Visual impressions of forces between objects: Entraining,enforced disintegration,and shattering

When a moving object (A) contacts a stationary one (B) and Object B then moves, visual impressions of force occur along with a visual impression of causality. It is shown that findings about force impressions that occur with launching effect stimuli generalize to other forms of phenomenal causality, namely entraining, enforced disintegration, and shattering stimuli. In particular, evidence is reported for generality of the force asymmetry, in which the amount of perceived force exerted by Object A is greater than the amount of perceived resistance put up by Object B. Effects of manipulations of kinematic variables also resembled those found in previous experiments. Some unpredicted findings occurred. It is argued that these reflect a change in perceptual interpretation when both objects are in motion prior to contact, due to both objects being perceived as in autonomous motion. The results are consistent with a theoretical account in which force impressions occur by a process of matching kinematic information in visual stimuli to stored representations of actions on objects, which supply information about forces.     

Visual impressions of generative transmission

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that stimuli in which a moving object (A) contacts a stationary one (B) and stops, and object B then moves off in the same direction, give rise to a causal impression: object A is perceived as producing the motion of object B. This impression is weakened or does not occur if there is a delay between A contacting B and B moving, or if there is a spatial gap between B and the location at which A stops. It is shown that a strong causal impression can occur despite the presence of both gap and delay if there are cues to generative transmission of causal influence from A to B. The cues investigated were successive colour change of a series of objects filling the gap between A and B. Reported causal impressions were stronger with the colour change stimuli than with stimuli in which the objects were present but did not change colour, and stronger if the colour change proceeded from A to B than if it proceeded in the opposite direction. Reported causal impressions increased in strength as the number of objects involved in the colour change increased, consistent with the hypothesis that the colour change is a cue to a process of transmission, and inconsistent with the hypothesis that it is perceived or inferred as involving a chain of causal relations. Other kinds of changes to object properties—a small upward motion, shrinkage without moving, and disappearance—yielded similar results. It appears that any rapid sequential change in object properties in the direction of causal influence can function to give rise to the visual impression of generative transmission. The possible role of apparent motion is discussed.     

Ballot Photographs as Cues in Low‐Information Elections

In low‐information elections, voters are often faced with the task of choosing from a list of unknown candidates. By examining a set of low‐information elections where candidate photographs were displayed on the ballot, we test how first impressions of candidates can influence election outcomes. We find that attractive candidates are more likely to be attributed the qualities associated with successful politicians and these trait inferences, based on facial appearances, influence the outcomes of elections. We also find that these trait inferences are based on physical characteristics of the candidates, such as age, race and ethnicity, evident from a photograph. Therefore, first impressions can be important determinants of election outcomes, especially in low‐information elections.     

Arousal, working memory, and conscious awareness in contingency learning

There are wide individual differences in the ability to detect a stimulus contingency embedded in a complex paradigm. The present study used a cognitive masking paradigm to better understand individual differences related to contingency learning. Participants were assessed on measures of electrodermal arousal and on working memory capacity before engaging in the contingency learning task. Contingency awareness was assessed both by trial-by-trial verbal reports obtained during the task and by a short post-task recognition questionnaire. Participants who became aware had fewer non-specific skin conductance responses and tended to score higher on a digit span assessment. Skin conductance level was not significantly lower in the aware group than in the unaware group. These findings are consistent with studies showing that lower arousal and greater cognitive processing capacity facilitate conscious perception of a greater breadth of information within a scene or a task.     

The attentional blink unveils the interplay between conscious perception,spatial attention and working memory encoding

Our ability to perceive two events in close temporal succession is severely limited, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink. While the blink has served as a popular tool to prevent conscious perception, there is less research on its causes, and in particular on the role of conscious perception of the first event in triggering it. In three experiments, we disentangled the roles of spatial attention, conscious perception and working memory (WM) in causing the blink. We show that while allocating spatial attention to T1 is neither necessary nor sufficient for eliciting a blink, consciously perceiving it is necessary but not sufficient. When T1 was task irrelevant, consciously perceiving it triggered a blink only when it matched the attentional set for T2. We conclude that consciously perceiving a task-relevant event causes the blink, possibly because it triggers encoding of this event into WM. We discuss the implications of these findings for the relationship between spatial attention, conscious perception and WM, as well as for the distinction between access and phenomenal consciousness.     

Republican Voters Prefer Candidates Who Have Conservative‐Looking Faces: New Evidence From Exit Polls

Research shows people share common political facial stereotypes: They associate faces with political ideologies. Moreover, given that many voters rely on party affiliation, political ideology, and appearances to select political candidates, we might expect that political facial stereotypes would sway voting preferences and, by extension, the share of votes going to each candidate in an election. And yet few studies have examined whether having a stereotypically conservative‐looking (or liberal‐looking) face predicts a candidate's vote shares. Using data from U.S. election exit polls, we show that the Republican voters within each state are more likely to vote for a candidate (even a Democrat) the more that person has a stereotypically Republican‐looking face. By contrast, the voting choices of the Democratic voters within each state are unrelated to political facial stereotypes. Moreover, we show that the relationship between political facial stereotypes and voting does not depend on state‐level ideology: Republican voters in both right‐leaning (“red”) and left‐leaning (“blue”) states are more likely to vote for candidates with conservative‐looking faces. These results have several important practical and theoretical implications concerning the nature and impact of political facial stereotypes, which we discuss.     

On Irrational Guilt

A person raised in a religious family may have been taught that going to the theater is not allowed, and even if he has rejected this taboo years ago, he still feels guilty when attending theater. These kinds of cases may not be rare, but they are strange. Indeed, one may wonder how they are even possible. This is why an explanation is needed, and in my paper I aim to give such an explanation. In particular, I will first provide a brief review of the explanations of irrational guilt that are compatible with the cognitive theories of emotions, that is, theories that presuppose that there is a causal or a constitutional connection between emotions and cognitive factors, such as judgments, beliefs or thoughts. Following many other reviewers, I found most of the explanations of irrational guilt unsatisfactory, although my reasons for critical conclusions will partly differ from the usual ones. After the review, I will defend a solution according to which it is possible to believe that an act does not have any moral costs and at the same time to have an impression that is has, which explains the guilty feelings.     

Changes in childhood caregiving impressions among middle-aged and older adults

Childhood experiences and impressions are important for individuals' health and well-being—they often set the stage for how people approach relationships across the lifespan and how they make sense of their relational worlds. However, impressions of these experiences are likely not static and can change over time, even years after these experiences happened. The current study examined how impressions of parental relationships in childhood changed over time, and predictors of these changes, among middle-aged and older adults followed over a 4-year period (N = 2692; M_age = 66.67, SD = 9.15; 64.1% women). Childhood impressions of parental care were mostly stable over time, with 53.5%–65.0% of participants reporting consistent impressions. Becoming divorced/separated as an adult was associated with more negative impressions about relationships with fathers in the past. Having a mother pass away was associated with more positive impressions of mothers' caregiving when participants were children. Higher depressive symptoms at follow-up were associated with darker perceptions of the past—more negative impressions of mothers and fathers as caregivers. The current study is one of the most comprehensive studies of late-life changes in childhood impressions to date, suggesting future directions for studying the organization of relational experiences and recollection over time.     

Book Review: “Dimensions of Apeiron: A Topological Phenomenology of Space,Time, and Individuation”

This article suggests that it may be timely to action the relationship between design and evolution. While this view is not particularly new, the form of its expression here may be. It is noted that the exponential (possibly double exponential) rate of technological change, and the merging of the technological evolutionary lineage with those of biology, cognition, and socioculture is causing greatly accelerated evolution in these latter lineages. So rapid are these change processes that the attendant evolutionary time frames are becoming consonant with those of human design activities. Implications of these developments are outlined.     

Consciousness and Self‐Regulation in Mobile Communication

The everyday use of mobile devices is sometimes performed in a minimally conscious manner (e.g., automaticity, habits, impulses), whereas other times it is performed in a highly conscious manner (e.g., immersion, presence, absorption). In Study 1, we surveyed individuals (n = 250) to evaluate the seemingly oppositional relationship between automatic (less conscious) and immersive (more conscious) tendencies toward texting. Despite their standard separation, confirmatory factor analyses revealed that automaticity and immersion were actually positively related independent of usage frequency. In Study 2 (n = 526), these consciousness tendencies were related to select facets of trait self‐control and mindfulness. Together, these studies underline the importance of media cognition in combination with personality factors for understanding the psychology of mobile device use.