Laterality effects in the spinning dancer illusion: The viewing‐from‐above bias is only part of the story

The ‘silhouette illusion’, representing the silhouette of a female dancer pirouetting about her vertical axis, is a bistable stimulus created by Japanese web designer Nobuyuki Kayahara. Although the dancer can be perceived as spinning either clockwise or counterclockwise, the clockwise rotation is usually preferred. Troje and McAdam (i‐Perception, 2010, 1, 143) showed that this clockwise bias can be attributed to the tendency to assume a viewpoint from above rather than from below, given that the dancer is portrayed from a vantage point that is not perpendicular to the axis of rotation. Here, we tested whether another possible factor contributing to the observers’ interpretation of this bistable stimulus might be the tendency to perceive movements of the right rather than the left foot. We confirmed both the viewing‐from‐above bias and our hypothesis. The bias to perceive movements of the right leg might be a generalization to lower limbs of a perceptual frequency effect already observed for upper limbs. Such a perceptual and attentional bias towards the right hand/foot could account for the greater ability to predict the outcome of sport actions when observing right‐ rather than left‐limbed movements, and thus the left‐handers' and left‐footers' advantage observed in a variety of interactive sports.     

Effects of facial expression on working memory

In long‐term memory (LTM) emotional content may both enhance and impair memory, however, disagreement remains whether emotional content exerts different effects on the ability to maintain and manipulate information over short intervals. Using a working‐memory (WM) recognition task requiring the monitoring of faces displaying facial expressions of emotion, participants judged each face as identical (target) or not (non‐target) to that presented 2 trials back (2‐back). Negative expression was better and faster recognised, illustrated by higher target discriminability and target detection. Positive and negative expressions also induced a more liberal detection bias compared with neutral. Taking the preceding item into account, additional accuracy impairment (negative preceding negative target) and enhancement effects (negative or positive preceding neutral target) appeared. This illustrates a differential modulation of WM based on the affective tone of the target (mirroring LTM enhancement‐ and recognition bias effects), and of the preceding item (enhanced and impaired target detection).     

Not sensitive,yet less biased: A signal detection theory perspective on mindfulness,attention, and recognition memory

The practice of mindfulness has been argued to increase attention control and improve memory performance. However, it was recently suggested that the effect of mindfulness on memory may be due to a shift in response-bias, rather than to an increase in memory-sensitivity. The present study examined the mindfulness-attention-memory triad. Participants filled in the five-facets of mindfulness questionnaire, and completed two recognition blocks; in the first attention was full, whereas in the second attention was divided during the encoding of information. It was found that the facet of non-judging (NJ) moderated the impact of attention on memory, such that responses of high NJ participants were less biased and remained constant even when attention was divided. Facets of mindfulness were not associated with memory sensitivity. These findings suggest that mindfulness may affect memory through decision making processes, rather than through directing attentional resources to the encoding of information.     

Effects of rater conscientiousness on evaluations of task and contextual performance of older and younger co-workers

The possibility for age discrimination and stereotypes to affect performance evaluations is rising. Although careful evaluations might be expected from conscientious raters, little is known about whether they might show more or less bias towards certain age groups. Therefore, in our study using a time-lagged design, we investigated the effects of rater conscientiousness on the performance evaluations of younger and older actual co-worker (N = 242). We found that raters who were more conscientious provided higher ratings for older workers than for younger workers on task performance and organizational citizenship behaviours. Specifically, we tested the model of mediated moderation, in which the relation between rater conscientiousness and ratee age predicts ratee-perceived conscientiousness, which in turn predicts performance ratings. The model was significant for older ratees, but not for younger ratees. We discuss our results in terms of the “similar to me” effects and implications for organizational practices.     

Someone is pulling the strings: hypersensitive agency detection and belief in conspiracy theories

We hypothesised that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesised that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 (N = 202) participants were more likely to agree with a range of conspiracy theories if they also tended to attribute intentionality and agency to inanimate objects. As predicted, this relationship accounted for the link between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. We replicated this finding in Study 2 (N = 330), whilst taking into account beliefs in paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that education may undermine the reasoning processes and assumptions that are reflected in conspiracy belief.     

Eye movements reveal mechanisms underlying attentional biases towards threat

Mechanisms underlying attentional biases towards threat (ABTs), such as attentional avoidance and difficulty of disengagement, are still unclear. To address this issue, we recorded participants' eye movements during a dot detection task in which threatening or neutral stimuli served as peripheral cues. We evaluated response times (RTs) in trials where participants looked at the central fixation cross (not at the cues), as they were required, and number and duration of (unwanted) fixations towards threatening or neutral cues; in all analyses trait anxiety was treated as a covariate. Difficulty in attentional disengagement (longer RTs) was found when peripheral threatening stimuli were presented for 100?ms. Moreover, we observed significantly shorter (unwanted) fixations on threatening than on neutral peripheral stimuli, compatible with an avoidance bias, for longer presentation times. These findings demonstrate that, independent of trait anxiety levels, disengagement bias occurs without eye movements, whereas eye movements are implied in threat avoidance.     

Children view own-age faces qualitatively differently to other-age faces

Like most own-group biases in face recognition, the own-age bias (OAB) is thought to be based either on perceptual expertise or socio-cognitive motivational mechanisms [Wolff, N., Kemter, K., Schweinberger, S. R., &; Wiese, H. (2013). What drives social in-group biases in face recognition memory? ERP evidence from the own-gender bias. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. doi:10.1093/scan/nst024]. The present study employed a recognition paradigm with eye-tracking in order to assess whether participants actively viewed faces of their own-age differently to that of other-age faces. The results indicated a significant OAB (superior recognition for own-age relative to other-age faces), provided that they were upright, indicative of expertise being employed for the recognition of own-age faces. However, the eye-tracking results indicate that viewing other-age faces was qualitatively different to the viewing of own-age faces, with more nose fixations for other-age faces. These results are interpreted as supporting the socio-cognitive model of the OAB.     

Judging the implications of a concession: Conversational distance and belief bias effects

An arguer's position at a given point in an argument can be characterized as a set of commitments. The present study considers the perceptions of ordinary language users about the implications of making a concession for the contents of the conceder's commitment set. In particular, we examine two sources of influence on such lay perceptions—conversational distance (i.e., the number of turns separating the concession from commitments incurred earlier in the argument) and an individual's prior beliefs regarding the content of the argument. Across two studies, college students were administered an argument task assessing the extent to which a concession by the protagonist of an argument on the last move indicated changes to other commitments incurred earlier in the argument. Results indicated that participants were more likely to judge a concession as indicating a change in prior commitments if (a) the commitment was incurred later in the argument than earlier, and (b) the participant disagreed with the protagonists’ thesis in the argument. In addition, performance on deductive reasoning tasks predicted individual differences in the conversational distance effect, but not the belief bias effect.     

Relevance drives attention: Attentional bias for gain- and loss-related stimuli is driven by delayed disengagement

Attentional bias to gain- and loss-related stimuli was investigated in a dot-probe task. We used coloured stimuli that had acquired their valence during the experiment by signalling the chance to either win or lose points in a game task. Replicating previous findings with the additional singleton paradigm, we found attentional bias effects for both gain- and loss-related colours. The effects were due to delayed disengagement from valent stimuli, especially if they were positive, and could not be explained by nonattentional processes like behavioural freezing. Our findings suggest that stimuli signalling opportunities and dangers hold attention, supporting a general motivational relevance principle of the orienting of attention.