Joint presentation reduces the effect of emotion on evaluation of public actions

In four experiments conducted on the world wide web, subjects evaluated the priority of policies presented separately or presented jointly in pairs, and/or reported their emotional responses to the problem that each policy addressed. Strength of emotional responses was more strongly related to priority when policies were presented separately than when they were presented jointly. We found evidence for one mechanism that could produce these results: joint presentation increases the evaluability of the policies, thus increasing the influence of cognitive evaluations of importance on priority judgements, and reducing the relative influence of emotional responses. We also found evidence that importance can affect emotional responses. We found no evidence for other mechanisms in which the emotions evoked by one item spread to the other item in joint presentation. The role of evaluability points to the applied value of evaluating policies in the context of alternatives.     

Interactions between visual working memory representations

We investigated whether the representations of different objects are maintained independently in working memory or interact with each other. Observers were shown two sequentially presented orientations and required to reproduce each orientation after a delay. The sequential presentation minimized perceptual interactions so that we could isolate interactions between memory representations per se. We found that similar orientations were repelled from each other whereas dissimilar orientations were attracted to each other. In addition, when one of the items was given greater attentional priority by means of a cue, the representation of the high-priority item was not influenced very much by the orientation of the low-priority item, but the representation of the low-priority item was strongly influenced by the orientation of the high-priority item. This indicates that attention modulates the interactions between working memory representations. In addition, errors in the reported orientations of the two objects were positively correlated under some conditions, suggesting that representations of distinct objects may become grouped together in memory. Together, these results demonstrate that working-memory representations are not independent but instead interact with each other in a manner that depends on attentional priority.     

How does preference reversal appear and disappear? Effects of the evaluation mode

Preference reversal is a systematic change in the preference order between options when different response methods are used (e.g., choice vs. judgment). The present study focuses on procedures used to elicit preferences according to an evaluability hypothesis. Two experiments compared joint vs. separate evaluations and explicit vs. non‐explicit joint evaluations. Subjects had to express preferences between high‐variance gambles (HVGs) and low‐variance gambles (LVGs) either by choosing one gamble to play in a lottery or by assigning gambles minimum selling prices. We show that HVGs are preferred in both choice and pricing conditions when gambles are evaluated separately, and LVGs are preferred in both choice and selling conditions when gambles are evaluated in pairs: i.e., when the evaluation mode is held constant, classic preference reversal disappears. These results support the evaluability hypothesis, and suggest that preferences depend on whether subjects are allowed to compare the options they are asked to choose from or judge, independently of the nature of the scale (i.e., attractiveness vs. minimum selling price) they are required to adopt. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When Is More Better?

Abstract— We examine three determinants of the relationship between the magnitude of a stimulus and a person's subjective "value" of that stimulus: the process by which value is assessed (either by feeling or by calculation), the evaluability of the relevant magnitude variable (whether the desirability of a given level of that variable can be evaluated independently), and the mode of evaluation (whether stimuli are encountered and evaluated jointly or separately). Reliance on feeling, lack of evaluability, and separate evaluation lead to insensitivity to magnitude. An analysis invoking these factors provides a novel account for why people typically become less sensitive to changes in the magnitude of a stimulus as magnitude increases.     

Methodological, developmental, and sex biases in the Social Self-Esteem test? Modest, no, and no

Data on the Social Self-Esteem (SSE) test were examined for two potential method artifacts, sex differences, and developmental effects. A single SSE item was administered to 2009 secondary school students as part of an in-class, self-administered questionnaire. Across four orders of presentation, the measure performed according to construct-derived predictions. Modest order effects emerged when the conditions were examined separately. No evidence for random response was found. No grade by sex interaction was found. Separate trends for grade and sex effects were weak and contrary to the predictions derived from an earlier critique of the measure. It was suggested that use of the SSE be limited to research applications aggregating individuals' responses.     

难度－价值权衡情境下的项目选择及其眼动特征

本研究采用行为和眼动技术,通过设置难度—价值权衡情境,考察在学习时间有限的条件下,学习者如何选择学习项目,以及该过程如何发生。结果发现：(1)被试更多选择得分期望最高的项目,而非分值最高或最简单的项目。(2)选择学习项目的过程不存在计算项目得分期望的过程。结果表明,学习者项目选择不仅基于难度或价值,而是会权衡难度和价值,选择得分期望最高的项目。该过程不符合补偿性决策理论的预期,与非补偿性理论预期一致。     

The processing of task-irrelevant emotion and colour in the Approach-Avoidance Task

When processing information about human faces, we have to integrate different sources of information like skin colour and emotional expression. In 3 experiments, we investigated how these features are processed in a top-down manner when task instructions determine the relevance of features, and in a bottom-up manner when the stimulus features themselves determine process priority. In Experiment 1, participants learned to respond with approach-avoidance movements to faces that presented both emotion and colour features (e.g. happy faces printed in greyscale). For each participant, only one of these two features was task-relevant while the other one could be ignored. In contrast to our predictions, we found better learning of task-irrelevant colour when emotion was task-relevant than vice versa. Experiment 2 showed that the learning of task-irrelevant emotional information was improved in general when participants’ awareness was increased by adding NoGo-trials. Experiment 3 replicated these results for faces and emotional words. We conclude that during the processing of faces, both bottom-up and top-down processes are involved, such that task instructions and feature characteristics play a role. Ecologically significant features like emotions are not necessarily processed with high priority. The findings are discussed in the light of theories of attention and cognitive biases.     

Effects of test sequence on anterograde and retrograde impairment of negative emotional scenes1

Abstract: The present study examined recognition for sequences of scenes depicting emotional compared with neutral events. In two experiments, participants were presented with a thematic series of 18 slides of scenes in which the content of two critical scenes in the middle of the series were either emotional (dead men's bodies) or neutral (an opera). A two‐item, forced‐choice recognition paradigm was used to test participants’ immediate memory performance of all 18 slides of scenes. In Experiment 1, anterograde and retrograde amnesic effects were observed for the emotional, but not the neutral scenes when a test sequence of scenes was used that did not match the original presentation order. In contrast, in Experiment 2 the test sequence matched the order seen during the original presentation, and both the anterograde and retrograde amnesic effects were not found. These results indicate that the reinstatement of the original event context is an important factor for the recognition of negative emotional memories.     

The extinction of within-compound flavor associations

Three experiments studied extinction of the associations which are formed between two flavors presented in a simultaneous compound. In Experiment 1 those associations were identified by a sensory preconditioning procedure in which the poisoning of one element of the compound led to the rejection of the other element. Separate presentation of either element between their joint occurence and the poisoning of one element sharply attenuated the rejection of the other element. That attenuation was interpreted in terms of the extinction of within-compound associations. Experiment 2 obtained similar results with an alternative extinction procedure in which the elements of the original compound were presented in other compounds. Experiment 3 obtained similar results when the existence of the within-compound associations was determined by an alternative assessment procedure in which one element of the compound was made more attractive by the induction of a specific hunger. These experiments suggest that within-compound associations can be extinguished when the elements are separately presented outside of the compound. Experiments 2 and 3 make less plausible an alternative interpretation of the effects of separate element presentation in terms of reduction of the novelty of the element. The findings may be taken as implying that the elements of a simultaneously presented compound are joined by a single symmetrical association which acts at various points during a sensory preconditioning experiment.     

The impact of discredited evidence

How do people revise their beliefs when evidence is discredited? In three studies, mock jurors read simplified criminal cases and then judged the probability that a suspect was guilty on the basis of sequentially presented evidence. Study 1 showed an extension effect: When two items of incriminating evidence were presented, a subsequent discrediting of the second item also lessened belief in the first item, irrespective of whether it was directly related to the discredited item. Study 2 showed that this effect depended on the order of evidence presentation: When the discrediting evidence was presented early, rather than late, in the sequence, there was no extension to unrelated items. Study 3 showed that the extension effect held only when items of evidence were both incriminating or both exonerating, but not when they were mixed. To explain these findings, we draw on coherence-based models of juror reasoning and propose that people group evidence according to its direction with respect to the guilt hypothesis.     

Background beliefs and evidence interpretation

In this paper we argue that it is often adaptive to use one's background beliefs when interpreting information that, from a normative point of view, is incomplete. In both of the experiments reported here participants were presented with an item possessing two features and were asked to judge, in the light of some evidence concerning the features, to which of two categories it was more likely that the item belonged. It was found that when participants received evidence relevant to just one of these hypothesised categories (i.e. evidence that did not form a Bayesian likelihood ratio) they used their background beliefs to interpret this information. In Experiment 2, on the other hand, participants behaved in a broadly Bayesian manner when the evidence they received constituted a completed likelihood ratio. We discuss the circumstances under which participants, when making their judgements, consider the alternative hypothesis. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for an understanding of hypothesis testing, belief revision, and categorisation.     

Temporal precedence of emotion over attention modulations in the lateral amygdala: Intracranial ERP evidence from a patient with temporal lobe epilepsy

Previous fMRI studies have reported mixed evidence for the influence of selective attention on amygdala responses to emotional stimuli, with some studies showing “automatic” emotional effects to threat-related stimuli without attention (or even without awareness), but other studies showing a gating of amygdala activity by selective attention with no response to unattended stimuli. We recorded intracranial local field potentials from the intact left lateral amygdala in a human patient prior to surgery for epilepsy and tested, with a millisecond time resolution, for neural responses to fearful faces appearing at either task-relevant or task-irrelevant locations. Our results revealed an early emotional effect in the amygdala arising prior to, and independently of, attentional modulation. However, at a later latency, we found a significant modulation of the differential emotional response when attention was directed toward or away from fearful faces. These results suggest separate influences of emotion and attention on amygdala activation and may help reconcile previous discrepancies concerning the relative responsiveness of the human amygdala to emotional and attentional factors.     

Cross-modal interactions in the experience of musical performances: physiological correlates

This experiment was conducted to investigate cross-modal interactions in the emotional experience of music listeners. Previous research showed that visual information present in a musical performance is rich in expressive content, and moderates the subjective emotional experience of a participant listening and/or observing musical stimuli [Vines, B. W., Krumhansl, C. L., Wanderley, M. M., & Levitin, D. J. (2006). Cross-modal interactions in the perception of musical performance. Cognition, 101, 80--113.]. The goal of this follow-up experiment was to replicate this cross-modal interaction by investigating the objective, physiological aspect of emotional response to music measuring electrodermal activity. The scaled average of electrodermal amplitude for visual-auditory presentation was found to be significantly higher than the sum of the reactions when the music was presented in visual only (VO) and auditory only (AO) conditions, suggesting the presence of an emergent property created by bimodal interaction. Functional data analysis revealed that electrodermal activity generally followed the same contour across modalities of presentation, except during rests (silent parts of the performance) when the visual information took on particular salience. Finally, electrodermal activity and subjective tension judgments were found to be most highly correlated in the audio-visual (AV) condition than in the unimodal conditions. The present study provides converging evidence for the importance of seeing musical performances, and preliminary evidence for the utility of electrodermal activity as an objective measure in studies of continuous music-elicited emotions.     

Recency judgments as a function of word frequency: A framing effect and frequency misattributions

The effects of word frequency on judgments of recency of item presentation were examined in two experiments. Subjects in Experiment 1 were presented two mixed lists of high- and low-frequency words followed by a list assignment task for recognized items. It was found that subjects were biased toward assigning low-frequency words to the more recently presented list. Subjects in Experiment 2 were presented a single mixed list of high- and low-frequency words followed by either a relative recency of presentation judgment task or a relative primacy of presentation judgment task. Each word pair on the tests contained one high-frequency word and one low-frequency word. It was found that, for the recency judgment task, subjects were biased to select the low-frequency item as having been presented more recently. However, on the parallel primacy judgment task, there were no effects of word frequency; moreover, overall accuracy levels were higher with primacy than with recency instructions. We interpret the effects of word frequency on recency judgments in Experiments 1 and 2 in terms of a misattribution of frequency-related differences in recollection-based recognition. The finding that recency and primacy instructions produced different patterns of results provides further evidence (Flexser & Bower, 1974) for an effect on performance of the way in which the temporal judgment task was framed.     

Buzzwords: early cortical responses to emotional words during reading

Electroencephalographic event-related brain potentials were recorded as subjects read, without further instruction, consecutively presented sequences of words. We varied the speed at which the sequences were presented (3 Hz and 1 Hz) and the words' emotional significance. Early event-related cortical responses during reading differentiated pleasant and unpleasant words from neutral words. Emotional words were associated with enhanced brain responses arising in predominantly left occipito-temporal areas 200 to 300 ms after presentation. Emotional words were also spontaneously better remembered than neutral words. The early cortical amplification was stable across 10 repetitions, providing evidence for robust enhancement of early visual processing of stimuli with learned emotional significance and underscoring the salience of emotional connotations during reading. During early processing stages, emotion-related enhancement of cortical activity along the dominant processing pathway is due to arousal, rather than valence of the stimuli. This enhancement may be driven by cortico-amygdaloid connections.     

Adapting to an irrelevant item in an immediate recall task

Recall of the last one or two items of a spoken list is impaired when the list is followed by a nominally irrelevant item. At issue here was whether this suffix effect is reduced with repeated exposure to the irrelevant item. The effect was found to decline over successive blocks of trials, but only slightly (Experiment 1). No decisive evidence for adaptation to the irrelevant item was found when it was spoken after each of the list items rather than after the last one only (Experiments 2 and 3). The strongest evidence for adaptation was obtained when the irrelevant item was repeated in an unbroken stream that extended through the presentations and recall periods of successive lists: The recency effect and the level of recall at the last position within a list were greater under these conditions than when the irrelevant item was presented only once after each list (Experiments 4, 5, and 6).     

What if I am the one? Measuring individual differences in emotional sensitivity to probability and emotional reactivity to possibility

Current theories of risk perception point to the powerful role of emotion and the neglect of probabilistic information in the face of risk, but these tendencies differ across individuals. We propose a method for measuring individuals' emotional sensitivity to probability to assess how feelings about probabilities, rather than the probabilities themselves, influence decisions. Participants gave affective ratings (worry or excitement) to 14 risky events, each with a specified probability ranging from 1 in 10 to 1 in 10,000,000. For each participant, we regressed these emotional responses against item probabilities, estimating a slope (the degree to which emotional responses change with probability) and an intercept (the emotional reaction to an event with a fixed probability). These two parameters were treated as individual difference scores and included in models predicting reactions to several health risk scenarios. Both emotional sensitivity to probability (slope) and emotional reactivity to possibility (intercept) significantly predicted responses to these scenarios, above and beyond the predictive power of other well‐established individual difference measures.     

Evaluability of outcomes in ultimatum bargaining

In bargaining, two components are important for assessing the utility of a decision outcome: self-interest and fairness. Each of these components corresponds to a comparison of possible outcomes—an interpersonal comparison for fairness, and an intrapersonal comparison for self-interest. We propose that the relative weights these components receive in ultimatum bargaining depend on their evaluability. In two studies, we show that varying the evaluability of these components influences the reactions of recipients towards the offer. Moreover, we show that the relative importance of fairness as well as the perceived fairness of the offer mediate between the evaluability of these components and acceptance rates. Results are discussed in relation to other findings on outcome and procedural framing effects in social decision-making.