Socially triggered negative affect impairs performance in simple cognitive tasks

The aim of this research was to investigate the influence of a social-evaluative context on simple cognitive tasks. While another person present in the room evaluated photographs of beautiful women or landscapes by beauty/attractiveness, female participants had to perform a combination of digit-categorization and spatial-compatibility task. There, before every trial, one of the women or landscape pictures was presented. Results showed selective performance impairments: the numerical distance effects increased on trials that followed women pictures but only, if another person concurrently evaluated these women pictures. In a second experiment, using the affective priming paradigm, the authors show that female pictures have a more negative connotation when they are concurrently evaluated by another person (social-evaluative context) than when they are not evaluated (neutral context). Together, these results suggest that the social-evaluative context triggers mild negative affective reactions to women pictures which then impair performance in an unrelated task.     

The joint flanker effect: Less social than previously thought

Research on joint action has been taken to suggest that actors automatically co-represent the tasks and/or actions of co-actors. However, recent findings on the joint Simon effect have provided evidence for a nonsocial account, which renders automatic co-representation unlikely. In the present study, we aimed to test whether a nonsocial account is also feasible for the joint version of the flanker task. In particular, we manipulated the social nature of the “co-actor” who could be another human or a Japanese waving cat. Contrary to the social interpretation of the joint flanker effect, the results demonstrated a “joint” flanker effect, irrespective of whether participants shared the task with another person or with the Japanese waving cat.     

Perceptions of Perfection: The Influence of Social Media on Interpersonal Evaluations

Through social network sites such as Facebook, people gain information about acquaintances that they would not gain from everyday life. This information typically highlights the most positive aspects of people’s personalities and lives. The goal of this investigation was to determine whether looking at another user’s Facebook profile influences perceptions of that individual’s socially desirable characteristics (e.g., intelligence, attractiveness). One group of participants viewed an acquaintance’s Facebook profile before providing evaluations, and the other evaluated the person without viewing Facebook. Results revealed that participants who viewed another person’s Facebook profile evaluated that person more favorably than those who completed a control task (Study 1) or wrote about the person from memory (Study 2). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Social Anxiety and Attention away from Emotional Faces

A substantial literature indicates that anxiety is often associated with selective attention to threat cues. Socially anxious individuals are excessively concerned about negative evaluation by others. One might therefore predict that high social anxiety would be associated with selective attention to negative facial expressions. On the other hand, some recent models have suggested that social anxiety may be associated with reduced processing of external social cues. A modified dot-probe task was used to investigate face attention. High and low socially anxious individuals were presented with pairs of pictures, consisting of a face (positive, neutral, or negative) and a household object, under conditions of social-evaluative threat or no threat. The results indicated that, compared to low socially anxious individuals, high socially anxious individuals show an attentional bias away from emotional (positive and negative) faces but this effect is only observed under conditions of social-evaluative threat. Theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed.     

Social-Evaluative Threat and Proinflammatory Cytokine Regulation: An Experimental Laboratory Investigation

ABSTRACT— This study experimentally tested whether a stressor characterized by social-evaluative threat (SET), a context in which the self can be judged negatively by others, would elicit increases in proinflammatory cytokine activity and alter the regulation of this response. This hypothesis was derived in part from research on immunological responses to social threat in nonhuman animals. Healthy female participants were assigned to perform a speech and a math task in the presence or absence of an evaluative audience (SET or non-SET, respectively). As hypothesized, stimulated production of the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) increased from baseline to poststressor in the SET condition, but was unchanged in the non-SET condition. Further, the increases in TNF-α production correlated with participants' cognitive appraisals of being evaluated. Additionally, the ability of glucocorticoids to shut down the inflammatory response was decreased in the SET condition. These findings underscore the importance of social evaluation as a threat capable of eliciting proinflammatory cytokine activity and altering its regulation.     

Internal versus external attention in social anxiety: an investigation using a novel paradigm

Several cognitive models propose that social anxiety is associated with increased self-focused attention. Indirect evidence for this hypothesis has been provided by questionnaire studies, and by cognitive psychology paradigms that have demonstrated reduced processing of external information during feared social-evaluative situations. However, no studies have simultaneously measured on-line attention to internal and external events. A probe detection task that aimed to measure the balance of attention between internal and external stimuli was developed. High and low socially anxious individuals were instructed to detect two probes. The external probe was superimposed on pictures of faces (happy, neutral, angry) or household objects that were presented on a VDU. The 'internal' probe was a pulse to the finger which participants were led to believe represented significant changes in their physiology. Compared to low speech anxious individuals, high speech anxious individuals showed an internal attentional bias, that was specific to conditions of social-evaluative threat.     

Early understanding of the socially mediated representational function of pictures

The present two studies investigated whether toddlers’ ability to use pictures in problem solving could be facilitated by making available the social context in which pictures were created. To make this social context available, we introduced an Experimental treatment in which the creator was intentionally drawing different objects. In Experiment-1, due to this treatment, children performed better in the Test in which the Experimenter was drawing the Test-pictures of the retrieval task. In Experiment-2, after the same Experimental treatment the facilitative effect was replicated although the social context was removed in the Test phase by using pre-drawn Test-pictures without any drawing action in the retrieval task. The results suggest that a treatment which offers the opportunity to understand the socially mediated representational function of pictures enables children to perform better when contextualizing pictures in current reality. These two experiments revealed a novel way to facilitate children’s picture comprehension by identifying an underlying factor that can explain children’s difficulty in picture comprehension.     

Negative social evaluation, but not mere social presence, elicits cortisol responses to a laboratory stressor task.

BACKGROUND: Recent research has supported the premise that performance conditions characterized by social-evaluative threat, in which an aspect of the self could be judged by others, are associated with cortisol responses. However, it remains unclear whether this effect is due to negative social evaluation per se or simply the presence of another during a performance situation. Method: In the present study, 89 undergraduates delivered a speech in 1 of 3 conditions: in front of an evaluative audience panel (social-evaluative threat [SET]), in the presence of an inattentive confederate (PRES), or alone in a room (non-SET). RESULTS: Consistent with hypotheses, participants in the SET condition demonstrated a significant cortisol response, while those in the non-SET and PRES conditions did not show increases in this hormone. Further, participants in the SET condition who reported greater posttask levels of self-conscious cognitions and emotions demonstrated the greatest increases in cortisol. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that the mere social presence of others is not driving the changes in cortisol observed under social-evaluative threat; instead, explicit negative social evaluation may be responsible for increases in this health-relevant physiological parameter.     

Human social defeat and approach–avoidance: Escalating social-evaluative threat and threat of aggression increases social avoidance

Basic research on avoidance by Murray Sidman laid the foundation for advances in the classification, conceptualization and treatment of avoidance in psychological disorders. Contemporary avoidance research is explicitly translational and increasingly focused on how competing appetitive and aversive contingencies influence avoidance. In this laboratory investigation, we examined the effects of escalating social-evaluative threat and threat of social aggression on avoidance of social interactions. During social-defeat learning, 38 adults learned to associate 9 virtual peers with an increasing probability of receiving negative evaluations. Additionally, 1 virtual peer was associated with positive evaluations. Next, in an approach–avoidance task with social-evaluative threat, 1 peer associated with negative evaluations was presented alongside the peer associated with positive evaluations. Approaching peers produced a positive or a probabilistic negative evaluation, while avoiding peers prevented a negative evaluation (and forfeited a positive evaluation). In an approach–avoidance task with social aggression, virtual peers gave and took money away from participants. Escalating social-evaluative threat and aggression increased avoidance, ratings of feeling threatened and threat expectancy and decreased ratings of peer favorableness. These findings underscore the potential of coupling social defeat and approach–avoidance paradigms for translational research on the neurobehavioral mechanisms of social approach–avoidance decision-making and anxiety.     

Tactual picture identification by blind and sighted people: Effects of providing categorical information

Four experiments examined the influence of categorical information and visual experience on the identification of tangible pictures, produced with a raised-line drawing kit. In Experiment 1, prior categorical information aided the accuracy and speed of picture identification. In a second experiment, categorical information helped subjects when given after the examination of each picture, but before any attempt at identification. The benefits of categorical information were also obtained in another group of subjects, when the superordinate categories were named at the start of the experiment. In a third experiment, a multiple-choice picture recognition task was used to eliminate the difficulty of naming from the picture-identification task. The multiple-choice data showed higher accuracy and shorter latencies when compared with identification tasks. A fourth experiment evaluated picture identification in blindfolded sighted, early, and late blind participants. Congenitally blind subjects showed lower performance than did the other groups, despite the availability of prior categorical information. The data were consistent with theories that assume that visual imagery aids tactual perception in naming raised line drawings. It was proposed that part of the difficulty in identification of raised line pictures may derive from problems in locating picture categories or names, and not merely in perception of the patterns.     

社会性信息对Flanker效应的影响

研究显示,面孔Flanker任务中,经典Flanker效应会消失,但其机制还不明确。本文在ANT-I范式的基础上,除常规的箭头Flanker,增加面孔Flanker、两侧为箭头中间为面孔和两侧为面孔中间为箭头的混合Flanker,探究造成该现象的可能原因。结果发现,当Flanker任务中的干扰刺激为箭头时,Flanker效应存在;而干扰刺激为面孔时,Flanker效应则消失了。提示,Flanker任务中干扰刺激的社会性可能是造成Flanker效应消失的原因。这为冲突信息加工中社会性与非社会性信息的控制机制提供了新的视角。     

Unattended musical beats enhance visual processing

The present study investigated whether and how a musical rhythm entrains a listener's visual attention. To this end, participants were presented with pictures of faces and houses and indicated whether picture orientation was upright or inverted. Participants performed this task in silence or with a musical rhythm playing in the background. In the latter condition, pictures could occur off-beat or on a rhythmically implied, silent beat. Pictures presented without the musical rhythm and off-beat were responded to more slowly than pictures presented on-beat. This effect was comparable for faces and houses. Together these results indicate that musical rhythm both synchronizes and facilitates concurrent stimulus processing.     

Effects of Grammatical Gender on Picture and Word Naming: Evidence from German

The present study investigated the effects of prior grammatical gender information (masculine, feminine, and neuter) provided by a minimal sentence context on both picture- and word-naming latencies. Named targets were nouns or pictures of concepts featuring unambiguous grammatical gender. Simple sentence fragments were presented auditorily prior to each picture or word target; the relation between these sentence primes and the word or picture target was either gender-congruent, gender-incongruent, or gender-neutral. Relative to the gender-neutral baseline, reliable facilitation and inhibition effects were both observed in the picture-naming task. By contrast, only inhibition effects were observed in the word-naming task. The results suggest that the processes of picture and word naming differ qualitatively when gender information is precued. The findings are discussed with respect to the distinction between postlexical and intralexical loci of the effects of gender context on word recognition and production.     

Inhibitory Control of Lexical Selection in Adults who Stutter

PurposeBased on previous evidence that lexical selection may operate differently in adults who stutter (AWS) versus typically-fluent adults (TFA), and that atypical attentional processing may be a contributing factor, the purpose of this study was to investigate inhibitory control of lexical selection in AWS.Method12 AWS and 12 TFA completed two tasks. One was a picture naming task featuring High and Low Agreement object naming. Naming accuracy and reaction times (RT), and event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to picture onset, were recorded. Second was a flanker task featuring Congruent and Incongruent arrow arrays. Push-button accuracy and RTs, and ERPs time-locked to arrow array onset, were recorded.ResultsLow Agreement pictures were named less accurately and slower than High Agreement pictures in both Groups. The magnitude of the Agreement effect on naming RTs was larger in AWS versus TFA. Delta-plot analysis revealed that the Agreement effect was positively correlated with individual differences in inhibition in TFA but not in AWS. Moreover, Low Agreement pictures elicited negative-going ERP activity relative to High Agreement pictures in both Groups. However, the scalp topography of this effect was markedly reduced in AWS versus TFA. For the Flanker task, Congruency affected push-button accuracy and RTs, and N2 amplitudes, similarly between groups.ConclusionsResults point to a selective deficit in inhibitory control of lexical selection in AWS. Potential pathways between diminished inhibitory control of lexical selection, speech motor control and stuttering are discussed.     

Individual differences in banknote processing: the role of altruism

We evaluated whether banknotes processing depended on altruism and attitude towards money. In Experiment 1, context effects were examined when participants named banknotes blocked by category or intermixed with pictures from semantic categories. Attitude towards money was assessed by questionnaires and the degree of altruism was evaluated with the dictator game task. In this task, participants received an amount of money and they had to decide whether to donate all, nothing or part of it. A facilitation effect was found in the banknote naming task and this effect increased as the amount of donations decreased. In Experiment 2, we examined whether less altruistic individuals might focus on the relevant information needed to process banknotes in a monetary Stroop task. Only more altruistic individuals showed Stroop effects. These results are interpreted as due to enhanced control while processing relevant information associated to banknotes in less altruistic individuals.     

Task choice and semantic interference in picture naming

Evidence from dual-task performance indicates that speakers prefer not to select simultaneous responses in picture naming and another unrelated task, suggesting a response selection bottleneck in naming. In particular, when participants respond to tones with a manual response and name pictures with superimposed semantically related or unrelated distractor words, semantic interference in naming tends to be constant across stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) between the tone stimulus and the picture–word stimulus. In the present study, we examine whether semantic interference in picture naming depends on SOA in case of a task choice (naming the picture vs reading the word of a picture–word stimulus) based on tones. This situation requires concurrent processing of the tone stimulus and the picture–word stimulus, but not a manual response to the tones. On each trial, participants either named a picture or read aloud a word depending on the pitch of a tone, which was presented simultaneously with picture–word onset or 350 ms or 1000 ms before picture–word onset. Semantic interference was present with tone pre-exposure, but absent when tone and picture-word stimulus were presented simultaneously. Against the background of the available studies, these results support an account according to which speakers tend to avoid concurrent response selection, but can engage in other types of concurrent processing, such as task choices.     

Recognition without picture identification: Geons as components of the pictorial memory trace

Participants viewed a list of black-and-white line drawings and were then presented with a picture fragment identification task in which half of the fragments corresponded to studied pictures and half corresponded to unstudied pictures. In addition to trying to identify each picture fragment, participants gave a rating to indicate the likelihood that the fragment came from a studied picture. When participants could not identify the picture fragments, they were still able to discriminate between fragments that came from studied pictures and fragments that came from unstudied pictures (as shown by their recognition ratings), but only when the fragments contained information about the geometric components (geons) that underlay the original pictures. No recognition without identification was found when the fragments contained only line segment information.     

视觉观点采择需要抑制控制的参与：一项负启动研究

从抑制控制模型出发,采用负启动范式考察视觉观点采择的认知机制。实验1采用自身体转换任务(N=35) 、实验2采用圆点数量判断任务(N=33)分别考察成人在完成二级和一级视觉观点采择任务时是否需要抑制控制的参与。结果发现,成人在完成两类视觉观点采择任务时均出现了负启动效应,说明当他人观点和自我观点不一致时,个体需要抑制自我的观点才能成功采择他人的观点。     

Selective attention in social phobia and the moderating effect of a concurrent depressive disorder

Studies using the modified Stroop colour naming task have provided results consistent with the hypothesis that social phobia is associated with an attentional bias towards negative social-evaluative words. However, these results could also have arisen as a consequence of non-attentional processes. For this reason, the present study uses a modified version of MacLeod et al.'s (J. Abnorm. Psychol. 95 (1986) 15) dot-probe task, which provides a more direct measure of attention. Patients with social phobia (n=28), patients with social phobia and a concurrent depressive disorder (n=33), and non-patients (n=40) were presented with word pairs each consisting of a neutral word and a threat word. The results indicated that patients with social phobia show an attentional bias towards social-threat words while non-patients tend to avoid social-threat words. Patients with social phobia and a concurrent depressive disorder behaved like non-patients, indicating that concurrent depression abolishes the attentional bias. Physical threat words were also included in the study. The main analysis indicated that social phobia is also associated with an attentional bias to physical threat. However, a post hoc analysis (which requires replication) suggested that the physical threat bias might have arisen because some social phobia patients also had another anxiety disorder in which physical concerns are likely to have been prominent. Overall, the results emphasise the importance of assessing comorbidity when investigating attentional biases.