An inkblot for sexual preference: A semantic variant of the Affect Misattribution Procedure

A newly developed Semantic Misattribution Procedure (SMP), a semantic variant of the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), was used in three studies as an indirect measure of sexual interest. Using a known-group approach, homosexual men (Studies 1 and 2), heterosexual men (Studies 1 to 3) and heterosexual women (Study 3) were asked to guess the meaning of briefly presented Chinese ideographs as “sexual” or “not sexual”. The ideographs were preceded by briefly presented primes depicting male and female individuals of varying sexual maturity. As hypothesised, the frequency of “sexual” responses increased after priming with pictures of individuals of the preferred sex and increasing sexual maturation. The SMP showed satisfactory reliability and convergent validity as indicated by correlations with direct and two indirect measures of sexual interest. In two further studies, the hypothesised pattern was replicated whereas a standard AMP with the identical prime stimuli did not produce this result. The potential usefulness of semantic variants of the AMP is discussed.     

Player–Spectator Discrepancies on Risk Preference during Decision Making

Risk preference during decision making depends not only on the potential risk and profits but also on the roles taken in the current task. Those who perform tasks are more risk-seeking than those who only watch. Given the prominent effect of experiencing the task, the player–spectator discrepancies are supposed to arise in the experiencing phase instead of the choosing phase. In the present study, the authors separated the experiencing role and the choosing role through a stylus maze task in which participants first performed in pairs—one as the player and the other as the spectator—and then chose from two rewarding options for themselves or their partners. The findings show that the experience as players induced a risk-seeking tendency in decision making, which suggests that it was the experiencing role, rather than the choosing role, that caused the difference of risk preference, at least for financially motivated groups and under similar task conditions.     

Age and Gender Differences in Morningness–Eveningness During Adolescence

Morningness–eveningness was assessed in a large sample of adolescents and young adults. Morningness decreased from 12 to 15 years, and then remained on a stable level until about 20 years, when a turn back to morningness occurred. Boys and men were on average more evening-oriented than were girls and women. In detail, significant differences existed at the ages of 16, 18, and 19 years. A quadratic function explained more variance than a linear regression. Composite Scale of Morningness scores are related to puberty scores in boys and girls, and when combining data (i.e., higher pubertal development was related to eveningness).     

Differentiating sexual preference in men: Using dual task rapid serial visual presentation task

Cognition research suggests that allocating attention resources to evolutionarily relevant stimuli is facilitated suggesting that sexual stimuli interfere with human information processing. In a group of gay (n = 13) and straight men (n = 13) recruited in Finland, Germany and Italy, we investigated if and how sexually relevant visual stimuli affect information processing of both a target one (T1) and a subsequent target two (T2) in a dual target rapid serial visual presentation procedure. We hypothesized that: (1) due to the attentional blink (AB) phenomenon, the accuracy of reporting of T2 would decrease when following accurately identified sexually preferred T1 compared to accurately identified non‐sexually preferred T1; 2) due to the pop out effect, the accuracy of reporting of T1 and T2 would be relatively increased when T1 and T2 were sexually preferred by the participants compared to when they were not. Our findings did not support hypothesis 1 but supported hypothesis 2. We further found that the pop out effect had a good capacity to differentiate sexual preference between the groups of gay and straight men. We conclude that dual target rapid serial visual presentation can be used as an attention‐based measurement to differentiate sexual preference in men. Limitations and the applicability in the field of measuring sexual preference were discussed.     

娃娃脸效应：对婴儿面孔的偏好及过度泛化

娃娃脸效应是指由婴儿面孔特征(或婴儿图式)所引发的普遍、进化的社会认知反应, 不仅包括对婴儿面孔的偏好性反应—— 如优先注意、关怀和照料的冲动, 还包括对于具备婴儿图式的成年人、动物甚至非生命物体的泛化性反应, 即认为这些对象具有与婴儿相似的特质并对其产生相应的态度和行为。娃娃脸效应的表现、影响因素及神经机制的相关研究证明了人类对于婴儿面孔特征的偏好性反应是一种本能释放机制, 并为进化心理学中的亲代投资及性别选择理论提供了佐证。娃娃脸效应的文化差异以及实践应用可能是这一领域未来研究的主要方向。     

大学生恋爱决策中的内隐与外显线索偏好的研究

本研究旨在探索大学生恋爱决策中的内隐和外显线索的偏好差异。研究一在访谈和问卷调查的基础上,筛选出大学生在恋爱决策中关注的十四条线索,并让38名男性和52名女性大学生对这些线索进行重要性评分,从而比较不同性别的被试在线索重要性上的差异,结果显示不同性别的大学生在品行、个人修养、性格、职业、经济条件、家庭背景和学历这些线索上有显著差异;研究二分别选取了男性和女性大学生最为关注的前八条线索,并通过眼动仪探索被试进行恋爱决策时的内隐线索排序,与通过自陈问卷获得的外显线索排序进行比较,旨在探索被试的内隐与外显线索的重要性排序差异。研究二采用恋爱6个月以上关系稳定的眼动被试群体。结果显示,对于不同性别的被试,其内隐与外显条件下在某些线索重要性方面的排序上存在显著差异;女性被试的平均注视时间排序和对线索重要性排序在某些线索上也存在显著差异,而不同性别的被试对某些线索上的平均瞳孔大小排序上也和内隐线索重要性的排序上存在显著差异。     

陌生人印象偏好的实验研究

以80名大学女生为被试,在关系自我理论的框架下,采用移情研究的双时段范式,以实验法考察了关系自我和重要他人对于陌生人印象偏好的影响。结果发现：在无提示的条件下,与重要他人相似的陌生人得到更多的印象偏好;在有提示的条件下,这种由相似性而产生的偏好会显著降低。证明了重要他人对陌生人印象偏好的影响,并讨论了关系自我在其中发挥的中介作用。