I spy with my little eye: An eye-tracking study examining adolescents' attention to alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in Instagram stories.

Social media users are frequently exposed to alcohol images on Instagram, which in turn influences their own alcohol behaviors. Yet, it is unclear what factors drive attention to alcohol cues. In an eye-tracking study (N = 108; Mage = 16.54), we examined adolescents' attention to Instagram Stories depending on: (a) the type of beverage depicted (beer vs water), (b) the character-product interaction portrayed (CPI: peers in images shown consuming [high CPI] vs holding beverages [low CPI]) and, (c) participant's own susceptibility (high vs low-risk alcohol drinker). Our results illustrated that adolescents allocated an equal amount of attention to beer and water depicted in Instagram images. Furthermore, they devoted more attention to Instagram images wherein peers were shown consuming water and beer (high CPI) compared to those wherein peers were holding these beverages (low CPI). Surprisingly, high-risk alcohol drinkers were more responsive to both beer and water cues than low-risk drinkers. This was particularly the case for Instagram images with high CPI. These findings have implications for how health cues on Instagram are attended to and processed.

Memorable, Meaningful, Pleasurable: An Exploratory Examination of Narrative Character Deaths.

The current manuscript presents a study that examines contextual factors that can explain two distinct types of viewer responses to death in narratives. Using procedures developed in past research, we explore why some narrative character deaths elicit poignant, eudaimonic responses while others elicit joyful, hedonic responses. We incorporate a control group to examine whether freely-recalled memorable deaths are more closely associated with feelings of meaning or pleasure. Results suggest that meaningful deaths lead to appreciation; befall liked, moral characters; and elicit mixed/negative affect, whereas pleasurable deaths lead to enjoyment; befall disliked, immoral characters, and elicit positive affect. In addition, freely-recalled character death is more closely aligned with meaningful death and its correlates than pleasurable death and its correlates. We conclude with a discussion of how the current findings can improve the use of mediated death in clinical settings, particularly as a strategy for approaching instances of disenfranchised grief.

Hierarchical Learning of Statistical Regularities over Multiple Timescales of Sound Sequence Processing: A Dynamic Causal Modeling Study.

Our understanding of the sensory environment is contextualized on the basis of prior experience. Measurement of auditory ERPs provides insight into automatic processes that contextualize the relevance of sound as a function of how sequences change over time. However, task-independent exposure to sound has revealed that strong first impressions exert a lasting impact on how the relevance of sound is contextualized. Dynamic causal modeling was applied to auditory ERPs collected during presentation of alternating pattern sequences. A local regularity (a rare p = .125 vs. common p = .875 sound) alternated to create a longer timescale regularity (sound probabilities alternated regularly creating a predictable block length), and the longer timescale regularity changed halfway through the sequence (the regular block length became shorter or longer). Predictions should be revised for local patterns when blocks alternated and for longer patterning when the block length changed. Dynamic causal modeling revealed an overall higher precision for the error signal to the rare sound in the first block type, consistent with the first impression. The connectivity changes in response to errors within the underlying neural network were also different for the two blocks with significantly more revision of predictions in the arrangement that violated the first impression. Furthermore, the effects of block length change suggested errors within the first block type exerted more influence on the updating of longer timescale predictions. These observations support the hypothesis that automatic sequential learning creates a high-precision context (first impression) that impacts learning rates and updates to those learning rates when predictions arising from that context are violated. The results further evidence automatic pattern learning over multiple timescales simultaneously, even during task-independent passive exposure to sound.

Making Sense of Mismatch Negativity.

Evoked potentials provide valuable insight into brain processes that are integral to our ability to interact effectively and efficiently in the world. The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the evoked potential has proven highly informative on the ways in which sensitivity to regularity contributes to perception and cognition. This review offers a compendium of research on MMN with a view to scaffolding an appreciation for its use as a tool to explore the way regularities contribute to predictions about the sensory environment over many timescales. In compiling this work, interest in MMN as an index of sensory encoding and memory are addressed, as well as attention. Perspectives on the possible underlying computational processes are reviewed as well as recent observations that invite consideration of how MMN relates to how we learn, what we learn, and why.

Setting precedent: Initial feature variability affects the subsequent precision of regularly varying sound contexts.

The task of making sense of the world around us is supported by brain processes that simplify the environment. For example, repetitive patterns of sensory input help us to predict future events. This study builds on work, suggesting that sensory predictions are heavily influenced by first impressions. We presented healthy adults with a sequence comprising three sounds each differing from the other two on three dimensions; for simplicity A, B and C. These three sounds were arranged in blocks where two were equally common and one was rare, and the probabilities rotated creating three different block types (i.e., probabilities, A < B = C, B < A = C, C < A = B). Sequences included two of each block type with three versions-one starting with A < B = C, one with B < A = C and one with C < A = B. The common tone evoked responses in any given block were highly suppressed consistent with the auditory system predicting regular events, while the rare tone in each block elicited a larger response signaling a prediction error. However, results indicated that the auditory system assessed the configurations in which the two common tones were adjacent in space (within the three locations used) as less volatile compared to when they were highly separate. When the more volatile environment was encountered at the beginning of the sequence, all deviance-related responses were significantly lower in amplitude. Results suggest that the representation of a stimulus configuration is affected by the estimate drawn from the initial context, expanding our notion of the nature of primacy bias to include powerful effects of initial feature variance.

Restorative Narratives for Health Promotion.

Stories may provide a useful way of communicating about health and promoting engagement for health promotion campaigns. In this study, we examined the effectiveness of a particular type of narrative, restorative narratives (stories that highlight hope and resilience), relative to negative narratives (stories that focus on suffering or challenges). We also tested the effect of labeling the story as fact or fiction. The results suggested that restorative narratives may foster greater prosocial behavior than negative narratives and effectiveness does not differ depending on whether a story is labeled as "factual" or "fictional." Our findings offer encouraging implications for future promotional efforts by health organizations.

Hierarchical timescales of statistical learning revealed by mismatch negativity to auditory pattern deviations.

The amplitude of mismatch negativity (MMN) elicited following an unexpected sound reflects a pattern-violation signal that will increase with estimated precision. Precision is inversely related to environmental variance, and should be higher the longer that current regularities have been stable. However, MMN amplitude can be impacted by initial learning such that the relative probability of sounds when first encountered distorts the precision estimates later associated with those sounds. The present study tested the hypothesis that MMN to a pattern violation would be differentially sensitive to both local and global patterning within a sequence, depending on whether the sound was common or rare at sequence onset. Sound sequences consisted of two levels of nested regularity: (1) two tones alternated probabilities as the local standard (p = .875) and deviant (p = .125), and (2) these alternations occurred regularly across four blocks of 2.4 min (stable components) or twelve blocks of 0.8 min (unstable components). Sequences were delivered first in an unstable-stable ("increasing-stability") and next a stable-unstable ("decreasing-stability") structure, both inducing a violation to the regular block length at the transition between components. MMN to the tone initially heard as a common repeating standard when later heard as a deviant was not affected by stability of either local (tone probabilities) or global (block length) patterns, reaching equivalent amplitude in all components. In contrast, MMN amplitude to the tone initially heard as deviant was significantly impacted by both local and global pattern stability. MMN amplitude was larger in stable than unstable blocks only if they were heard first (decreasing-stability sequence), and was significantly smaller in both stable and unstable block types after a violation of regular block length. Results are interpreted as local MMN amplitude being "weighted down" by decreased precision in the global structure, but only for the first deviant encountered.

First-impression bias effects on mismatch negativity to auditory spatial deviants.

Internal models of regularities in the world serve to facilitate perception as redundant input can be predicted and neural resources conserved for that which is new or unexpected. In the auditory system, this is reflected in an evoked potential component known as mismatch negativity (MMN). MMN is elicited by the violation of an established regularity to signal the inaccuracy of the current model and direct resources to the unexpected event. Prevailing accounts suggest that MMN amplitude will increase with stability in regularity; however, observations of first-impression bias contradict stability effects. If tones rotate probabilities as a rare deviant (p = .125) and common standard (p = .875), MMN elicited to the initial deviant tone reaches maximal amplitude faster than MMN to the first standard when later encountered as deviant-a differential pattern that persists throughout rotations. Sensory inference is therefore biased by longer-term contextual information beyond local probability statistics. Using the same multicontext sequence structure, we examined whether this bias generalizes to MMN elicited by spatial sound cues using monaural sounds (n = 19, right first deviant and n = 22, left first deviant) and binaural sounds (n = 19, right first deviant). The characteristic differential modulation of MMN to the two tones was observed in two of three groups, providing partial support for the generalization of first-impression bias to spatially deviant sounds. We discuss possible explanations for its absence when the initial deviant was delivered monaurally to the right ear.

Fiction as a bridge to action.

We propose an extension of the Distancing-Embracing model to the use of stories for prosocial ends. Specifically, audiences may find stories of individuals in need too emotionally overwhelming. Audiences may attempt to regulate or reduce negative emotions, which can reduce empathy and willingness to help. Through distancing, fictionalized accounts may counteract this tendency and thus increase prosocial behavior.