基于面孔的印象形成:神经科学的视角

印象形成过程是心理学的经典研究主题,最近随着神经科学的兴起和脑成像技术的成熟,研究者开始从神经科学的角度审视人类的印象形成过程.印象形成主要基于三种信息,即面孔知觉,直接互动和二手信息.就面孔而言,基于面孔的印象形成更为快速和准确,其中杏仁核在其中起着重要的作用;作为对照,文章简要介绍了基于二手信息和直接互动的印象形成,它们更多涉及深思熟虑的任务,激活内侧前额皮层和颞上沟后端.印象形成的神经机制,线索之间的关系、印象形成的影响伴随着新技术的运用将会得到研究者的关注.     

“有声有色”的触觉体验：来自多感觉通道整合的线索

虚拟现实技术通过提供视觉、听觉和触觉等信息为用户创造身临其境的感知体验, 其中触觉反馈面临诸多技术瓶颈使得虚拟现实中的自然交互受限。基于多感官错觉的伪触觉技术可以借助其他通道的信息强化和丰富触觉感受, 是目前虚拟现实环境中优化触觉体验的有效途径。本文聚焦于触觉中最重要的维度之一——粗糙度, 试图为解决虚拟现实中触觉反馈的受限问题提供新思路。探讨了粗糙度感知中, 视、听、触多感觉通道整合的关系, 分析了视觉线索(表面纹理密度、表面光影、控制显示比)和听觉线索(音调/频率、响度)如何影响触觉粗糙度感知, 总结了当下调控这些因素来改变粗糙度感知的方法。最后, 探讨了使用伪触觉反馈技术时, 虚拟现实环境中视、听、触觉信息在呈现效果、感知整合等方面与真实世界相比可能存在的差异, 提出可借鉴的改善触觉体验的适用方法和未来待研究的方向。     

Property content guides children’s memory for social learning episodes

How do children’s interpretations of the generality of learning episodes affect what they encode? In the present studies, we investigated the hypothesis that children encode distinct aspects of learning episodes containing generalizable and non-generalizable properties. Two studies with preschool (N = 50) and young school-aged children (N = 49) reveal that their encoding is contingent on the generalizability of the property they are learning. Children remembered generalizable properties (e.g., morphological or normative properties) more than non-generalizable properties (e.g., historical events or preferences). Conversely, they remembered category exemplars associated with non-generalizable properties more than category exemplars associated with generalizable properties. The findings highlight the utility of remembering distinct aspects of social learning episodes for children’s future generalization.     

Up or Down? How Culture and Color Affect Judgments

In the Mainland China stock market, an upmarket is represented by the color red, whereas a downmarket is represented by the color green. Elsewhere, including the Chinese Hong Kong stock market, the color representations are the opposite. Three studies were conducted to examine the red‐up–green‐down effect for Mainland Chinese as well as the green‐up–red‐down effect for Hong Kong people. Study 1 showed that Mainland Chinese tended to predict greater economic growth (study 1a) and higher growth in consumption trends (study 1b) when the experimental materials were presented in red than in green, whereas Hong Kong participants exhibited the opposite tendencies. Study 2 found that Mainland Chinese implicitly associated red and green with up and down, respectively; Hong Kong people, however, implicitly associated green and red with up and down, respectively. Study 3 further indicated that Mainland Chinese were more likely to predict good outcomes when scenarios were presented in red, whereas Hong Kong participants were more likely to predict good outcomes when scenarios were presented in green. These findings suggest that culturally specific environment cues could influence human prediction and judgment. Implications for judgment generally are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individual differences in recognising involuntary autobiographical memories: Impact on the reporting of abstract cues

This study examined individual differences in the ability to recognise involuntary autobiographical memories. We hypothesised that individuals may not always recognise involuntary memories which are cued by abstract experiences (e.g., thoughts or language), while they are better able to recognise those which are cued by concrete sensory/perpetual experiences. We hypothesised that individuals without formal training in psychology would be more prone to these recognition failures than individuals with training in psychology. We tested the hypothesis by comparing the results of general first-year undergraduate students, graduate students in psychology and graduates students in other disciplines after each had participated in a two-week diary study of their naturally occurring involuntary memories. The results showed undergraduate participants and non-psychology graduate participants reporting fewer involuntary memories being triggered by abstract cues than the graduate psychology participants, while the groups did not differ in the report of memories triggered by sensory/perpetual cues. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Two faces,two languages: An fMRI study of bilingual picture naming

This fMRI study explores how nonlinguistic cues modulate lexical activation in the bilingual brain. We examined the influence of face race on bilingual language production in a picture-naming paradigm. Chinese–English bilinguals were presented with pictures of objects and images of faces (Asian or Caucasian). Participants named the picture in their first or second language (Chinese or English) in separate blocks. Face race and naming language were either congruent (e.g., naming in Chinese when seeing an Asian face) or incongruent (e.g., naming in English when seeing an Asian face). Our results revealed that face cues facilitate naming when the socio-cultural identity of the face is congruent with the naming language. The congruence effects are reflected as effective integration of lexical and facial cues in key brain regions including IFG, MFG, ACC, and caudate. Implications of the findings in light of theories of language processing and cultural priming are discussed.     

What’s in a name? Subliminally activating trusting behavior

Because the choice to trust is inherently risky, people naturally assess others’ trustworthiness before they engage in trusting actions. The research reported here suggests that the trust development process may start before the conscious assessment of trustworthiness, via the activation of a relational schema. We present three experiments that examined the automatic, non-conscious activation of interpersonal trusting behavior via a variety of subliminal cues: positive or negative, relational or non-relational, and trust-related or not. In all three studies, subliminal relational cues influenced subsequent trusting behavior, apparently without conscious awareness. Results from the third study also indicated that subliminal relational cues that were specifically trust-related influenced trustors’ expectations of the likelihood of reciprocity. Overall, the data provide initial evidence that the development of interpersonal trust can start before and beneath conscious awareness.     

Will the most informative object stand? Determining the impact of structural context on informativeness judgements

A fundamental unsolved problem in the cognitive sciences concerns why, how, and to what extent humans judge object stimuli as conveying different amounts of information. Central to this problem is how the notion of informativeness is conceptualised by humans in the first place. In this paper, we investigate this question from the standpoint of how the structure of categories of objects influences informativeness judgements about their members. Results from our two experiments show that the structural or relational context surrounding single-object cues from a categorical stimulus largely determines such informativeness judgements. Moreover, we found that object cues elicit absolute magnitude judgements about their associated concept that are not consistent with the prototype interpretation of the concept. We were able to account for over 90% of the variance in the data from our two judgement experiments with a general theory and measure of information referred to as Representational Information.     

The Ape That Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences?

This article looks at the evolution of sex differences in sexuality in human beings and asks whether evolutionary psychology sometimes exaggerates these differences. According to a common understanding of sexual selection theory, females in most species invest more than males in their offspring, and as a result, males compete for as many mates as possible, whereas females choose from among the competing males. The males-compete/females-choose (MCFC) model applies to many species but is misleading when applied to human beings. This is because males in our species commonly contribute to the rearing of the young, which reduces the sex difference in parental investment. Consequently, sex differences in our species are relatively modest. Rather than males competing and females choosing, humans have a system of mutual courtship: Both sexes are choosy about long-term mates, and both sexes compete for desirable mates. We call this the mutual mate choice (MMC) model. Although much of the evolutionary psychology literature is consistent with the MMC model, the traditional MCFC model exerts a strong influence on the field, distorting the emerging picture of the evolved sexual psychology of Homo sapiens. Specifically, it has led to the exaggeration of the magnitude of human sex differences, an overemphasis on men's short-term mating inclinations, and a relative neglect of male mate choice and female mate competition. We advocate a stronger focus on the MMC model.     

Visual orienting in response to attentional cues: Spatial correspondence is critical,conscious awareness is not

Three experiments examined visual orienting in response to spatial precues. In Experiments 1 and 2, attentional effects of central letters were stimulus driven: Orienting was dependent on the spatial layout of the cue display. When there were no correspondences between spatial features of the cue display and target location, attentional effects were absent, despite a conscious intention to orient in response to the symbolic information carried by the cue letters. In Experiment 3 clear orienting effects were observed when target location corresponded with spatial features of the cue display, but the magnitude of these effects was unaffected by whether participants were aware or unaware of the cue–target relationship. These findings are consistent with the view that (1) spatial correspondences between cues and targets are a critical factor driving visual orienting in cueing paradigms, and (2) attentional effects of spatial precues are largely independent of participants’ conscious awareness of the cue–target relationship.