Getting a tool gives wings: overestimation of tool-related benefits in a motor imagery task and a decision task

Two experiments examine whether people overestimate the benefits provided by tool use in motor tasks. Participants had to move different quantities of objects by hand (two at a time) or with a tool (four at a time). The tool was not within reach so participants had to get it before moving the objects. In Experiment 1, the task was performed in a real and an imagined situation. In Experiment 2, participants had to decide for each quantity, whether they preferred moving the objects by hand or with the tool. Our findings indicated that people perceive tool actions as less costly in terms of movement time than they actually are (Experiment 1) and decide to use a tool even when it objectively provides less time-based benefits than using the hands (Experiment 2). Taken together, the data suggest that people overestimate the benefits provided by tool use.     

Family Alliance in Infancy and Toddlerhood Predicts Social Cognition in Adolescence

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Infants developing in a cooperative family alliance (FA), characterized by cohesion and mutual support between family members observable during...     

The effects of visual context and individual differences on perception and evaluation of modern art and graffiti art

Traditionally, artworks are seen as autonomous objects that stand (or should stand) on their own. However, at least since the emergence of Conceptual Art in the 1920s and Pop Art in the 1960s, art lacks any distinctive perceptual features that define it as such. Art, therefore, cannot be defined without reference to its context. Some studies have shown that context affects the evaluation of artworks, and that specific contexts (street for graffiti art, museum for modern art) elicit specific effects (Gartus & Leder, 2014). However, it is yet unclear how context changes perception and appreciation processes. In our study we measured eye-movements while participants (64 psychology undergraduates, 48% women) perceived and evaluated beauty, interest, emotional valence, as well as perceived style for modern art and graffiti art embedded into either museum or street contexts. For modern art, beauty and interest ratings were higher in a museum than in a street context, but context made no difference for the ratings of graffiti art. Importantly, we also found an interaction of context and individual interest in graffiti for beauty and interest ratings, as well as for number of fixations. Analyses of eye-movements also revealed that viewing times were in general significantly longer in museum than in street contexts. We conclude that context can have an important influence on aesthetic appreciation. However, some effects depend also on the style of the artworks and the individual art interests of the viewers.     

You can detect the trees as well as the forest when adding the leaves: Evidence from visual search tasks containing three-level hierarchical stimuli

The present study investigated how multiple levels of hierarchical stimuli (i.e., global, intermediate and local) are processed during a visual search task. Healthy adults participated in a visual search task in which a target was either present or not at one of the three levels of hierarchical stimuli (global geometrical form made by intermediate forms themselves constituted by local forms). By varying the number of distractors, the results showed that targets presented at global and intermediate levels were detected efficiently (i.e., the detection times did not vary with the number of distractors) whereas local targets were processed less efficiently (i.e., the detection times increased with the number of distractors). Additional experiments confirmed that these results were not due to the size of the target elements or to the spatial proximity among the structural levels. Taken together, these results show that the most local level is always processed less efficiently, suggesting that it is disadvantaged during the competition for attentional resources compared to higher structural levels. The present study thus supports the view that the processing occurring in visual search acts dichotomously rather than continuously. Given that pure structuralist and pure space-based models of attention cannot account for the pattern of our findings, we discuss the implication for perception, attentional selection and executive control of target position on hierarchical stimuli.     

When Legitimizing a Request Increases Compliance: The Legitimizing Object Technique

Earlier research reported that using pictures in a fundraising request increases donations by legitimizing the solicitation. The present study tested the effectiveness of a solicitation for money made in the street when an object that legitimated the request was present or not. Male confederates asked passersby for money to buy a stamp while either holding or not holding an envelope in one hand. With a high effect-size, it was reported that the presence of the envelope increased compliance with the request. The legitimation of the request associated with the presence of the envelope is used to explain the results.     

Are perceived school climate dimensions predictive of students’ engagement?

Students’ engagement is known to be associated with academic success and to prevent school dropouts. While many studies have considered this variable when examining school trajectories, more research is needed to investigate the factors that may sustain and promote engagement in school, regarded as a multidimensional construct (affective vs. cognitive vs. behavioral engagement). In the present cross-sectional study, associations between students’ perceptions of school climate dimensions and their level of engagement were explored. The differential effects on these associations of sex and social background were also examined. Results from a sample of 955 high-school students showed that a model incorporating six dimensions of perceived school climate explained a large proportion of the variance in students’ engagement, especially affective engagement. The perceived climate of relations between teachers and students appeared to be highly predictive of students’ engagement. Analyses also revealed that the predictiveness of school climate factors for affective, cognitive and behavioral engagement varied slightly according to sex and social background. These results highlight important levers associated with students’ engagement in school.     

Categorical perception of anger is disrupted in alexithymia: Evidence from a visual ERP study

High and low alexithymia scorers were confronted with a modified visual oddball task that allowed the study of categorical perception of emotional expressions on faces. Participants had to quickly detect a deviant (rare) morphed face that shared or did not share the same emotional expression as the frequent one. Expected categorical perception effects, which were also neurophysiologically indexed, showed that rare stimuli were detected faster if they depicted a different emotional expression compared to rare stimuli depicting the same emotional expression than the frequent one. Even if no differences were observed at a behavioural level, high alexithymia scorers evidenced overall delayed neurophysiological responses in components related to the attentional processing of rare emotional faces. Moreover, the categorical perception effects for event-related components associated with the attentional processing were smaller in high alexithymia scorers and were even absent for anger. These results show that high alexithymia scorers present discrimination delays that are already observed at the attentional level.     

Social comparison orientation moderates the effects of group membership on the similarity-attraction relationship

The present study examined how the similarity-attraction relationship is affected by a combination of the tendency to compare oneself to other people (Social Comparison Orientation, SCO) and group membership. We expected that high-SCO individuals would prefer similar to dissimilar others only when the target belonged to their in-group and was relevant for the evaluation of their self-concept. It was also expected that among low-SCO individuals who are more certain about the self and less concerned about "being evaluated," a main effect of attitude similarity would appear, regardless of the group membership of the target. Results partially support these predictions and suggest that further research should be carried out into the combined effects of individual and group variables in the attraction literature.     

Similarity and social interaction: when similarity fosters implicit behavior toward a stranger

People interact more readily with someone whom they think they have something in common with. At a pedestrian crossing, confederates asked participants for the time and, in one condition, said she/he had the same watch as the participant. The amount of time that participants lingered near a confederate was used as the dependent variable. Participants in the similarity condition spent significantly more time near the confederate than when no similarity was manipulated. The results showed that similarity fosters implicit behavior, adding to the growing body of data on the positive effects of similarity and its role in social interaction.