The Psychophysiology of Social Action: Facial Electromyographic Responses to Stigmatized Groups Predict Antidiscrimination Action

We introduced facial electromyography as a tool for predicting advantaged group members' engagement in antidiscrimination action on behalf of a disadvantaged outgroup. Heterosexual men's corrugator supercilii (brow “frowning” muscles) activity while viewing videos of male–male and male–female couples interacting was measured. Corrugator (negative affect) response to male–male versus male–female targets, but not self-reported attitudes toward gay men, predicted number of flyers calling for action to reduce antigay violence and discrimination that participants privately took to distribute. Our discreet behavioral measure mirrored real-life collective action possibilities such as voting against laws prohibiting same-sex marriage in the privacy of one's voting booth.     

Color preferences in infants and adults are different

Adults commonly prefer blues most and greenish yellows least, but these hue preferences interact with lightness and saturation (e.g., dark yellow is particularly disliked: Palmer & Schloss (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107:8877–8882, 2010)). Here, we tested for a similar hue-by-lightness interaction in infant looking preferences, to determine whether adult preferences are evident early in life. We measured looking times for both infants and adults in the same paired-comparison task using all possible pairs of eight colors: four hues (red/yellow/green/blue) at two lightness levels (dark/light). The adult looking data were strikingly similar to other adults’ explicit preference responses, indicating for the first time that adults look longer at colors that they like. Infants showed a significant hue-by-lightness interaction, but it was quite different from the adult pattern. In particular, infants had a stronger looking preference for dark yellow and a weaker preference for light blue than did adults. The findings are discussed in relation to theories on the origins of color preference.     

Here's looking at you,kid: attention to infant emotional faces in mothers and non‐mothers

Infant facial cues play a critical role in eliciting care and nurturance from an adult caregiver. Using an attentional capture paradigm we investigated attentional processing of adult and infant emotional facial expressions in a sample of mothers (n = 29) and non‐mothers (n = 37) to determine whether infant faces were associated with greater task interference. Responses to infant target stimuli were slower than adult target stimuli in both groups. This effect was modulated by parental status, such that mothers compared to non‐mothers showed longer response times to infant compared to adult faces. Both groups also responded more slowly to emotional faces, an effect that was more marked for infant emotional faces. Finally, it was found that greater levels of mothers' self‐reported parental distress was associated with less task interference when processing infant faces. These findings indicate that for adult women, infant faces in general and emotional infant faces in particular, preferentially engage attention compared to adult faces. However, for mothers, infant faces appear to be more salient in general. Therefore, infant faces may constitute a special class of social stimuli. We suggest that alterations in attentional processing in motherhood may constitute an adaptive behavioural change associated with becoming a parent.     

A Pilot Study of Pedestrians with Visual Impairments Detecting Traffic Gaps and Surges Containing Hybrid Vehicles

The increasing number of hybrid and quiet internal combustion engine vehicles may impact the travel abilities of pedestrians who are blind. Pedestrians who rely on auditory cues for structuring their travel may face challenges in making crossing decisions in the presence of quiet vehicles. This article describes results of initial studies looking at the crossing decisions of pedestrians who are blind at an uncontrolled crossing (no traffic control) and a light controlled intersection. The presence of hybrid vehicles was a factor in each situation. At the uncontrolled crossing, Toyota hybrids were most difficult to detect but crossing decisions were made more often in small gaps ended by a Honda hybrid. These effects were seen only at speed under 20 mph. At the light controlled intersection, parallel surges of traffic were most difficult to detect when made up only of a Ford Escape hybrid. Results suggest that more controlled studies of vehicle characteristics impacting crossing decisions of pedestrians who are blind are warranted.     

Infant color preference for red is not selectively context specific

It has been proposed that human infants, like nonhuman primates, respond favorably to red in hospitable contexts, yet unfavorably in hostile contexts (Maier, Barchfeld, Elliot, & Pekrun, 2009). Here, we replicate and extend the study (Maier et al., 2009) whose findings have been used to support this hypothesis. As in Maier et al., 1-year-old infants were shown a photograph of a happy or angry face before pairs of colors were presented, yet in the current study, the set of stimuli crucially included two colors that are typically preferred by infants (red and blue). The percentage of times that infants looked first at the colors was analyzed for the two emotional "contexts." Following the happy face, infants looked first at red and blue equally, but significantly more than green. Following the angry face, the pattern of looking preference was the same as following the happy face, but the variation across the three colors was reduced. Contrary to Maier et al.'s hypothesis, there was no evidence that infants are selectively averse to red in angry contexts: following the angry face, "preference" for both red and blue was reduced, but was not significantly below chance. We therefore suggest an alternative account to Maier et al.'s evolutionary hypothesis, which argues that an angry face merely removes infant color preference, potentially due to the perceptual characteristics of the angry face disrupting infants' encoding of color. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).