Cannot avert the eyes: reduced attentional blink toward others’ emotional expressions in empathic people

Empathy is one of the core components of social interaction. Although current models of empathy emphasize the role of attention, few studies have directly examined the relationship between attentional processes and individual differences in empathy. This study hypothesized that empathic people would process emotional expressions more efficiently and automatically compared to less empathic people. Crucially, such a processing advantage should be present only for faces of others compared to one’s own face. To test this hypothesis, 100 healthy participants varying in their self-reported empathy levels underwent an attentional blink task that tested preferential attentional processing. Results showed a diminished attentional blink effect for sad faces of others in the high-empathy group. Additionally, performance differences in the task were related to both trait empathy and daily prosocial behavior. Overall, our results show that emotional stimuli preferentially capture the attention of empathic people, leading to automatic processing.     

Do the upright eyes have it?

Eye contact is crucial for social communication. A perceived direct gaze facilitates detection, whereas face inversion diminishes this facilitative effect (Senju, Hasegawa, & Tojo, 2005). In the present study, we adopted a visual search paradigm to investigate why a direct gaze facilitates detection in an upright face, but not in an upside-down face. Upright eyes were found to facilitate detection even when other parts of the face were inverted or absent, whereas inverted eyes had no effect on search performance. A critical role for the morphological information of upright eyes, which can be distorted by “eye inversion,” in direct gaze processing is suggested.     

Nietzsche and the Empirical: through the eyes of the term ‘Empfindung’

Abstract

This paper examines Nietzsche’s attitude to the empirical by concentrating on his concept of Empfindung (sensation, perception, feeling). In Section 1, five distinctive features of his use of ‘Empfmdung’ are described in relation to the philosophical tradition and some of his sources in 19^th Century physiology. All five features, I argue, point to Nietzsche’s philosophical concern to stake out the limits of ‘Empfmdung’ as an aspect of human finitude. In Section 2, my attention turns from the term ‘Empfmdung’ to Nietzsche’s actual argumentation. The bewildering variety of perspectives and arguments concerning ‘Empfmdung’ in his writings are broken down into three basic types of argument or discourse with radically different, incompatible presuppositions: a critical, epistemological discourse serving anti-metaphysical ends; a quasi-scientific discourse serving critical-epistemological ends; and a quasi-ontological discourse of life that looks to explain the results of Nietzsche’s critical epistemology. The value of this ‘contradictory’ practice, I contend, is twofold: Nietzsche makes epistemology fruitful for the philosophical problem of life; at the same time he offers a performative critique of epistemology by the manner in which he exceeds it.     

What determines the eyes’ landing position in words?

The place at which the eyes first fixate in a word during continuous reading, called thepreferred landing position(PLP), is usually located halfway between the beginning and the middle of the word. To propose a mechanism that might account for the off-center location of the PLP, six eye movement experiments were conducted using a lexical decision task (Experiment 1) and a stimulus bisection task (Experiments 2–6). The type of stimulus—linguistic (words and nonwords) versus nonlinguistic (strings of hashes, dotted lines, and solid lines)—and the stimulus presentation side (left vs. right) were manipulated. The results showed that (1) stimulus discreteness versus continuousness is an important factor in saccade computation and (2) PLP asymmetry can be explained in terms of attentional and/or oculomotor processes.     

Do the eyes have it? Cues to the direction of social attention

The face communicates an impressive amount of visual information. We use it to identify its owner, how they are feeling and to help us understand what they are saying. Models of face processing have considered how we extract such meaning from the face but have ignored another important signal - eye gaze. In this article we begin by reviewing evidence from recent neurophysiological studies that suggests that the eyes constitute a special stimulus in at least two senses. First, the structure of the eyes is such that it provides us with a particularly powerful signal to the direction of another person's gaze, and second, we may have evolved neural mechanisms devoted to gaze processing. As a result, gaze direction is analysed rapidly and automatically, and is able to trigger reflexive shifts of an observer's visual attention. However, understanding where another individual is directing their attention involves more than simply analysing their gaze direction. We go on to describe research with adult participants, children and non-human primates that suggests that other cues such as head orientation and pointing gestures make significant contributions to the computation of another's direction of attention.     

“Ordinary people” and the truncated nuclear family

The American-made movie Ordinary People, which moved and troubled audiences in the United States and abroad in 1980 when it appeared, exemplifies a type of truncated nuclear family in which the wife-mother attempts to model herself after the role of the husband-father, espousing those values more characteristic of men at home and in the world of work. The author holds that the movie accurately established a casual connection between the particular form of marital relationship and the psychiatric disturbance of one of the offspring during adolescence.     

What makes people happy? Decoupling the experiential-material continuum

Extant literature suggests that consumers derive more happiness from experiences (e.g., vacations) than from material possessions (e.g., furniture). However, this literature typically pits material against experiential consumption, treating them as a single bipolar construct of their relative dominance: more material or more experiential. This focus on relative dominance leaves unanswered questions regarding how different levels of material and experiential qualities each contribute to happiness. Four preregistered studies (N = 3,288), using hundreds of product categories, measured levels of material and experiential qualities using two unipolar items. These studies investigate recalled, evoked, and anticipated happiness. Results show a more nuanced view of the experiential advantage that is critical for future research and consumer theory: material and experiential qualities both have positive relationships with happiness. Further, there is no inherent trade-off between experiential and material qualities: consumers can enjoy consumption that is high on both (e.g., swimming pools and home improvements).     

The lonely passion of the “people”*

This paper explores the psychological sources of support for a leader, and unwavering belief in the illusions he promotes, which persists despite confrontation with reality. Lonely passion is an oxymoron. It is passion because of the intensity of the supporters’ longing which is partially shaped by fear and loss. Their passion is lonely because they appear to be left empty with their love unrequited, having given their selves up and only having an illusion in return. It explores the effects of socio-economic disruption in creating or contributing to the development of a “social character” and threatening the integrity of the self. It explores the characteristics of the leader, including methods of manipulation, in eliciting passionate devotion. It uses Ferenczi’s Confusion of Tongues situation as a model for understanding the relationship between leader and follower. The idealization of the leader as a power to be feared and a savior from the imagined threats he has created, and the dynamics of identification, masochism and victimization are invoked. The only remedy for the toxicity of the situation is empathy, which is understood in a historical as well as psychological context.     

Are religious people nicer people? Taking a closer look at the religion–empathy relationship

It has been argued that an empathically mediated, kin-specific, altruistic impulse is part of the human genetic heritage, and that one of the functions of religion is to extend the range of this impulse beyond the kinship circle. However, it is clear that religion does not always succeed in this. The present study reconsiders the religiosity–empathy relation in a Flemish student sample (n?=?375), using the Post-Critical Belief Scale, which allows to distinguish between being religious or not (Exclusion versus Inclusion of Transcendence) from the way in which religious contents are processed (Literal versus Symbolic). It is argued that the religiosity–empathy relation should be understood in terms of how people process religious contents rather than in terms of whether or not people are religious. In line with this reasoning, results show that, whereas empathy is unrelated to being religious, it is positively related to processing religious contents in a symbolic way. Social desirability did not influence these relationships.     

Can the eyes reveal a person’s emotions? Biasing role of the mouth expression

In this study we investigated how perception of the eye expression in a face is influenced by the mouth expression, even when only the eyes are directly looked at. The same eyes appeared in a face with either an incongruent smiling, angry, or sad mouth, a congruent mouth, or no mouth. Attention was directed to the eyes by means of cueing and there were no fixations on the mouth. Participants evaluated whether the eyes were happy (or angry, or sad) or not. Results indicated that the smile biased the evaluation of the eyes towards happiness to a greater extent than an angry or a sad mouth did towards anger or sadness. The smiling mouth was also more visually salient than the angry and the sad mouths. We conclude that the role of the eyes as a “window” to a person’s emotional and motivational state is constrained and distorted by the configural projection of an expressive mouth, and that this effect is enhanced by the high visual saliency of the smile.     

Seeing the world with the eyes of the outgroup — The impact of perspective taking on the prototypicality of the ingroup relative to the outgroup

The positive effect of perspective taking on favorable attitudes towards stigmatized individuals and outgroups is well established (Batson et al., 1997). We draw on the ingroup projection model (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999) to better understand the processes underlying this effect. Based on their egocentric perspective, ingroup and outgroup members have different representations of the superordinate group (perspective divergence) so that the ingroup is perceived as more relatively prototypical of the superordinate group, leading to negative outgroup evaluation. We hypothesize that the positive effect of perspective taking on outgroup attitudes is due to a reduction of relative ingroup prototypicality. Across three studies with different manipulations of perspective taking, we found that participants who were taking the perspective of an outgroup member evaluated the outgroup more positively and were less inclined to perceive their ingroup as more relatively prototypical. The effect of perspective taking on outgroup attitudes was mediated by relative ingroup prototypicality.     

Visual inspection of data revisited: Do the eyes still have it?

In behavior analysis, visual inspection of graphic information is the standard by which data are evaluated. Efforts to supplement visual inspection using inferential statistical procedures to assess intervention effects (e.g., analysis of variance or time-series analysis) have met with opposition. However, when serial dependence is present in the data, the use of visual inspection by itself may prove to be problematic. Previously published reports demonstrate that autocorrelated data influence trained observers' ability to identify level treatment effects and trends that occur in the intervention phase of experiments. In this report, four recent studies are presented in which autoregressive equations were used to produce point-to-point functions to simulate experimental data. In each study, various parameters were manipulated to assess trained observers' responses to changes in point-to-point functions from the baseline condition to intervention. Level shifts over baseline behavior (treatment effect), as well as no change from baseline (no treatment effect or trend), were most readily identified by observers, but trends were rarely recognized. Furthermore, other factors previously thought to augment and improve observers' responses had no impact. Results are discussed in terms of the use of visual inspection and the training of behavior analysts.     

Do people remember the temporal proximity of unrelated events?

In the present study, we tested the ability to remember the temporal proximity of two unrelated events that had happened within 7 days of one another. In three experiments, 1,909 participants judged whether pairs of news events, ranging in age from 1 month to about 6 years, had occurred within a week of each other and, if not, how far apart they had occurred. Some event pairs were related, and others were unrelated. For unrelated event pairs, same-week and separation judgments were very poor. Accuracy was much greater for both kinds of judgments when the events were related. Participants often guessed the separation of unrelated event pairs, whereas they frequently deduced the separation or remembered the proximity of related event pairs. For both types of pairs, the participants reported using the strength of the memories or the general period in which the events had occurred.     

Spatial coding and central patterns: is there something special about the eyes?

In this study we investigated in a Simon-like task whether task-irrelevant spatial information, delivered by centrally presented patterns, interfered with response selection in the same way as laterally presented stimuli. Second, we asked whether such interference was equal for different kinds of stimuli. Participants were required to respond to the colour of two framed squares, two arrows, or two schematic eyes by pressing one of two lateralized response keys. The results consistently show that the Simon effect occurs independently of the nature of the stimulus, as classically reported for lateralized stimuli. Response times were influenced by the direction and frame-relative position of the stimuli, being faster for responses corresponding to the direction indicated by the stimuli than for noncorresponding responses regardless of stimulus types. Contrary to findings with lateralized nondirectional stimuli, such an effect increased with increasing RTs indicating that for centrally presented patterns the extraction of spatial information is time consuming.     

“Avoiding or approaching eyes”? Introversion/extraversion affects the gaze-cueing effect

We investigated whether the extra-/introversion personality dimension can influence processing of others’ eye gaze direction and emotional facial expression during a target detection task. On the basis of previous evidence showing that self-reported trait anxiety can affect gaze-cueing with emotional faces, we also verified whether trait anxiety can modulate the influence of intro-/extraversion on behavioral performance. Fearful, happy, angry or neutral faces, with either direct or averted gaze, were presented before the target appeared in spatial locations congruent or incongruent with stimuli’s eye gaze direction. Results showed a significant influence of intra-/extraversion dimension on gaze-cueing effect for angry, happy, and neutral faces with averted gaze. Introverts did not show the gaze congruency effect when viewing angry expressions, but did so with happy and neutral faces; extraverts showed the opposite pattern. Importantly, the influence of intro-/extraversion on gaze-cueing was not mediated by trait anxiety. These findings demonstrated that personality differences can shape processing of interactions between relevant social signals.     

The Russian Church since 1917 through the eyes of Post‐Soviet Russian historians

Istoriya Russkoi Tserkvi 1917–1997 by Protoiyerei Vladislav Tsypin (Volume IX of Istoriya Russkoi Tserkvi in nine volumes). Moscow: Spaso‐Preobrazhensky Valaam Monastery, under the sponsorship of Patriarch Aleksi II and Yu. M. Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, 1997. 832 pp.

Istoriya Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi ot vosstanovleniya patriarshestva do nashikh dnei. Tom I: 1917–1970 by Mikhail B. Danilushkin, Tat'yana K. Nikol'skaya, Mikhail V. Shkarovsky, Fr Vladimir Dmitriyev and Boris P. Kutuzov. St. Petersburg: Voskreseniye, 1997. 1020 pp.

Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ i Sovetskoye gosudarstvo v 1943–1964 godakh by M. V. Shkarovsky. St. Petersburg: Dean + Adia‐M, 1995. Paperback, 216 pp.     

Does the "eyes lead the hand" principle apply to reach-to-grasp movements evoked by unexpected balance perturbations?

A fundamental principle that has emerged from studies of natural gaze behavior is that goal-directed arm movements are typically guided by a saccade to the target. In this study, we evaluated a hypothesis that this principle does not apply to rapid reach-to-grasp movements evoked by sudden unexpected balance perturbations. These perturbations involved forward translation of a large (2 × 6 m) motion platform configured to simulate a “real-life” environment. Subjects performed a common “daily-life” visuo-cognitive task (find a telephone and make a call) that required walking to the end of the platform, which was triggered to move as they approached a handrail mounted alongside the travel path. A deception was used to ensure that the perturbation was truly unexpected. Eleven of 18 healthy young-adult subjects (age 22-30) reached to grasp or touch the rail in response to the balance perturbation. In support of the hypothesis, none of these arm reactions was guided by concurrent visual fixation of the handrail. Seven of the 11 looked at the rail upon first entering the environment, and hence may have used “stored” central-field information about the handrail location to guide the subsequent arm reaction. However, the other four subjects never looked directly at the rail, indicating a complete reliance on peripheral vision. These findings add to previous evidence of distinctions in the CNS control of volitional and perturbation-evoked arm movements. Future studies will determine whether similar visuo-motor behavior occurs when the available handhold is smaller or when subjects are not engaged in a concurrent visuo-cognitive task.