Implicit Association Test (IAT) Studies Investigating Pitch-Shape Audiovisual Cross-modal Associations Across Language Groups

Previous studies have shown that Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers exhibit different patterns of cross-modal congruence for the lexical tones of Mandarin Chinese, depending on which features of the pitch they attend to. But is this pattern of language-specific listening a conscious cultural strategy or an automatic processing effect? If automatic, does it also apply when the same pitch contours no longer sound like speech? Implicit Association Tests (IATs) provide an indirect measure of cross-modal association. In a series of IAT studies, conducted with participants with three kinds of language backgrounds (Chinese-dominant bilinguals, Chinese balanced bilinguals, and English speakers with no Chinese experience) we find language-specific congruence effects for Mandarin lexical tones but not for matched sine-wave stimuli. That is, for linguistic stimuli, non-Chinese speakers show advantages for pitch-height congruence (high-pointy, low-curvy); no congruence effects were found for Chinese speakers. For non-linguistic stimuli, all participant groups showed advantages for pitch-height congruence. The present findings suggest that non-lexical tone congruence (high-pointy, low-curvy) is a basic congruence pattern, and the acquisition of a language with lexical tone can alter this perception.     

Unconscious preparation: Effects of prime visibility on semantic generalization of task priming

Studies found that subliminal primes can be associated with specific tasks to facilitate task performance, and such learning is highly adaptive and generalizable. Meanwhile, conditioning studies suggest that aversive/reward learning and generalization actually occur at the semantic level. The current study shows that prime–task associations can also be generalized to novel word/neighbour primes from the same semantic category, and this occurs without contingency awareness. Previous studies have counterintuitively suggested that both the learning of task priming and the semantic priming of word neighbours depend on the lack of visibility. Here, we show that semantic generalization indeed depends on reduced visibility, but cannot occur subliminally. The current study shows for the first time that semantic learning and generalization can occur without any emotional or motivational factors, and that semantic priming can occur for arbitrary-linked stimuli in a context completely devoid of semantics.     

Overestimation and contraction biases of depth information stored in working memory depend on spatial configuration

Depth perception is essential for effective interaction with the environment. Although the accuracy of depth perception has been studied extensively, it is unclear how accurate the depth information is stored in working memory. In this study, we investigated the accuracy and systematic biases of depth representation by a delayed estimation task. The memory array consisted of items presented at various stereoscopic depth positions, and the participants were instructed to estimate the depth position of one target item after a retention interval. We examined the effect of spatial configuration by comparing the memory performance in the whole-display condition where non-target memory items were present during retrieval with that in the single-display condition where non-target memory items were absent. In the single-display condition, we found an overestimation bias that the depth estimates were farther than the corresponding depth positions defined by disparity, and a contraction bias that the stored depth positions near the observer were overestimated and those far from the observer were underestimated. The magnitude of these biases increased with the number of to-be-stored items. However, in the whole-display condition, the overestimation bias was corrected and the contraction bias did not increase with the number of to-be-stored items. Our findings suggested that the number of to-be-stored items could affect the accuracy of depth working memory, and its effect depended crucially on whether the information of spatial configuration of memory display was available at the retrieval stage.     

Reactions to male-favouring versus female-favouring sex differences: A pre-registered experiment and Southeast Asian replication

Two studies investigated (1) how people react to research describing a sex difference, depending on whether that difference favours males or females, and (2) how accurately people can predict how the average man and woman will react. In Study 1, Western participants (N = 492) viewed a fictional popular-science article describing either a male-favouring or a female-favouring sex difference (i.e., men/women draw better; women/men lie more). Both sexes reacted less positively to the male-favouring differences, judging the findings to be less important, less credible, and more offensive, harmful, and upsetting. Participants predicted that the average man and woman would react more positively to sex differences favouring their own sex. This was true of the average woman, although the level of own-sex favouritism was lower than participants predicted. It was not true, however, of the average man, who – like the average woman – reacted more positively to the female-favouring differences. Study 2 replicated these findings in a Southeast Asian sample (N = 336). Our results are consistent with the idea that both sexes are more protective of women than men, but that both exaggerate the level of same-sex favouritism within each sex – a misconception that could potentially harm relations between the sexes.     

Mind your meat: Religious differences in the social perception of animals

While previous work demonstrated that animals are categorised based on their edibility, little research has systematically evaluated the role of religion in the perception of animal edibility, particularly when specific animals are deemed sacred in a religion. In two studies, we explored a key psychological mechanism through which sacred animals are deemed inedible by members of a faith: mind attribution. In Study 1, non-vegetarian Hindus in Singapore (N = 70) evaluated 19 animals that differed in terms of their sacredness and edibility. Results showed that participants categorised animals into three groups: holy animals (high sacredness but low edibility), food animals (low sacredness but high edibility) and neutral animals (low sacredness and low edibility). Holy animals were deemed to possess greater mental life compared to other animal categories. In Study 2, we replicated this key finding with Hindus in India (N = 100), and further demonstrated that the observed pattern of results was specific to Hindus but not Muslims (N = 90). In both studies, mind attribution mediated the negative association between sacredness and edibility. Our findings illustrate how religious groups diverge in animal perception, thereby highlighting the role of mind attribution as a crucial link between sacredness and edibility.     

Autism and the double empathy problem: Implications for development and mental health

This article proposes a link between autistic people being misperceived by the neurotypical majority and their being at risk of poor mental health and well-being. We present a transactional account of development in which the misperceptions (and consequent behaviour) of the neurotypical majority influences the perceptions and behaviour of autistic people such that they become increasingly separate and indeed isolated from mainstream society. This jeopardizes their mental health and prevents autistic people from developing to full potential. The situation is not only problematical for the development of autistic people but is also to the detriment of wider society, in so far as autistic people are effectively prevented from contributing fully. This account assumes that some (not necessarily all) autistic people yearn to be included, to be productive and to be useful. It thus directly opposes accounts that view autism as an extreme case of diminished social motivation.     

The Influences of Category Learning on Perceptual Reconstructions

We explore different ways in which the human visual system can adapt for perceiving and categorizing the environment. There are various accounts of supervised (categorical) and unsupervised perceptual learning, and different perspectives on the functional relationship between perception and categorization. We suggest that common experimental designs are insufficient to differentiate between hypothesized perceptual learning mechanisms and reveal their possible interplay. We propose a relatively underutilized way of studying potential categorical effects on perception, and we test the predictions of different perceptual learning models using a two-dimensional, interleaved categorization-plus-reconstruction task. We find evidence that the human visual system adapts its encodings to the feature structure of the environment, uses categorical expectations for robust reconstruction, allocates encoding resources with respect to categorization utility, and adapts to prevent miscategorizations.     

Expanding the discussion: Revision of the fundamental assumptions framing the study of the neural correlates of consciousness

The way one asks a question is shaped by a-priori assumptions and constrains the range of possible answers. We identify and test the assumptions underlying contemporary debates, models, and methodology in the study of the neural correlates of consciousness, which was framed by Crick and Koch’s seminal paper (1990). These premises create a sequential and passive conception of conscious perception: it is considered the product of resolved information processing by unconscious mechanisms, produced by a singular event in time and place representing the moment of entry. The conscious percept produced is then automatically retained to be utilized by post-conscious mechanisms. Major debates in the field, such as concern the moment of entry, the all-or-none vs graded nature, and report vs no-report paradigms, are driven by the consensus on these assumptions. We show how removing these assumptions can resolve some of the debates and challenges and prompt additional questions. The potential non-sequential nature of perception suggests new ways of thinking about consciousness as a dynamic and dispersed process, and in turn about the relationship between conscious and unconscious perception. Moreover, it allows us to present a parsimonious account for conscious perception while addressing more aspects of the phenomenon.     

Consciousness as sensory quality and as implicit self-awareness

When a mental state is conscious – in the sense that there is something it is like for the subject to have it – it instantiates a certain property F in virtue of which it is a conscious state. It is customary to suppose that F is the property of having sensory quality. The paper argues that this supposition is false. The first part of the paper discusses reasons for thinking that unconscious mental states can have a sensory quality, for example in cases of absent-minded perception. If unconscious mental states can have a sensory quality, then sensory quality is an insufficient condition for consciousness. The second part of the paper argues that there are even better reasons to think that sensory quality is an unnecessary condition for consciousness. The idea is that mental states can be conscious even when they lack sensory quality, for example, in the case of certain conscious propositional attitudes. In the third part of the paper, an alternative to the rejected supposition, drawn from the phenomenological tradition, is offered: that consciousness is a matter of implicit self-awareness, rather than of sensory quality. According to this alternative, a mental state is conscious when, and only when, it involves implicit self-awareness.