Embodied perception with others’ bodies in mind: Stereotype priming influence on the perception of spatial environment

Priming With Childhood Constructs Influences Distance Perception

The aim of our study was to examine whether priming adults with childhood constructs changes distance perception. Two alternative hypotheses could be derived: (1) The fundamental reference approach in visual perception of sizes and distances predicts that priming with childhood constructs should enlarge perceived distance (the world should be larger to a small observer); (2) and, conversely, the action-specific account of perception predicts that priming with childhood constructs should make distances seem shorter (a more physically active child should underestimate distances as more attainable). The results consistently support the second theory. Experiment 1 showed that being either explicitly or implicitly primed with childhood constructs decreased perceptions of distance as compared to that evaluated in the control groups. This effect was noticeable for long distances and only marginally significant for short distances. Also, this effect was not mediated by mood. Experiment 2 replicated the result of explicit priming with an additional control condition (baseline). The effect remained significant after controlling for the participants’ evaluation of their childhood memories, tendency to relive memories from their childhood, having children, having a driver’s license, and the participants’ height.

The impact of embodying an "elderly" body avatar on motor imagery

When an individual embodies an avatar, the latter's characteristics or stereotype can change the individual's behavior and attitudes; this is known as the Proteus effect. Here, we looked at whether the embodiment of an avatar resembling an elderly adult (seen from a first-person perspective and facing a virtual mirror) changed mentally represented physical activity in a motor imagery task performed by young adult participants (N = 52). To ensure that the impact of embodiment of an elderly avatar on the motor imagery task was not influenced by a potentially confounded stereotype assimilation effect (due to the mere presence of an avatar), a "young" avatar and an "elderly" avatar were always present together in the virtual environment-even though only one (the self-avatar) was embodied at a given time. We found that it took longer for the participants to perform the motor imagery task with the elderly self-avatar than with the young self-avatar. The more negative the participant's beliefs about motor activity in the elderly, the greater the observed effect of the avatar on motor imagery performance. We conclude that knowledge about the characteristics of an embodied avatar can modify the subject's level of mentally represented physical activity.

Spatial text processing: are estimates of time and distance influenced by the age of characters and readers?

It is widely accepted that, while hearing or reading a story, people continuously form and update mental representations of the characters, places and events being described, based on plausible spatial, temporal or intentional details. According to the embodied cognition approach, the mental representations that accompany text reading are grounded in each reader's own sensorimotor experiences. Two experiments were conducted to examine whether readers' estimates of time and distance are influenced by age, their own and that of the character being described. In Experiment 1, 182 young adults read the description of a route in a town being covered by a young or an elderly character. In Experiment 2, the same descriptions as in Experiment 1 were read by 121 young adults and 53 older people. To avoid a possible confound, a follow-up to Experiment 1 (Experiment 1a) repeated the study by removing from texts the adverbs describing the walking speed of characters. In all experiments, participants were asked to estimate: (a) the time the characters took to reach their destinations (time estimation task); and (b) the distance they covered (distance estimation task). The results showed that both characters' and readers' ages influenced the time estimated, whereas no effects were found on estimates of distance: the elderly character was estimated to take longer than the young character (Experiments 1, 1a and 2), and older readers estimated longer times than younger readers (Experiment 2). This prompts the conclusion that personal features of both the readers and the characters they read about were used to infer the temporal dimension of situations described in the narratives. The theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

Exploring the Effect of Time Horizon Perspective on Persuasion: Focusing on Both Biological and Embodied Aging

According to socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), aging influences information processing style depending on the time horizon perspective (THP). In detail, older adults who perceived time as limited prefer emotional to factual messages, whereas younger adults who believed time to be expansive show the opposite pattern. When individuals pursue a specific goal, they tend to process goal-relevant information in more detail, which in turn evaluates factual messages positively. We investigated the moderating effect of goal pursuit on the relationship between biological aging and persuasion in October 2016 (Experiment 1). Results showed that both older and younger adults were more favorable toward factual (vs. emotional) messages when they pursue a goal. Experiment 2, conducted in March 2017, examined whether embodied aging affects persuasion. The results indicated that younger adults with embodied aging did not show a similar persuasion pattern with actual older adults, while embodiment studies demonstrated that younger adults with embodied aging act like older adults. That means that only THP changes the angle leading to processing. In the final experiment, conducted in November 2018, younger adults primed with limited THP preferred emotional to factual messages, which was similar to actual older adults’ responses. Moreover, we showed that emotional attachment mediated the effect of message types on the persuasion of younger adults with limited THP.

Sharing Space: The Presence of Other Bodies Extends the Space Judged as Near

Background

As social animals we share the space with other people. It is known that perceived extension of the peripersonal space (the reaching space) is affected by the implicit representation of our own and other's action potentialities. Our issue concerns whether the co-presence of a body in the scene influences our extrapersonal space (beyond reaching distance) categorization.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We investigated, through 3D virtual scenes of a realistic environment, whether egocentric spatial categorization can be influenced by the presence of another human body (Exp. 1) and whether the effect is due to her action potentialities or simply to her human-like morphology (Exp. 2). Subjects were asked to judge the location ("Near" or "Far") of a target object located at different distances from their egocentric perspective. In Exp. 1, the judgment was given either in presence of a virtual avatar (Self-with-Other), or a non-corporeal object (Self-with-Object) or nothing (Self). In Exp. 2, the Self condition was replaced by a Self-with-Dummy condition, in which an inanimate body (a wooden dummy) was present. Mean Judgment Transition Thresholds (JTTs) were calculated for each subject in each experimental condition. Self-with-Other condition induced a significant extension of the space judged as “Near” as compared to both the Self-with-Object condition and the Self condition. Such extension was observed also in Exp. 2 in the Self-with-Dummy condition. Results suggest that the presence of others impacts on our perception of extrapersonal space. This effect holds also when the other is a human-like wooden dummy, suggesting that structural and morphological shapes resembling human bodies are sufficient conditions for the effect to occur.

Conclusions

The observed extension of the portion of space judged as near could represent a wider portion of “accessible” space, thus an advantage in the struggle to survive in presence of other potential competing individuals.

Mind over age--stereotype activation and olfactory function

Given that context affects olfaction and the elderly exhibit olfactory deficits, the current study tested whether a subtle change in internal context, evoked by priming the elderly stereotype, would affect performance in a variety of olfactory tasks including odor sensitivity, discrimination, and identification (Experiment 1), as well as perceived odor intensity, pleasantness and familiarity, and an odor reaction time task (Experiment 2). Such internalization of the elderly stereotype has been demonstrated with slower walking speeds and fewer words recalled in a memory task. In the current study, 76 participants first listened to a presentation about age-related declines in olfaction and then participated in 3 language tasks which, unbeknownst to them, served as the elderly stereotype priming manipulation. This priming manipulation was effective at decreasing walking speed and word recall, confirming the findings of previous researchers; however, olfaction was not affected. Whether olfaction is resistant to stereotype priming is discussed.

Priming of Disability and Elderly Stereotype in Motor Performance: Similar or Specific Effects?

In three experimental studies, the effects of priming participants with the disability stereotype were investigated with respect to their subsequent motor performance. Also explored were effects of activating two similar stereotypes, persons with a disability and elderly people. In Study 1, participants were primed with the disability stereotype versus with a neutral prime, and then asked to perform on a motor coordination task. In Studies 2 and 3, a third condition was introduced: priming participants with the elderly stereotype. Results indicated that priming participants with the disability stereotype altered their motor performance: they showed decreased manual dexterity and performed slower than the non-primed participants. Priming with the elderly stereotype decreased only performance speed. These findings underline that prime-to-behavior effects may depend on activation of specific stereotype content.