Beyond asking: Exploring the use of automatic price evaluations to implicitly estimate consumers' willingness-to-pay.

Explicit consumers responses are often adverse for the validity of procedures used to estimate consumers' willingness-to-pay (WTP). This paper investigates if price evaluations occur automatically and to what extent these automatic processes can be used to implicitly estimate consumers' WTP. An adapted version of the task-rule congruency (TRC) paradigm was used in two studies. Results of the first study provided evidence for the notion that prices are automatically evaluated. However, the used procedure had limitations that restricted its utility as an implicit WTP estimate. The procedure was adjusted, and an additional study was conducted. The results of the second study also indicated that prices were evaluated automatically. Additionally, the procedure used during the second study allowed to explore to what extent the observed TRC effects could be used to implicitly estimate consumers' WTP. Taken together, these studies provided evidence for the notion that prices are evaluated automatically. Furthermore, the procedure has the potential to be further developed into an implicit estimate of consumers' WTP.

Attentional flexibility is imbalanced: Asymmetric cost for switches between external and internal attention.

Whereas the effects of attention switches occurring within perception or memory are relatively well understood, much less is known about switches of attention between them. We discuss the methodological limitations of initial research on this topic, which was never integrated with the broader cognitive literature. On the basis of this discussion, we present here a new paradigm, in which participants performed a simple probe-to-target matching task where targets were either perceived on screen or retrieved from memory. Across successive trials, repetitions or alternations (in both directions) between these 2 conditions were created, and eventually compared with each other. In line with our prediction, derived from the assumption of a top-down control mechanism, we found a cost for switching between external and internal attention in Experiment 1. Furthermore, this switch cost was asymmetric, being substantially larger when switching from (external) perception to (internal) memory than the other way around. In Experiments 2-4, we ruled out an imbalance in practice, learning, and preparation as confounds for this asymmetry. We propose that switches of attention between internal and external information are underpinned by a supervisory attention control mechanism, and that this asymmetry can be explained in terms of priming, associative interference or memory retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Mimicry and automatic imitation are not correlated.

It is widely known that individuals have a tendency to imitate each other. However, different psychological disciplines assess imitation in different manners. While social psychologists assess mimicry by means of action observation, cognitive psychologists assess automatic imitation with reaction time based measures on a trial-by-trial basis. Although these methods differ in crucial methodological aspects, both phenomena are assumed to rely on similar underlying mechanisms. This raises the fundamental question whether mimicry and automatic imitation are actually correlated. In the present research we assessed both phenomena and did not find a meaningful correlation. Moreover, personality traits such as empathy, autism traits, and traits related to self- versus other-focus did not correlate with mimicry or automatic imitation either. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the inferior frontal cortex affects the "social scaling" of extrapersonal space depending on perspective-taking ability.

When we have to judge the distance between another person and an object (social condition), we judge this distance as being smaller compared to judging the distance between two objects (nonsocial condition). It has been suggested that this compression is mediated by the attribution of a motor potential to the reference frame (other person vs. object). In order to explore the neural basis of this effect, we investigated whether the modulation of activity in the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) of the left hemisphere (recruited during visuospatial processes with a social component) changes the way we categorize space in a social compared with a nonsocial condition. We applied transcranial direct current stimulation to the left IFC, with different polarities (anodal, cathodal, and sham) while subjects performed an extrapersonal space categorization task. Interestingly, anodal stimulation of IFC induced an higher compression of space in the social compared to nonsocial condition. By contrast, cathodal stimulation induced the opposite effect. Furthermore, we found that this effect is modulated by interindividual differences in cognitive perspective taking. Our data support the idea that IFC is recruited during the social categorization of space.

Perspective taking eliminates differences in co-representation of out-group members' actions.

Coordinated action relies on shared representations between interaction partners: people co-represent actions of others in order to respond appropriately. However, little is known about the social factors that influence shared representations. We investigated whether actions performed by in-group and out-group members are represented differently, and if so, what role perspective-taking plays in this process. White participants performed a joint Simon task with an animated image of a hand with either white or black skin tone. Results of study I demonstrated that actions performed by in-group members were co-represented while actions of out-group members were not. In study II, it was found that participants co-represented actions of out-group members when they had read about an out-group member and to take his perspective prior to the actual experiment. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.