrupt the ability to internally reinstate sources, some participants saw eight male faces and eight female faces throughout the study list (multiple-face condition), making it difficult to determine which face should be internally reinstated for uncued test trials. Other participants saw only a single face for each gender (single-face condition), which should facilitate internal reinstatement. Across three experiments, participants in the multiple-face condition showed improved source discrimination when the studied faces were reinstated at test, as compared to uncued trials. In contrast, participants in the single-face condition showed no effect of the face cues. Moreover, the cuing effect for the multiple-face condition disappeared when the test structure facilitated internal reinstatement. Overall, the experiments support the contention that internal reinstatement is a natural part of source retrieval that can mask the effects of external cues.     

Rapid processing of closure and viewpoint-invariant symmetry: behavioral criteria for feedforward processing

To pin down the processing characteristics of symmetry and closure in contour processing, we investigated their ability to activate rapid motor responses in a primed flanker task. In three experiments, participants selected as quickly and accurately as possible the one of two target contours possessing symmetry or closure. Target pairs were preceded by prime pairs whose spatial arrangement was consistent or inconsistent with respect to the required response. We tested for the efficiency and automaticity of symmetry and closure processing. For both cues, priming effects were present in full magnitude in the fastest motor responses consistent with a simple feedforward model. Priming effects from symmetry cues were independent of skewing and the orientation of their symmetry axis but sometimes failed to increase with increasing prime-target interval. We conclude that closure and (possibly) viewpoint-independent symmetry cues are extracted rapidly during the first feedforward wave of neuronal processing.     

Situational Familiarity,Efficacy Expectations,and the Process of Credibility Attribution

Four experiments investigated the influence of situational familiarity within a judgmental context on the process of credibility attribution. We predicted that high familiarity with a situation would lead to higher efficacy expectations for, and a more pronounced use of, verbal information when making judgments of credibility. Under low situational familiarity, judges were expected to experience higher efficacy expectations for, and a more pronounced use of, nonverbal information. In Experiments 1 through 4, participants under low or high situational familiarity saw a film in which nonverbal cues (fidgety vs. calm movements) and verbal content cues (low vs. high plausibility) were manipulated. As predicted, when familiarity was low, only the nonverbal cues influenced participants’ judgments of credibility. In contrast, participants in the high familiarity condition used only the verbal cues. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that efficacy expectations regarding verbal and nonverbal information, but not processing motivation, drive this familiarity effect.