Depolarizing American voters: Democrats and Republicans are equally susceptible to false attitude feedback

Emulating future neurotechnology using magic

Recent developments in neuroscience and artificial intelligence have allowed machines to decode mental processes with growing accuracy. Neuroethicists have speculated that perfecting these technologies may result in reactions ranging from an invasion of privacy to an increase in self-understanding. Yet, evaluating these predictions is difficult given that people are poor at forecasting their reactions. To address this, we developed a paradigm using elements of performance magic to emulate future neurotechnologies. We led 59 participants to believe that a (sham) neurotechnological machine could infer their preferences, detect their errors, and reveal their deep-seated attitudes. The machine gave participants randomly assigned positive or negative feedback about their brain's supposed attitudes towards charity. Around 80% of participants in both groups provided rationalisations for this feedback, which shifted their attitudes in the manipulated direction but did not influence donation behaviour. Our paradigm reveals how people may respond to prospective neurotechnologies, which may inform neuroethical frameworks.

Top-down modulation impairs priming susceptibility in complex decision-making with social implications

Could social context variables prime complex decisions? Could top-down processes impair this priming susceptibility? Complex decisions have been mainly studied from economic and moral perspectives, and Dual Process Theories provide evidence of how these processes could be affected. To address these issues from a political perspective, online experiments were conducted. Participants (n = 252) were asked to choose a face from 4 options, each associated with different frequencies (repetition priming) or with phrases with different emotional valence (emotional priming), for an unspecified task (UST group) or an important task (IMT group). The most repeated face was chosen most in the UST group, and was associated with lower response times. Positive faces were equally chosen by both groups. To compare results in a more ecological situation, a social study was conducted during the 2019 Argentine Presidential Election, including online surveys (n = 3673) and analysis of news media mentioning candidates. The familiarity and trust to each candidate explained the voting-probability for most of them, as well as correlated with their frequency of mentions in the news, their positive associations, and election results. Our results suggest complex decision-making is susceptible to priming, depending on top-down modulation.