Concepts in Space: Enhancing Lexical Search With a Spatial Diversity Prime.

Informed by theories of embodied cognition, in the present study, we designed a novel priming technique to investigate the impact of spatial diversity and script direction on searching through concepts in both English and Persian (i.e., two languages with opposite script directions). First, participants connected a target dot either to one other dot (linear condition) or to multiple other dots (diverse condition) and either from left to right (rightward condition) or from right to left (leftward condition) on a computer touchscreen using their dominant hand's forefinger. Following the spatial prime, they were asked to generate as many words as possible using two-letter cues (e.g., "lo" → "love," "lobster") in 20 s. We hypothesized that greater spatial diversity, and consistency with script direction, should facilitate conceptual search and result in a higher number of word productions. In both languages, word production performance was superior for the diverse prime relative to the linear prime, suggesting that searching through lexical memory is facilitated by spatial diversity. Although some effects were observed for the directionality of the spatial prime, they were not consistent across experiments and did not correlate with script direction. This pattern of results suggests that a spatial prime that promotes diverse paths can improve word retrieval from lexical memory and lends empirical support to the embodied cognition framework, in which spatial relations play a crucial role in the conceptual system.

Theory of collective mind.

Theory of mind research has traditionally focused on the ascription of mental states to a single individual. Here, we introduce a theory of collective mind: the ascription of a unified mental state to a group of agents with convergent experiences. Rather than differentiation between one's personal perspective and that of another agent, a theory of collective mind requires perspectival unification across agents. We review recent scholarship across the cognitive sciences concerning the conceptual foundations of collective mind representations and their empirical induction through the synchronous arrival of shared information. Research suggests that representations of a collective mind cause psychological amplification of co-attended stimuli, create relational bonds, and increase cooperation, among co-attendees.

Hoist by its own petard: The ironic and fatal flaws of dual-process theory.

By stipulating the existence of a system 1 and a system 2, dual-process theories raise questions about how these systems function. De Neys identifies several such questions for which no plausible answers have ever been offered. What makes the nature of systems 1 and 2 so difficult to ascertain? The answer is simple: The systems do not exist.

Deviancy Aversion and Social Norms.

We propose that deviancy aversion-people's domain-general discomfort toward the distortion of patterns (repeated forms or models)-contributes to the strength and prevalence of social norms in society. Five studies (N = 2,390) supported this hypothesis. In Study 1, individuals' deviancy aversion, for instance, their aversion toward broken patterns of simple geometric shapes, predicted negative affect toward norm violations (affect), greater self-reported norm following (behavior), and judging norms as more valuable (belief). Supporting generalizability, deviancy aversion additionally predicted greater conformity on accuracy-orientated estimation tasks (Study 2), adherence to physical distancing norms during COVID-19 (Study 3), and increased following of fairness norms (Study 4). Finally, experimentally heightening deviancy aversion increased participants' negative affect toward norm violations and self-reported norm behavior, but did not convincingly heighten belief-based norm judgments (Study 5). We conclude that a human sensitivity to pattern distortion functions as a low-level affective process that promotes and maintains social norms in society.

Empathy-Related Brain Activity in Somatosensory Cortex Protects From Tactile Priming Effects: A Pilot Study.

Empathy influences how we perceive, understand, and interact with our social environment. Previous studies suggested a network of different brain regions as a neural substrate for empathy, including, in particular, insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). In addition, a contribution of the somatosensory cortices for this empathy related network has been suggested. This is remarkable, given that other recent studies have revealed a role for the somatosensory cortex in various social tasks. For example, in experiments using tactile priming, incidental haptic sensations are found to influence judgment recommendations. Here, we aimed to test if this engagement of the somatosensory cortices during tactile priming can be predicted by the participant's empathy personality traits. We assessed participant's empathy and personality traits by means of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and NEO-FFI and tested whether trait empathy is associated with the tactile priming effect in social judgments. Results revealed that empathy predicted the tactile priming effect negatively. This was accompanied by a reduced engagement of the somatosensory cortex, which has been shown to be associated with the priming effect. We conclude that empathy seems to protect people from tactile priming effects.

Pattern deviancy aversion predicts prejudice via a dislike of statistical minorities.

Research has documented an overlap between people's aversion toward nonsocial pattern deviancy (e.g., a row of triangles with 1 triangle out of line) and their social prejudice. It is unknown which processes underlie this association, however, and whether this link is causal. We propose that pattern deviancy aversion may contribute to prejudice by heightening people's dislike of statistical minorities. Infrequent people in a population are pattern deviant in that they disrupt the statistical regularities of how people tend to look, think, and act in society, and this deviancy should incite others' prejudice. Nine studies (N = 1,821) supported this mediation. In Studies 1.1 and 1.2, adults' and young children's nonsocial pattern deviancy aversion related to disliking novel statistical minorities, and this dislike predicted prejudice against Black people. Studies 1.3 and 1.4 observed this mediation when experimentally manipulating pattern deviancy aversion, although pattern deviancy aversion did not directly impact racial prejudice. Study-set 2 replicated the proposed mediation in terms of prejudice against other commonly stigmatized individuals (e.g., someone with a physical disability). Importantly, we also found pattern deviancy aversion to affect such prejudice. Study-set 3 provided additional support for the mediation model. Pattern deviancy aversion predicted prejudice dependent on group-size, for instance, greater racial prejudice in cases where Black people are the statistical minority, but decreased racial prejudice when Black people are the statistical majority. Taken together, these findings indicate that people's aversion toward pattern deviancy motivates prejudice, and that this influence is partially driven by a dislike of statistical minorities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Problems with the dual-systems approach to temporal cognition.

Contrary to Hoerl & McCormack (H&M), we argue that the best account of temporal cognition in humans is one in which a single system becomes capable of representing time. We suggest that H&M's own evidence for dual systems of temporal cognition - simultaneous contradictory beliefs - does not recommend dual systems, and that the single system approach is more plausible.

Autism spectrum traits predict higher social psychological skill.

Social-cognitive skills can take different forms, from accurately predicting individuals' intentions, emotions, and thoughts (person perception or folk psychology) to accurately predicting social phenomena more generally. Past research has linked autism spectrum (AS) traits to person perception deficits in the general population. We tested whether AS traits also predict poor accuracy in terms of predicting generalized social phenomena, assessed via participants' accuracy at predicting social psychological phenomena (e.g., social loafing, social projection, group think). We found the opposite. In a sample of ∼6,500 participants in 104 countries, AS traits predicted slightly higher social psychological skill. A second study with 400 participants suggested that heightened systemizing underlies this relationship. Our results indicate that AS traits relate positively to a form of social cognitive skill-predicting social psychological phenomena-and highlight the importance of distinguishing between divergent types of social cognition.

Featured Article: Gender Bias in Pediatric Pain Assessment.

OBJECTIVE: Accurate assessment of pain is central to diagnosis and treatment in healthcare, especially in pediatrics. However, few studies have examined potential biases in adult observer ratings of children's pain. Cohen, Cobb, & Martin (2014. Gender biases in adult ratings of pediatric pain. Children's Health Care, 43, 87-95) reported that adult participants rated a child undergoing a medical procedure as feeling more pain when the child was described as a boy as compared to a girl, suggesting a possible gender bias. To confirm, clarify, and extend this finding, we conducted a replication experiment and follow-up study examining the role of explicit gender stereotypes in shaping such asymmetric judgments. METHODS: In an independent, pre-registered, direct replication and extension study with open data and materials (https://osf.io/t73c4/), we showed participants the same video from Cohen et al. (2014), with the child described as a boy or a girl depending on condition. We then asked adults to rate how much pain the child experienced and displayed, how typical the child was in these respects, and how much they agreed with explicit gender stereotypes concerning pain response in boys versus girls. RESULTS: Similar to Cohen et al. (2014), but with a larger and more demographically diverse sample, we found that the "boy" was rated as experiencing more pain than the "girl" despite identical clinical circumstances and identical pain behavior across conditions. Controlling for explicit gender stereotypes eliminated the effect. CONCLUSIONS: Explicit gender stereotypes-for example, that boys are more stoic or girls are more emotive-may bias adult assessment of children's pain.

Incidental haptic sensations influence judgment of crimes.

Extralegal factors may influence judicial outcomes. Here we investigated the experience of incidental haptic sensations on the harshness of punishment recommendations. Based on recent theories of embodiment, which claim that cognitive representations are structured by metaphorical mappings from sensory experience, we hypothesized that tactile priming with hard objects would cause subjects to recommend harsher sentences (to be 'hard on crime'). Furthermore, the theory of embodiment predicts that this effect should be based on sensorimotor brain activation during the judging process. In order to test this we presented participants with scenarios that described various crimes while scanning their brain activity with fMRI. Participants were then asked to rate how severely they would sentence the delinquents. Before the scenarios, the participants were primed by touching either a hard or a soft object. Results revealed tha t hard priming led participants to recommend harder punishments. These results were accompanied by activation of somatosensory brain areas during the judging phase. This outcome is in line with simulation assumptions of the embodiment theory and proposes a central role of the sensorimotor cortices for embodied metaphors. Thus, incidental tactile experiences can influence our abstract cognitions and even how hard we are on criminals.

The Mythical Number Two.

It is often said that there are two types of psychological processes: one that is intentional, controllable, conscious, and inefficient, and another that is unintentional, uncontrollable, unconscious, and efficient. Yet, there have been persistent and increasing objections to this widely influential dual-process typology. Critics point out that the 'two types' framework lacks empirical support, contradicts well-established findings, and is internally incoherent. Moreover, the untested and untenable assumption that psychological phenomena can be partitioned into two types, we argue, has the consequence of systematically thwarting scientific progress. It is time that we as a field come to terms with these issues. In short, the dual-process typology is a convenient and seductive myth, and we think cognitive science can do better.

A Test of Multisession Automatic Action Tendency Retraining to Reduce Alcohol Consumption Among Young Adults in the Context of a Human Laboratory Paradigm.

BACKGROUND: Young adult heavy drinking is an important public health concern. Current interventions have efficacy but with only modest effects, and thus, novel interventions are needed. In prior studies, heavy drinkers, including young adults, have demonstrated stronger automatically triggered approach tendencies to alcohol-related stimuli than lighter drinkers. Automatic action tendency retraining has been developed to correct this tendency and consequently reduce alcohol consumption. This study is the first to test multiple iterations of automatic action tendency retraining, followed by laboratory alcohol self-administration. METHODS: A total of 72 nontreatment-seeking, heavy drinking young adults ages 21 to 25 were randomized to automatic action tendency retraining or a control condition (i.e., "sham training"). Of these, 69 (54% male) completed 4 iterations of retraining or the control condition over 5 days with an alcohol drinking session on Day 5. Self-administration was conducted according to a human laboratory paradigm designed to model individual differences in impaired control (i.e., difficulty adhering to limits on alcohol consumption). RESULTS: Automatic action tendency retraining was not associated with greater reduction in alcohol approach tendency or less alcohol self-administration than the control condition. The laboratory paradigm was probably sufficiently sensitive to detect an effect of an experimental manipulation given the range of self-administration behavior observed, both in terms of number of alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks and measures of drinking topography. CONCLUSIONS: Automatic action tendency retraining was ineffective among heavy drinking young adults without motivation to change their drinking. Details of the retraining procedure may have contributed to the lack of a significant effect. Despite null primary findings, the impaired control laboratory paradigm is a valid laboratory-based measure of young adult alcohol consumption that provides the opportunity to observe drinking topography and self-administration of nonalcoholic beverages (i.e., protective behavioral strategies directly related to alcohol use).

"So Happy I Could Shout!" and "So Happy I Could Cry!" Dimorphous expressions represent and communicate motivational aspects of positive emotions.

Happiness can be expressed through smiles. Happiness can also be expressed through physical displays that without context, would appear to be sadness (tears, downward turned mouths, and crumpled body postures) and anger (clenched jaws, snarled lips, furrowed brows, and pumped fists). These seemingly incongruent displays of happiness, termed dimorphous expressions, we propose, represent and communicate expressers' motivational orientations. When participants reported their own aggressive expressions in positive or negative contexts, their expressions represented positive or negative emotional experiences respectively, imbued with appetitive orientations (feelings of wanting to go). In contrast, reported sad expressions, in positive or negative contexts, represented positive and negative emotional experiences respectively, imbued with consummatory orientations (feelings of wanting to pause). In six additional experiments, participant observers interpreted that aggression displayed in positive contexts signalled happy-appetitive states, and sadness displayed in positive contexts signalled happy-consummatory states. Implications for the production and interpretation of emotion expressions are discussed.

The invisibility cloak illusion: People (incorrectly) believe they observe others more than others observe them.

Whether at a coffee shop, in a waiting room, or riding the bus, people frequently observe the other people around them. Yet they often fail to realize how much other people engage in the same behavior, and that they, therefore, also are being observed. Because it is logically impossible that people, on average, are the subjects of observation more than they are objects of it, the belief that one watches others more than one is watched is an illusion. Several studies show that people incorrectly believe that they observe others more than other people observe them. We call this mistaken belief the "invisibility cloak illusion." People believe that they observe others more than do other people and that they are generally observed less than are others (Studies 1-3, 5, 6). The illusion persists both among strangers in the same vicinity (Study 2) and among friends interacting with one another (Study 3), and it cannot be explained away as yet another general better-than-average bias nor is it the result of believing one has more thoughts, in general, than do other people (Studies 2-3). The illusion is supported by a failure to catch others watching oneself (Studies 1b, 4) and it is manifest in the specific contents of people's thoughts about one another (Studies 5 and 6). Finally, rendering a feature of one's appearance salient to oneself fails to interrupt the illusion despite increasing one's belief that others are paying more attention specifically to that salient feature (Study 6). (PsycINFO Database Record

Relating pattern deviancy aversion to stigma and prejudice.

What predicts people's powerful and universal dislike of social deviancy? Across six studies, aversion towards non-social pattern deviancy, for example, a row of triangles with one triangle out of line, predicted aversion towards stigmatized individuals, social norm breakers, statistically negative and positive deviants, and a racial minority group (Black individuals). The relationship between pattern deviancy and social deviancy aversion emerged across explicit and implicit measures, across cultures (United States and China), and was of a moderately large magnitude (meta-analytic effect size: d = 0.68). Studies 7 and 8 examined developmental differences. Older but not younger children's pattern deviancy aversion related to their dislike of social norm breakers. Although non-social pattern deviancy and social deviancy judgements may seem distinct given their differing domains, people's aversion towards non-social pattern deviancy and social deviancy consistently overlapped. These findings raise the possibility that pattern deviancy aversion plays an important role in stigmatization and prejudice.