A social Bayesian brain: How social knowledge can shape visual perception

Facial misfits accelerate stereotype-based associative learning

Counterstereotypes challenge the deleterious effects that gender-typed beliefs exert on people's occupational aspirations and lifestyle choices. Surprisingly, however, the critical issue of how readily unexpected person-related knowledge can be acquired remains poorly understood. Accordingly, in two experiments in which the facial appearance of targets was varied to manipulate goodness-of-stereotype-fit (i.e., high vs. low femininity/masculinity), here we used a probabilistic selection task to probe the rate at which counter-stereotypic and stereotypic individuals can be learned. Whether occupational (Expt. 1) or trait-related (Expt. 2) gender stereotypes were explored, a computational analysis yielded consistent results. Underscoring the potency of surprising information (i.e., facial misfits), knowledge acquisition was accelerated for unexpected compared to expected persons, both in counter-stereotypic and stereotypic learning contexts. These findings affirm predictive accounts of social perception and speak to the optimal characteristics of interventions designed to reduce stereotyping outside the laboratory.

Performance-related feedback as a strategy to overcome spontaneous occupational stereotypes

This article investigates the use of performance-related feedback as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous occupational stereotyping when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Across two studies participants were presented with two terms: a role noun (e.g., surgeon) and a kinship term (e.g., mother) and asked to quickly decide whether both terms could refer to the same person. The feedback training involved telling participants whether their responses were correct or incorrect and providing them with their cumulative percentage correct score. In the absence of feedback, responding to stereotype-incongruent pairings was typically slower and less accurate than in stereotype-congruent and neutral conditions. However, the results demonstrated that performance significantly improved to stimuli on which participants received the feedback training (Experiment 1), and to a novel set of stimuli (Experiment 2). In addition, the effects were still evident 1 week later (Experiment 2). It is concluded that performance-related feedback is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous activation of occupational stereotypes and can result in lower levels of stereotype use.

Motivation and prediction-driven processing of social memoranda

Social semantic memory guides many aspects of behavior. Individuals rely on acquired and inferred knowledge about personal characteristics and group membership to predict the behavior and character of social targets. These predictions then determine the expectations from, the behavior in, and the interpretations of social interactions. According to predictive processing accounts, mnemonic and attentional mechanisms should enhance the processing of prediction-violating events. However, empirical findings suggest that prediction-consistent social events are often better remembered. This mini-review integrates recent evidence from social and non-social memory research to highlight the role of motivation in explaining these discrepancies. A particular emphasis is given to the continuous nature of prediction-(in)consistency, the epistemic tendency of perceivers to maintain or update their knowledge, and the dynamic influences of motivation on multiple steps in prediction-driven social memory. The suggested framework provides a coherent outlook of existing work and offers promising future directions to better understand the ebb and flow of social memoranda.

Social and non-social categorisation in investment decisions and learning

Categorical processes allow us to make sense of the environment effortlessly by grouping stimuli sharing relevant features. Although these processes occur in both social and non-social contexts, motivational, affective, and epistemic factors specific to the social world may motivate individuation over categorisation of social compared with non-social stimuli. In one experiment, we tested this hypothesis by analysing the reliance on categorical versus individuating information when making investment decisions about social and non-social targets. In an adaptation of the iterative trust game, participants from three experimental groups had to predict the economic outcomes associated with either humans (i.e., social stimuli), artificial races (i.e., social-like stimuli), or artworks (i.e., non-social stimuli) to earn economic rewards. We observed that investment decisions with humans were initially biased by categorical information in the form of gender stereotypes, but later improved through an individuating learning approach. In contrast, decisions made with non-social stimuli were initially unbiased by categorical information, but the category-outcomes associations learned through repeated interactions were quickly used to categorise new targets. These results are discussed along with motivational and perceptual mechanisms involved in investment decisions and learning about social and non-social agents.

Gaze-Triggered Communicative Intention Compresses Perceived Temporal Duration

Eye gaze communicates a person's attentional state and intentions toward objects. Here we demonstrate that this important social signal has the potential to distort time perception of gazed-at objects (N = 70 adults). By using a novel gaze-associated learning paradigm combined with the time-discrimination task, we showed that objects previously associated with others' eye gaze were perceived as significantly shorter in duration than the nonassociated counterparts. The time-compression effect cannot be attributed to general attention allocation because it disappeared when objects were associated with nonsocial attention cues (i.e., arrows). Critically, this effect correlated with observers' autistic traits and vanished when the gazing agent's line of sight was blocked by barriers, reflecting the key role of intention processing triggered by gaze in modulating time perception. Our findings support the existence of a special mechanism tuned to social cues, which can shape our perception of the outer world in time domains.

Deepfake smiles matter less-the psychological and neural impact of presumed AI-generated faces

High-quality AI-generated portraits ("deepfakes") are becoming increasingly prevalent. Understanding the responses they evoke in perceivers is crucial in assessing their societal implications. Here we investigate the impact of the belief that depicted persons are real or deepfakes on psychological and neural measures of human face perception. Using EEG, we tracked participants' (N = 30) brain responses to real faces showing positive, neutral, and negative expressions, after being informed that they are either real or fake. Smiling faces marked as fake appeared less positive, as reflected in expression ratings, and induced slower evaluations. Whereas presumed real smiles elicited canonical emotion effects with differences relative to neutral faces in the P1 and N170 components (markers of early visual perception) and in the EPN component (indicative of reflexive emotional processing), presumed deepfake smiles showed none of these effects. Additionally, only smiles presumed as fake showed enhanced LPP activity compared to neutral faces, suggesting more effortful evaluation. Negative expressions induced typical emotion effects, whether considered real or fake. Our findings demonstrate a dampening effect on perceptual, emotional, and evaluative processing of presumed deepfake smiles, but not angry expressions, adding new specificity to the debate on the societal impact of AI-generated content.

Testing hypotheses about the harm that capitalism causes to the mind and brain: a theoretical framework for neuroscience research

In this paper, we will attempt to outline the key ideas of a theoretical framework for neuroscience research that reflects critically on the neoliberal capitalist context. We argue that neuroscience can and should illuminate the effects of neoliberal capitalism on the brains and minds of the population living under such socioeconomic systems. Firstly, we review the available empirical research indicating that the socio-economic environment is harmful to minds and brains. We, then, describe the effects of the capitalist context on neuroscience itself by presenting how it has been influenced historically. In order to set out a theoretical framework that can generate neuroscientific hypotheses with regards to the effects of the capitalist context on brains and minds, we suggest a categorization of the effects, namely deprivation, isolation and intersectional effects. We also argue in favor of a neurodiversity perspective [as opposed to the dominant model of conceptualizing neural (mal-)functioning] and for a perspective that takes into account brain plasticity and potential for change and adaptation. Lastly, we discuss the specific needs for future research as well as a frame for post-capitalist research.

The impact of contextual information on aesthetic engagement of artworks

Art is embedded in its historical, social, political, and cultural context, and rarely evaluated in isolation. The semantic context created by providing text-based information about an artwork influences how an artwork will be evaluated. In the current study, we investigated how contextual information influences the aesthetic appreciation of artworks. Experiment 1 explored whether contextual information such as artist or technique information influenced aesthetic judgments of abstract artworks by Jackson Pollock. The combination of artist and technique information increased liking and interest for the artworks. Experiment 2 investigated whether contextual information about the artist, technique, or content of representational artworks by Indian and European/American artists influenced aesthetic responses of Northern American participants. We found that artist, content, and technique information compared to no information influenced the aesthetic experience of representational artworks. For both experiments, the effect of contextual information was stronger in participants with little art experience, and those more open to experience, and for artworks from another culture compared to one's own. In sum, along-with theories of empirical and neuro-aesthetics, the current findings also have implications for aesthetics education and museum curation. It seems crucial to consider the type of artwork, the type of contextual information, its potential to enhance aesthetic experience, and the curatorial background of the museum or exhibition, as well as individual differences of viewers. Artworks that are unfamiliar to its viewers might require more contextual information to have an impact on the viewers, and may lower viewers' prejudices against artworks/artists originating from an out-group.

Guns Are Not Faster to Enter Awareness After Seeing a Black Face: Absence of Race-Priming in a Gun/Tool Task During Continuous Flash Suppression

In the Weapon Identification Task (WIT), Black faces prime the identification of guns compared with tools. We measured race-induced changes in visual awareness of guns and tools using continuous flash suppression (CFS). Eighty-four participants, primed with Black or Asian faces, indicated the location of a gun or tool target that was temporarily rendered invisible through CFS, which provides a sensitive measure of effects on early visual processing. The same participants also completed a standard (non-CFS) WIT. We replicated the standard race-priming effect in the WIT. In the CFS task, Black and Asian primes did not affect the time guns and tools needed to enter awareness. Thus, race priming does not alter early visual processing but does change the identification of guns and tools. This confirms that race-priming originates from later post-perceptual memory- or response-related processing.

Mining attention distribution paradigm: Discover gaze patterns and their association rules behind the visual image

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Attention allocation reflects the way of humans filtering and organizing the information. On one hand, different task scenarios seriously affect human's rule of attention distribution, on the other hand, visual attention reflecting the cognitive and psychological process. Most of the previous studies on visual attention allocation are based on cognitive models, predicted models, or statistical analysis of eye movement data or visual images, however, these methods are inadequate to provide an inside view of gaze behavior to reveal the attention distribution pattern within scenario context. Moreover, they seldom study the association rules of these patterns. Therefore, we adopted the big data mining approach to discover the paradigm of visual attention distribution.

METHODS

We applied the data mining method to extract the gaze patterns to discover the regularities of attention distribution behavior within the scenario context. The proposed method consists of three components, tasks scenario segmented and clustered, gaze pattern mining, and association rule of frequent pattern mining.

RESULTS

The proposed approach is tested on the operation platform. The complex operation task is simultaneously segmented and clustered with the TICC-based method and evaluated by the BCI index. The operator's eye movement frequent patterns and their association rule are discovered. The results demonstrate that our method can associate the eye-tracking data with the task-oriented scene data.

DISCUSSION

The proposed method provides the benefits of being able to explicitly express and quantitatively analyze people's visual attention patterns. The proposed method can not only be applied in the field of aerospace medicine and aviation psychology, but also can likely be applied to computer-aided diagnosis and follow-up tool for neurological disease and cognitive impairment related disease, such as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), neglect syndrome, social attention differences in ASD (Autism spectrum disorder).

Fading boundaries between the physical and the social world: Insights and novel techniques from the intersection of these two fields

This review focuses on the subtle interactions between sensory input and social cognition in visual perception. We suggest that body indices, such as gait and posture, can mediate such interactions. Recent trends in cognitive research are trying to overcome approaches that define perception as stimulus-centered and are pointing toward a more embodied agent-dependent perspective. According to this view, perception is a constructive process in which sensory inputs and motivational systems contribute to building an image of the external world. A key notion emerging from new theories on perception is that the body plays a critical role in shaping our perception. Depending on our arm's length, height and capacity of movement, we create our own image of the world based on a continuous compromise between sensory inputs and expected behavior. We use our bodies as natural "rulers" to measure both the physical and the social world around us. We point out the necessity of an integrative approach in cognitive research that takes into account the interplay between social and perceptual dimensions. To this end, we review long-established and novel techniques aimed at measuring bodily states and movements, and their perception, with the assumption that only by combining the study of visual perception and social cognition can we deepen our understanding of both fields.

The power of the unexpected: Prediction errors enhance stereotype-based learning

Stereotyping is a ubiquitous feature of social cognition, yet surprisingly little is known about how group-related beliefs influence the acquisition of person knowledge. Accordingly, in combination with computational modeling (i.e., Reinforcement Learning Drift Diffusion Model analysis), here we used a probabilistic selection task to explore the extent to which gender stereotypes impact instrumental learning. Several theoretically interesting effects were observed. First, reflecting the impact of cultural socialization on person construal, an expectancy-based preference for stereotype-consistent (vs. stereotype-inconsistent) responses was observed. Second, underscoring the potency of unexpected information, learning rates were faster for counter-stereotypic compared to stereotypic individuals, both for negative and positive prediction errors. Collectively, these findings are consistent with predictive accounts of social perception and have implications for the conditions under which stereotyping can potentially be reduced.

Expectations of efficient actions bias social perception: a pre-registered online replication

Humans take a teleological stance when observing others' actions, interpreting them as intentional and goal directed. In predictive processing accounts of social perception, this teleological stance would be mediated by a perceptual prediction of an ideal energy-efficient reference trajectory with which a rational actor would achieve their goals within the current environmental constraints. Hudson and colleagues (2018 Proc. R. Soc. B 285, 20180638. (doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.0638)) tested this hypothesis in a series of experiments in which participants reported the perceived disappearance points of hands reaching for objects. They found that these judgements were biased towards the expected efficient reference trajectories. Observed straight reaches were reported higher when an obstacle needed to be overcome than if the path was clear. By contrast, unnecessarily high reaches over empty space were perceptually flattened. Moreover, these perceptual biases increased the more the environmental constraints and expected action trajectories were explicitly processed. These findings provide an important advance to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying social perception. The current replication tests the robustness of these findings and whether they uphold in an online setting.

Towards tacit knowledge mining within context: Visual cognitive graph model and eye movement image interpretation

Visual attention is one of the most important brain cognitive functions, which filters the rich information of the outside world to ensure the efficient operation of limited cognitive resources. The underlying knowledge, i.e., tacit knowledge, hidden in the human attention allocation performances, is context-related and is hard to be expressed by experts, but it is essential for novice operator training and interaction system design. Traditional models of visual attention allocation and corresponding analysis methods seldomly involve task contextual information or present the tacit knowledge in an explicit and quantified way. Thus, it is challenging to pass on the expert's tacit knowledge to the novice or utilize it to construct an interaction system by employing traditional methods. Therefore, this paper first proposes a new model called the visual cognitive graph model based on graph theory to model the visual attention allocation associated with the task context. Then, based on this graph model, utilize the data mining method to reveal attention patterns within context to quantitatively analyze the operator's tacit knowledge during operation tasks. We introduced three physical quantities derived from graph theory to describe the tacit knowledge, which can be used directly to construct an interaction system or operator training. For example, discover the essential information within the task context, the relevant information affecting critical information, and the bridge information revealing the decision-making process. We tested the proposed method in the example of flight operation, the comparison results with the traditional eye movement graph model demonstrate that the proposed visual cognitive model can compromise the task context. The comparison results with the statistical analysis method demonstrate that our tacit knowledge mining method can reveal the underlying knowledge hidden in the visual information. Finally, we give practical applications in the examples of operator training guidance and adaptive interaction system. Our proposed method can explore more in-depth knowledge of visual information, such as the correlations of different obtained information and the way operator obtains information, most of which are even not noticed by operators themselves.

The reciprocal relationship between episodic memory and future thinking: How the outcome of predictions is subsequently remembered

Evidence suggests that memory is involved in making simulations and predictions about the future (i.e., future thinking), but less work has examined how the outcome of those predictions (whether events play out as predicted or expected) subsequently affects episodic memory. In this investigation, we examine whether memory is better for outcomes that are consistent with predictions, or whether memory is enhanced for outcomes that are inconsistent with predictions, after the predicted event occurs. In this experiment, participants learned a core trait associated with social targets (e.g., high in extroversion), before making predictions about behaviors targets would perform. Participants then were shown behaviors the social targets actually performed (i.e., prediction outcome), which was either consistent or inconsistent with predictions. After that, participants completed a memory test (recognition; recall) for the prediction outcomes. For recognition, the results revealed better memory for outcomes that were consistent with traits associated with targets (i.e., trait-consistent outcomes), compared to outcomes that were inconsistent (i.e., trait-inconsistent outcomes). Finding a memory advantage for trait-consistent outcomes suggests that outcomes that are in line with the contents of memory (e.g., what one knows; schemas) are more readily remembered than those that are inconsistent with memory, which may reflect an adaptive memory process. For recall, memory did not differ between trait-consistent and trait-inconsistent outcomes. Altogether, the results of this experiment advance understanding of the reciprocal relationship between episodic memory and future thinking and show that outcome of predictions has an influence on subsequent episodic memory, at least as measured by recognition.

Mattering and parental presence in systemic therapy using nonviolent resistance: The utilization of imaginary methods

An empowered sense of "self" is crucial for emotional well-being and positive relationships. Certain family interaction patterns can disrupt the adult's sense of "mattering" to the child, eroding their perceived self-efficacy. Mattering can be understood as a felt sense of relational agency which is necessary for experiencing one's interactions as meaningful, effective, and self-determined. When parents generate more positive future narratives in co-creation with their therapist, their sense of relevance to a child can be restored. In this way, more constructive forms of interaction can emerge with their child which has hitherto eschewed their care. This article aims to provide a conceptual basis for addressing an absence of reciprocity, where children demonstrate harmful or self-destructive behavior and refuse to cooperate in therapy. In such instances, one-sided parental action, utilizing nonviolent resistance methods, can influence relational dynamics. Imaginary methods can then facilitate shifts to psychological states in which the parent internally experiences efficacy and mattering more often without requiring validation from the "physical child" in the here and now. We introduce examples of specific imaginary techniques, which in our clinical practice have shown to facilitate such shifts in parents. We discuss neuroscientific theories that may account for their powerful impact we witness in our clinical experience.

They're watching you: the impact of social evaluation and anxiety on threat-related perceptual decision-making

In day-to-day social interactions, we frequently use cues and contextual knowledge to make perceptual decisions regarding the presence or absence of threat in facial expressions. Such perceptual decisions are often made in socially evaluative contexts. However, the influence of such contexts on perceptual discrimination of threatening and neutral expressions has not been examined empirically. Furthermore, it is unclear how individual differences in anxiety interact with socially evaluative contexts to influence threat-related perceptual decision-making. In the present study, participants completed a 2-alternative forced choice perceptual decision-making task in which they used threatening and neutral cues to discriminate between threatening and neutral faces while being socially evaluated by purported peers or not. Perceptual sensitivity and reaction time were measured. Individual differences in state anxiety were assessed immediately after the task. In the presence of social evaluation, higher state anxiety was associated with worse perceptual sensitivity, i.e., worse discrimination of threatening and neutral faces. These findings suggest that individual differences in anxiety interact with social evaluation to impair the use of threatening cues to discriminate between threatening and neutral expressions. Such impairment in perceptual decision-making may contribute to maladaptive social behavior that often accompanies evaluative social contexts.

Surprising Threats Accelerate Conscious Perception

The folk psychological notion that "we see what we expect to see" is supported by evidence that we become consciously aware of visual stimuli that match our prior expectations more quickly than stimuli that violate our expectations. Similarly, "we see what we want to see," such that more biologically-relevant stimuli are also prioritised for conscious perception. How, then, is perception shaped by biologically-relevant stimuli that we did not expect? Here, we conducted two experiments using breaking continuous flash suppression (bCFS) to investigate how prior expectations modulated response times to neutral and fearful faces. In both experiments, we found that prior expectations for neutral faces hastened responses, whereas the opposite was true for fearful faces. This interaction between emotional expression and prior expectations was driven predominantly by participants with higher trait anxiety. Electroencephalography (EEG) data collected in Experiment 2 revealed an interaction evident in the earliest stages of sensory encoding, suggesting prediction errors expedite sensory encoding of fearful faces. These findings support a survival hypothesis, where biologically-relevant fearful stimuli are prioritised for conscious access even more so when unexpected, especially for people with high trait anxiety.

Minority salience and the overestimation of individuals from minority groups in perception and memory

Our cognitive system is tuned toward spotting the uncommon and unexpected. We propose that individuals coming from minority groups are, by definition, just that—uncommon and often unexpected. Consequently, they are psychologically salient in perception, memory, and visual awareness. This minority salience creates a tendency to overestimate the prevalence of minorities, leading to an erroneous picture of our social environments—an illusion of diversity. In 12 experiments with 942 participants, we found evidence that the presence of minority group members is indeed overestimated in memory and perception and that masked images of minority group members are prioritized for visual awareness. These findings were consistent when participants were members of both the majority group and the minority group. Moreover, this overestimated prevalence of minorities led to decreased support for diversity-promoting policies. We discuss the theoretical implications of the illusion of diversity and how it may inform more equitable and inclusive decision-making.

A neurobiological perspective on social influence: Serotonin and social adaptation

Humans are inherently social beings. Being suggestible to each other's expectations enables pro-social skills that are crucial for social learning and adaptation. Despite its high relevance for psychiatry, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying social adaptation are still not well understood. This review therefore provides a conceptual framework covering various distinct mechanisms underlying social adaptation and explores the neuropharmacology - in particular the role of the serotonin (5-HT) system - modulating these mechanisms. This article therefore reviews empirical results on social influence processing and reconciles them with recent findings from psychedelic research on social processing to elucidate neurobiological and neuropharmacological underpinnings of social adaptation. Various computational, neurobiological, and neurochemical processes are involved in distinct mechanisms underlying social adaptation such as the multisensory process of social information integration that is crucial for the forming of self-representation and representations of social norms. This is again associated with self- and other-perception during social interactions as well as value-based decision making that guides our behaviour in daily interactions. We highlight the critical role of 5-HT in these processes and suggest that 5-HT can facilitate social learning and may represent an important target for treating psychiatric disorders characterized by impairments in social functioning. This framework also has important implications for psychedelic-assisted therapy as well as for the development of novel treatment approaches and future research directions.

What Is Consciousness? Integrated Information vs. Inference

Any successful naturalistic account of consciousness must state what consciousness is, in terms that are compatible with the rest of our naturalistic descriptions of the world. Integrated Information Theory represents a pioneering attempt to do just this. This theory accounts for the core features of consciousness by holding that there is an equivalence between the phenomenal experience associated with a system and its intrinsic causal power. The proposal, however, fails to provide insight into the qualitative character of consciousness and, as a result of its proposed equivalence between consciousness and purely internal dynamics, into the intentional character of conscious perception. In recent years, an alternate group of theories has been proposed that claims consciousness to be equivalent to certain forms of inference. One such theory is the Living Mirror theory, which holds consciousness to be a form of inference performed by all living systems. The proposal of consciousness as inference overcomes the shortcomings of Integrated Information Theory, particularly in the case of conscious perception. A synthesis of these two perspectives can be reached by appreciating that conscious living systems are self-organising in nature. This mode of organization requires them to have a high level of integration. From this perspective, we can understand consciousness as being dependent on a system possessing non-trivial amounts of integrated information while holding that the process of inference performed by the system is the fact of consciousness itself.

More or less of me and you: self-relevance augments the effects of item probability on stimulus prioritization

Self-relevance exerts a powerful influence on information processing. Compared to material associated with other people, personally meaningful stimuli are prioritized during decision-making. Further exploring the character of this effect, here we considered the extent to which stimulus enhancement is impacted by the frequency of self-relevant versus friend-relevant material. In a matching task, participants reported whether shape-label stimulus pairs corresponded to previously learned associations (e.g., triangle = self, square = friend). Crucially however, before the task commenced, stimulus-based expectancies were provided indicating the probability with which both self- and friend-related shapes would be encountered. The results revealed that task performance was impacted by the frequency of stimulus presentation in combination with the personal relevance of the items. When self- and friend-related shapes appeared with equal frequencies, a self-prioritization effect emerged (Expt. 1). Additionally, in both confirmatory (Expt. 2) and dis-confirmatory (Expt. 3) task contexts, stimuli that were encountered frequently (vs. infrequently) were prioritized, an effect that was most pronounced for self-relevant (vs. friend-relevant) items. Further computational analyses indicated that, in each of the reported experiments, differences in performance were underpinned by variation in the rate of information uptake, with evidence extracted more rapidly from self-relevant compared to friend-relevant stimuli. These findings advance our understanding of the emergence and origin of stimulus-prioritization effects during decisional processing.

Confirmation of Interpersonal Expectations is Intrinsically Rewarding

People want to interact successfully with other individuals, and they invest significant efforts in attempting to do so. Decades of research have demonstrated that to simplify the dauntingly complex task of interpersonal communication, perceivers predict the responses of individuals in their environment using stereotypes and other sources of prior knowledge. Here, we show that these top-down expectations can also shape the subjective value of expectation-consistent and expectation-violating targets. Specifically, in two neuroimaging experiments (n = 58), we observed increased activation in brain regions associated with reward processing-including the nucleus accumbens-when perceivers observed information consistent with their social expectations. In two additional behavioral experiments (n = 704), we observed that perceivers were willing to forgo money to encounter an expectation-consistent target and avoid an expectation-violating target. Together, these findings suggest that perceivers value having their social expectations confirmed, much like food or monetary rewards.

Critical review of the use of the Rorschach in European courts

In relation to the admissibility of evidence obtained using projective personality tests arose in F v. Bevándorlási és Állampolgársági Hivatam (2018). The Court of Justice of the European Union has held that an expert's report can only be accepted if it is based on the international scientific community's standards, but has refrained from stipulating what these standards are. It appears timely for European psychologists to decide what standards should be applied to determine whether or not a test is appropriate for psycholegal use. We propose standards and then apply them to the Rorschach because it was used in this case and is an exemplar of projective tests. We conclude that the Rorschach does not meet the proposed standards and that psychologists should abstain from using it in legal proceedings even in the absence of a clear judicial prohibition.

Stereotypes bias face perception via orbitofrontal-fusiform cortical interaction

Previous research has shown that social-conceptual associations, such as stereotypes, can influence the visual representation of faces and neural pattern responses in ventral temporal cortex (VTC) regions, such as the fusiform gyrus (FG). Current models suggest that this social-conceptual impact requires medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) feedback signals during perception. Backward masking can disrupt such signals, as it is a technique known to reduce functional connectivity between VTC regions and regions outside VTC. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), subjects passively viewed masked and unmasked faces, and following the scan, perceptual biases and stereotypical associations were assessed. Multi-voxel representations of faces across the VTC, and in the FG and mOFC, reflected stereotypically biased perceptions when faces were unmasked, but this effect was abolished when faces were masked. However, the VTC still retained the ability to process masked faces and was sensitive to their categorical distinctions. Functional connectivity analyses confirmed that masking disrupted mOFC-FG connectivity, which predicted a reduced impact of stereotypical associations in the FG. Taken together, our findings suggest that the biasing of face representations in line with stereotypical associations does not arise from intrinsic processing within the VTC and FG alone, but instead it depends in part on top-down feedback from the mOFC during perception.

Inferential affective tracking reveals the remarkable speed of context-based emotion perception

Understanding the emotional states of others is important for social functioning. Recent studies show that context plays an essential role in emotion recognition. However, it remains unclear whether emotion inference from visual scene context is as efficient as emotion recognition from faces. Here, we measured the speed of context-based emotion perception, using Inferential Affective Tracking (IAT) with naturalistic and dynamic videos. Using cross-correlation analyses, we found that inferring affect based on visual context alone is just as fast as tracking affect with all available information including face and body. We further demonstrated that this approach has high precision and sensitivity to sub-second lags. Our results suggest that emotion recognition from dynamic contextual information might be automatic and immediate. Seemingly complex context-based emotion perception is far more efficient than previously assumed.

The impact of team preferences on soccer offside judgments in laypersons: a quasi-experimental study

The present study uses a quasi-experimental design to investigate the impact of team preferences on the accuracy of offside judgments. In Experiments 1 and 2, supporters of two German soccer clubs (i.e., Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04) judged offsides in artificial scenes from a match between the clubs. We expected that supporters of both clubs would less frequently report the offside position of a forward from the preferred team. The results of Experiment 1 partly confirmed the predictions. Both groups reported the offside position of a yellow forward less frequently than that of a blue forward, and this effect was much larger for supporters of Borussia Dortmund than for supporters of Schalke 04. The difference between groups could be attributed to team preferences. The weaker effect of team preference in supporters of Schalke 04 was attributed to an unexpected perceptual effect that increased the accuracy of offside judgments for blue forwards in both groups. Experiments 2 and 3 showed the presumed effect of team preferences and the perceptual effect, respectively, in isolation. In summary, the results of our experiments provide evidence for (a) an effect of team preferences and (b) an effect of shirt–background contrast on offside judgments in soccer.

It's not always about me: The effects of prior beliefs and stimulus prevalence on self-other prioritisation

Although self-relevance is widely acknowledged to enhance stimulus processing, the exclusivity of this effect remains open to question. In particular, in commonly adopted experimental paradigms, the prioritisation of self-relevant (vs. other-relevant) material may reflect the operation of a task-specific strategy rather than an obligatory facet of social-cognitive functioning. By changing basic aspects of the decisional context, it may therefore be possible to generate stimulus-prioritisation effects for targets other than the self. Based on the demonstration that ownership facilitates object categorisation (i.e., self-ownership effect), here we showed that stimulus prioritisation is sensitive to prior expectations about the prevalence of forthcoming objects (owned-by-self vs. owned-by-friend) and whether these beliefs are supported during the task. Under conditions of stimulus uncertainty (i.e., no prior beliefs), replicating previous research, objects were classified more rapidly when owned-by-self compared with owned-by-friend (Experiment 1). When, however, the frequency of stimulus presentation either confirmed (Experiment 2) or disconfirmed (Experiment 3) prior expectations, stimulus prioritisation was observed for the most prevalent objects regardless of their owner. A hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) analysis further revealed that decisional bias was underpinned by differences in the evidential requirements of response generation. These findings underscore the flexibility of ownership effects (i.e., stimulus prioritisation) during object processing.

Challenges and opportunities for top-down modulation research in cognitive psychology

Studying social modulation of cognitive processes holds much promise for illuminating how, where, when and why social factors influence how we perceive and act in the world, as well as providing insight into the underlying cognitive mechanisms. This is no small objective; it reflects an ambitious programme of research. At present, based on the modal theoretical and methodological approach, we suggest that several challenges exist to achieving such lofty aims. These challenges span an overreliance on a simplistic dichotomy between "top-down" and "bottom-up" modulation, a lack of specificity about mechanisms that renders clear interpretations difficult, and theories that largely test against null hypotheses. We suggest that these challenges present several opportunities for new research and we encourage the field to abandon simplistic dichotomies and connect much more with existing research programmes such as semantics, memory and attention, which have all built diverse research platforms over many decades and that can help shape how social modulation is conceptualised and studied from a cognitive and brain perspective. We also outline ways that stronger theoretical positions can be taken, which avoid comparing to null hypotheses, and endorse methodological reform through fully embracing proposals from the open science movement and "credibility revolution". We feel that by taking these opportunities, the field will have a better chance of reaching its potential to build a cumulative science of social modulation that can inform understanding of basic cognitive and brain systems, as well as real-life social interactions and the varied abilities observed across the Autism Spectrum.

Why do you attract me but not others? Retrieval of person knowledge and its generalization bring diverse judgments of facial attractiveness

Judgments of facial attractiveness play an important role in social interactions. However, it still remains unclear why these judgments are malleable. The present study aimed to understand whether the retrieval of person knowledge leads to different judgments of attractiveness of the same face. Event-related potentials and learning-recognition tasks were used to investigate the effects of person knowledge on facial attractiveness. The results showed that compared with familiar faces that were matched with negative person knowledge, those matched with positive person knowledge were evaluated as more attractive and evoked a larger early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive complex (LPC). Additionally, positive similar faces had the same behavioral results and evoked large LPC, while unfamiliar faces did not have any significant effects. These results indicate that the effect of person knowledge on facial attractiveness occurs from early to late stage of facial attractiveness processing, and this effect could be generalized based on the similarity of the face structure, which occurred at the late stage. This mechanism may explain why individuals form different judgments of facial attractiveness.

Integrating prediction errors at two time scales permits rapid recalibration of speech sound categories

Speech perception presumably arises from internal models of how specific sensory features are associated with speech sounds. These features change constantly (e.g. different speakers, articulation modes etc.), and listeners need to recalibrate their internal models by appropriately weighing new versus old evidence. Models of speech recalibration classically ignore this volatility. The effect of volatility in tasks where sensory cues were associated with arbitrary experimenter-defined categories were well described by models that continuously adapt the learning rate while keeping a single representation of the category. Using neurocomputational modelling we show that recalibration of natural speech sound categories is better described by representing the latter at different time scales. We illustrate our proposal by modeling fast recalibration of speech sounds after experiencing the McGurk effect. We propose that working representations of speech categories are driven both by their current environment and their long-term memory representations.

People can distinguish words or syllables even though they may sound different with every speaker. This striking ability reflects the fact that our brain is continually modifying the way we recognise and interpret the spoken word based on what we have heard before, by comparing past experience with the most recent one to update expectations. This phenomenon also occurs in the McGurk effect: an auditory illusion in which someone hears one syllable but sees a person saying another syllable and ends up perceiving a third distinct sound.

Abstract models, which provide a functional rather than a mechanistic description of what the brain does, can test how humans use expectations and prior knowledge to interpret the information delivered by the senses at any given moment. Olasagasti and Giraud have now built an abstract model of how brains recalibrate perception of natural speech sounds. By fitting the model with existing experimental data using the McGurk effect, the results suggest that, rather than using a single sound representation that is adjusted with each sensory experience, the brain recalibrates sounds at two different timescales.

Over and above slow “procedural” learning, the findings show that there is also rapid recalibration of how different sounds are interpreted. This working representation of speech enables adaptation to changing or noisy environments and illustrates that the process is far more dynamic and flexible than previously thought.

Predictive context biases binocular rivalry in children and adults with no positive relation to two measures of social cognition

Integration of prior experience and contextual information can help to resolve perceptually ambiguous situations and might support the ability to understand other peoples' thoughts and intentions, called Theory of Mind. We studied whether the readiness to incorporate contextual information for resolving binocular rivalry is positively associated with Theory-of-Mind-related social cognitive abilities. In children (12 to 13 years) and adults (18 to 25 years), a predictive temporal context reliably modulated the onset of binocular rivalry to a similar degree. In contrast, adult participants scored better on measures of Theory of Mind compared to children. We observed considerable interindividual differences regarding the influence of a predictive context on binocular rivalry, which were associated with differences in sensory eye dominance. The absence of a positive association between predictive effects on perception and Theory of Mind performance suggests that predictive effects on binocular rivalry and higher-level Theory-of-Mind-related abilities stem from different neurocognitive mechanisms. We conclude that the influence of predictive contextual information on basic visual processes is fully developed at an earlier age, whereas social cognitive skills continue to evolve from adolescence to adulthood.

Social Visual Perception Under the Eye of Bayesian Theories in Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Advanced Modeling of Spatial and Temporal Parameters

Social interaction in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by qualitative impairments that highly impact quality of life. Bayesian theories in ASD frame an understanding of underlying mechanisms suggesting atypicalities in the evaluation of probabilistic links within the perceptual environment of the affected individual. To address these theories, the present study explores the applicability of an innovative Bayesian framework on social visual perception in ASD and demonstrates the use of gaze transitions between different parts of social scenes. We applied advanced analyses with Bayesian Hidden Markov Modeling (BHMM) to track gaze movements while presenting real-life scenes to typically developing (TD) children and adolescents (N = 25) and participants with ASD and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ASD+ADHD, N = 15) and ASD without comorbidity (ASD, N = 12). Regions of interest (ROIs) were generated by BHMM based both on spatial and temporal gaze behavior. Social visual perception was compared between groups using transition and fixation variables for social (faces, bodies) and non-social ROIs. Transition variables between faces, namely gaze transitions between faces and likelihood of linking faces, were reduced in the ASD+ADHD compared to TD participants. Fixation count to faces was also reduced in this group. The ASD group showed similar performance to TD in the studied variables. There was no difference between groups for non-social ROIs. Our study provides an innovative, interpretable example of applying Bayesian theories of social visual perception in ASD. BHMM analyses and gaze transitions have the potential to reveal fundamental social perception components in ASD, contributing thus to amelioration of social-skill interventions.

Towards a Dynamic Exploration of Vision, Cognition and Emotion in Alcohol-Use Disorders

Abstract: Visuoperceptive impairments are among the most frequently reported deficits in alcohol-use disorders, but only very few studies have investigated their origin and interactions with other categories of dysfunctions. Besides, these deficits have generally been interpreted in a linear bottom-up perspective, which appears very restrictive with respect to the new models of vision developed in healthy populations. Indeed, new theories highlight the predictive nature of the visual system and demonstrate that it interacts with higher-level cognitive functions to generate top-down predictions. These models nota-bly posit that a fast but coarse visual analysis involving magnocellular pathways helps to compute heuristic guesses regard-ing the identity and affective value of inputs, which are used to facilitate conscious visual recognition. Building on these new proposals, the present review stresses the need to reconsider visual deficits in alcohol-use disorders as they might have cru-cial significance for core features of the pathology, such as attentional bias, loss of inhibitory control and emotion decoding impairments. Centrally, we suggest that individuals with severe alcohol-use disorders could present with magnocellular dam-age and we defend a dynamic explanation of the deficits. Rather than being restricted to high-level processes, deficits could start at early visual stages and then extend and potentially intensify during following steps due to reduced cerebral connec-tivity and dysfunctional cognitive/emotional regions. A new research agenda is specifically provided to test these hypotheses.

Biological motion and animacy belief induce similar effects on involuntary shifts of attention

Biological motion is salient to the human visual and motor systems and may be intrinsic to the perception of animacy. Evidence for the salience of visual stimuli moving with trajectories consistent with biological motion comes from studies showing that such stimuli can trigger shifts of attention in the direction of that motion. The present study was conducted to determine whether or not top-down beliefs about animacy can modify the salience of a nonbiologically moving stimulus to the visuomotor system. A nonpredictive cuing task was used in which a white dot moved from a central location toward a left- or right-sided target placeholder. The target randomly appeared at either location 200, 600, or 1,300 ms after the motion onset. Five groups of participants experienced different stimulus conditions: (1) biological motion, (2) inverted biological motion, (3) nonbiological motion, (4) animacy belief (paired with nonbiological motion), and (5) computer-generated belief (paired with nonbiological motion). Analysis of response times revealed that the motion in the biological motion and animacy belief groups, but not in the inverted and nonbiological motion groups, affected processing of the target information. These findings indicate that biological motion is salient to the visual system and that top-down beliefs regarding the animacy of the stimulus can tune the visual and motor systems to increase the salience of nonbiological motion.

Perceptual sensitivity is modulated by what others can see

Previous work has established that social cues such as the direction of others' gaze or their perspective on a scene may influence one's own perceptual judgments. However, up until now it has remained unclear whether such influences are exerted at a perceptual or decisional locus, as most previous studies have used response times as their primary dependent measure. Here, we asked whether perceptual sensitivity is also dependent on social cognition. To test this hypothesis, we asked participants to evaluate whether low-contrast Gabor patterns embedded in noise were visible from either their own or an avatar's perspective. Across three experiments, we found that observers' detection performance was increased if an avatar also shared perception of the stimulus location. By leveraging signal detection modelling, we show that this effect is driven by a change in perceptual sensitivity (d'), independent of decisional or response interference. Furthermore, by "blindfolding" the avatar, we show that the boosting effect of shared perception on detection sensitivity is only obtained when the participant believes the avatar can also see the stimulus, ruling out an influence of low-level directional cues. We interpret these results within a framework in which the avatar's perspective boosts top-down spatial attention by prioritising particular spatial locations at which perception is shared. In summary, we reveal that perceptual sensitivity is modulated by the perspective of others.

Cues to intention bias action perception toward the most efficient trajectory

Humans interpret others' behaviour as intentional and expect them to take the most energy-efficient path to achieve their goals. Recent studies show that these expectations of efficient action take the form of a prediction of an ideal "reference" trajectory, against which observed actions are evaluated, distorting their perceptual representation towards this expected path. Here we tested whether these predictions depend upon the implied intentionality of the stimulus. Participants saw videos of an actor reaching either efficiently (straight towards an object or arched over an obstacle) or inefficiently (straight towards obstacle or arched over empty space). The hand disappeared mid-trajectory and participants reported the last seen position on a touch-screen. As in prior research, judgments of inefficient actions were biased toward efficiency expectations (straight trajectories upwards to avoid obstacles, arched trajectories downward towards goals). In two further experimental groups, intentionality cues were removed by replacing the hand with a non-agentive ball (group 2), and by removing the action's biological motion profile (group 3). Removing these cues substantially reduced perceptual biases. Our results therefore confirm that the perception of others' actions is guided by expectations of efficient actions, which are triggered by the perception of semantic and motion cues to intentionality.

Do pro-environmental values, beliefs and norms drive farmers' interest in novel practices fostering the Bioeconomy?

A transition towards a bio-based economy is accompanied by a growing demand for biomass resources as fossil fuels need to be replaced for the more sustainable production of consumer goods, chemicals and energy. To increase the supply of renewable biomass and avoid a conflict with food production, currently underutilized by-products (i.e. leaves, stems) from horticultural production could be valorised as feedstock. The success of this approach depends on farmers' willingness to adopt novel practices like the collection and treatment of plant leaves. However, literature on factors influencing farmers' decisions to adopt novel practices aimed to foster the Bioeconomy is limited. This paper addresses this gap by exploring drivers of farmers' interest in the valorisation of by-products. To this aim, the Value-Belief-Norm theory was used and expanded by contextual factors, such as the perceived market demand for biomass and future environmental policies. A survey with German fruit and vegetable farmers (N = 96) has been carried out and data have been analysed with a Structural Equation Model. Findings suggest that the Value-Belief-Norm theory is a relevant framework for the agricultural domain to predict farmers' interest in the valorisation of horticultural by-products. Results further indicate that an internal ecological worldview is potentially relevant for farmers' perception of contextual conditions aimed to foster the Bioeconomy. These outcomes could have managerial and policy implications associated with the identification of potential lead users to trigger the diffusion of innovative sustainable practices and generally foster the Bioeconomy.

Words are a context for mental inference

Accumulating evidence indicates that context has an important impact on inferring emotion in facial configurations. In this paper, we report on three studies examining whether words referring to mental states contribute to mental inference in images from the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (Study 1), Baron-Cohen et al. (2001) in static emoji (Study 2), and in animated emoji (Study 3). Across all three studies, we predicted and found that perceivers were more likely to infer mental states when relevant words were embedded in the experimental context (i.e., in a forced-choice task) versus when those words were absent (i.e., in a free-labeling task). We discuss the implications of these findings for the widespread conclusion that faces or parts of faces "display" emotions or other mental states, as well as for psychology's continued reliance on forced-choice methods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of Childhood Maltreatment on Social Cognition and Brain Functional Connectivity in Borderline Personality Disorder Patients

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a chronic condition characterized by high levels of impulsivity, affective instability, and difficulty to establish and manage interpersonal relationships. However, little is known about its etiology and neurobiological substrates. In our study, we wanted to investigate the influence of child abuse in the psychopathology of BPD by means of social cognitive paradigms [the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) and the reading the mind in the eyes test (RMET)], and resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). For this, we recruited 33 participants, 18 BPD patients, and 15 controls. High levels of self-reported childhood maltreatment were reported by BPD patients. For the sexual abuse subdimension, there were no differences between the BPD and the control groups, but there was a negative correlation between MASC scores and total childhood maltreatment levels, as well as between physical abuse, physical negligence, and MASC. Both groups showed that the higher the level of childhood maltreatment, the lower the performance on the MASC social cognitive test. Further, in the BPD group, there was hypoconnectivity between the structures responsible for emotion regulation and social cognitive responses that have been described as part of the frontolimbic circuitry (i.e., amygdala). Differential levels of connectivity, associated with different types and levels of abuse were also observed.

Confidence in uncertainty: Error cost and commitment in early speech hypotheses

Interactions with artificial agents often lack immediacy because agents respond slower than their users expect. Automatic speech recognisers introduce this delay by analysing a user’s utterance only after it has been completed. Early, uncertain hypotheses of incremental speech recognisers can enable artificial agents to respond more timely. However, these hypotheses may change significantly with each update. Therefore, an already initiated action may turn into an error and invoke error cost. We investigated whether humans would use uncertain hypotheses for planning ahead and/or initiating their response. We designed a Ghost-in-the-Machine study in a bar scenario. A human participant controlled a bartending robot and perceived the scene only through its recognisers. The results showed that participants used uncertain hypotheses for selecting the best matching action. This is comparable to computing the utility of dialogue moves. Participants evaluated the available evidence and the error cost of their actions prior to initiating them. If the error cost was low, the participants initiated their response with only suggestive evidence. Otherwise, they waited for additional, more confident hypotheses if they still had time to do so. If there was time pressure but only little evidence, participants grounded their understanding with echo questions. These findings contribute to a psychologically plausible policy for human-robot interaction that enables artificial agents to respond more timely and socially appropriately under uncertainty.

Persistent Physical Symptoms as Perceptual Dysregulation: A Neuropsychobehavioral Model and Its Clinical Implications

OBJECTIVE

The mechanisms underlying the perception and experience of persistent physical symptoms are not well understood, and in the models, the specific relevance of peripheral input versus central processing, or of neurobiological versus psychosocial factors in general, is not clear. In this article, we proposed a model for this clinical phenomenon that is designed to be coherent with an underlying, relatively new model of the normal brain functions involved in the experience of bodily signals.

METHODS

Based on a review of recent literature, we describe central elements of this model and its clinical implications.

RESULTS

In the model, the brain is seen as an active predictive processing or inferential device rather than one that is passively waiting for sensory input. A central aspect of the model is the attempt of the brain to minimize prediction errors that result from constant comparisons of predictions and sensory input. Two possibilities exist: adaptation of the generative model underlying the predictions or alteration of the sensory input via autonomic nervous activation (in the case of interoception). Following this model, persistent physical symptoms can be described as "failures of inference" and clinically well-known factors such as expectation are assigned a role, not only in the later amplification of bodily signals but also in the very basis of symptom perception.

CONCLUSIONS

We discuss therapeutic implications of such a model including new interpretations for established treatments as well as new options such as virtual reality techniques combining exteroceptive and interoceptive information.

Facial expression predictions as drivers of social perception

Emerging perspectives in neuroscience indicate that the brain functions predictively, constantly anticipating sensory input based on past experience. According to these perspectives, prediction signals impact perception, guiding and constraining experience. In a series of six behavioral experiments, we show that predictions about facial expressions drive social perception, deeply influencing how others are evaluated: individuals are judged as more likable and trustworthy when their facial expressions are anticipated, even in the absence of any conscious changes in felt affect. Moreover, the effect of predictions on social judgments extends to both real-world situations where such judgments have particularly high consequence (i.e., evaluating presidential candidates for an upcoming election), as well as to more basic perceptual processes that may underlie judgment (i.e., facilitated visual processing of expected expressions). The implications of these findings, including relevance for cross-cultural interactions, social stereotypes and mental illness, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record