Perceiving humanness across ages: neural correlates and behavioral patterns.

Humanness perception, which attributes fundamental and unique human characteristics to other objects or people, has significant consequences for people's interactions. Notably, the failure to perceive humanness in older adults can lead to prejudice. This study investigates the effect of a target's age on humanness perception in terms of two dimensions: agency (the ability to act and do) and experience (the ability to feel and sense). We also examined brain activity using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner in order to understand the underlying neural mechanisms. Healthy university students viewed the facial images of older and younger individuals and judged the humanness of each individual in terms of agency and experience while inside the MRI scanner. The results indicated that older adults were rated higher on experience, and no difference was found in ratings for agency between younger and older face images. Analysis of brain imaging data indicated that positive functional connectivity between the ventral and dorsal regions of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was greater when judging the humanness of younger faces than older faces. We also found that the negative functional connectivity between the left inferior frontal gyrus and postcentral gyrus was greater when judging the humanness of older faces as compared to that of younger faces. Although the current study did not show distinct brain activities related to humanness perception, it suggests the possibility that different brain connectivities are related to humanness perception regarding targets belonging to different age groups.

Reflections on Cross-Modal Correspondences: Current Understanding and Issues for Future Research.

The past two decades have seen an explosion of research on cross-modal correspondences. Broadly speaking, this term has been used to encompass associations between and among features, dimensions, or attributes across the senses. There has been an increasing interest in this topic amongst researchers from multiple fields (psychology, neuroscience, music, art, environmental design, etc.) and, importantly, an increasing breadth of the topic's scope. Here, this narrative review aims to reflect on what cross-modal correspondences are, where they come from, and what underlies them. We suggest that cross-modal correspondences are usefully conceived as relative associations between different actual or imagined sensory stimuli, many of these correspondences being shared by most people. A taxonomy of correspondences with four major kinds of associations (physiological, semantic, statistical, and affective) characterizes cross-modal correspondences. Sensory dimensions (quantity/quality) and sensory features (lower perceptual/higher cognitive) correspond in cross-modal correspondences. Cross-modal correspondences may be understood (or measured) from two complementary perspectives: the phenomenal view (perceptual experiences of subjective matching) and the behavioural response view (observable patterns of behavioural response to multiple sensory stimuli). Importantly, we reflect on remaining questions and standing issues that need to be addressed in order to develop an explanatory framework for cross-modal correspondences. Future research needs (a) to understand better when (and why) phenomenal and behavioural measures are coincidental and when they are not, and, ideally, (b) to determine whether different kinds of cross-modal correspondence (quantity/quality, lower perceptual/higher cognitive) rely on the same or different mechanisms.

Imagine distant-future outcome: Mental simulation of COVID-19 vaccinations.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global public health crisis. Although it has been expected that the vaccination of COVID-19 mitigates the crisis, some people are reluctant to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. Based on the theory of mental simulation and affective forecasting, we investigated how mental simulations influence COVID-19 vaccination intention. Three preregistered experiments were conducted (total n = 970). Experiment 1 tested for whether outcome (vs. process) simulation would increase COVID-19 vaccination intention. Experiment 2 explored whether temporal proximity of simulations (distant-future outcome, near-future outcome, process) modulate the effects of mental simulation on expected emotion and COVID-19 vaccination intention. Experiment 3 examined the role of the number of sensory modalities (multisensory, unisensory) in mental simulations. The result of Experiment 1 (n = 271) demonstrated that outcome (vs. process) simulation of the COVID-19 vaccination led to greater COVID-19 vaccination intention. The result of Experiment 2 (n = 227) revealed that distant-future outcome simulation (vs. near-future outcome simulation, process simulation) increased expected positivity and then enhanced COVID-19 vaccination intention. The result of Experiment 3 (n = 472) also demonstrated that distant-future outcome simulation (vs. near-future outcome simulation, process simulation) increased expected positivity and then enhanced COVID-19 vaccination intention regardless of the number of sensory modalities to be simulated. Our findings reveal how mental simulations influence COVID-19 vaccination intention and provide practical implications for effective health communication strategies for the COVID-19 vaccination intention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Neural mechanisms of perceptual and affective body-image disturbance during own-body and ideal-body estimation.

Body-image disturbance is a core feature of eating disorders and can predict their development in healthy individuals. There are two components of body-image disturbance: perceptual disturbance (associated with overestimation of body size) and affective disturbance (associated with body dissatisfaction). Previous behavioral studies have hypothesized that attention to particular body parts and negative body-related emotions resulting from social pressure are associated with the respective degrees of perceptual and affective disturbance; however, the neural representations that underlie this hypothesis have not been elucidated. Thus, this study investigated the brain regions and connectivity associated with the degree of body-image disturbance. Specifically, we examined the brain activations associated with participants' estimation of the width of their actual and ideal bodies; we sought to determine which brain regions and functional connectivity from body-related visual processing regions were correlated with the degree of each component of body-image disturbance. The degree of perceptual disturbance was positively correlated with excessive width-dependent brain activations in the left anterior cingulate cortex when estimating one's body size; it was positively correlated with the functional connectivity between the left extrastriate body area and left anterior insula. The degree of affective disturbance was positively correlated with excessive width-dependent brain activation in the right temporoparietal junction and negatively correlated with functional connectivity between the left extrastriate body area and right precuneus when estimating one's ideal body size. These results support the hypothesis that perceptual disturbance is associated with attentional processing, whereas affective disturbance is associated with social processing.

Cultural differences in recognizing emotions of masked faces.

In the wake of the global pandemic, interacting with others while wearing masks has emerged as a global challenge. A growing body of literature has reported that face masks hinder emotion recognition in Western populations. Given that diagnostic facial features for recognizing specific emotions (e.g., happiness) differ between Western and Eastern cultures, there may be cultural differences in the effects of face masks on emotion recognition. Relying on the previous findings showing cultural differences in emotion recognition, we conducted a preregistered study where 203 American and 209 Japanese participants judged the emotional expressions of faces (happy, fearful, angry, sad, disgust, and neutral) with and without masks. The results showed cultural differences in emotion recognition of faces with and without masks. Specifically, face masks decreased the accuracy of happy emotion recognition in the Americans but not in the Japanese. The results suggest that the effect of wearing masks on emotion recognition depends on the types of emotions and culture and supports previous findings indicating cultural differences in the decoding strategy for facial expressions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Trends in alcohol consumption in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-country analysis.

During the first sequence of lockdowns implemented in many countries around the world in early 2020 as a result of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, there was widespread concern amongst many health professionals regarding a predicted rise in alcohol consumption. However, studies have reported diverse findings, with some consumer groups exhibiting an increase and others a decrease in their alcohol purchase and consumption patterns. Although the long-lasting changes in alcohol consumption, if any, are still unknown, the current situation has effectively accelerated a number of pre-existing trends which will likely continue in the future. E-commerce is growing steadily, mainly because of the restrictions within the on-trade channel and concerns around catching COVID-19 amongst consumers, thus lifting traditional barriers to the adoption of digital channels. Premiumization has also grown significantly during the pandemic, especially in the spirits category, due, in part, to the fact that consumers have been increasingly trying to recreate bar and restaurant quality gastronomic experiences in the privacy of their own homes. The trend toward homemade experiences is multi-stakeholder as consumers, retailers, restaurateurs, bar owners, and brands all try to help facilitate at-home consumption experiences. Larger size purchases seem to reflect not only the stockpiling phenomena that occurred during the initial phases of the pandemic but also convenience for consumers (e.g., avoiding queues). Additionally, the growing home mixology movement has been observed to result in consumers buying larger amounts of alcohol in order to facilitate cocktail making experimentation at home. It is important to stress, though, that this review was specially focused on available data from the first three quarters of 2020, as an effort to identify and understand the initial impacts the COVID-19 was creating amongst alcohol consumers. It currently remains uncertain how these trends will evolve, and whether or not they will continue post COVID-19 (whenever that might be). Key similarities and differences across national markets are highlighted.

Facilitating animacy perception by manipulating stimuli exposure time.

Animacy perception-discriminating between animate and inanimate visual stimuli-is the basis for engaging in social cognition and for our survival (e.g., avoiding potential danger). Previous studies indicate that factors in a target, such as the features or motion of a target, enhance animacy perception. However, factors in a perceiver, such as the visual attention of a perceiver to a target, have received little attention from researchers. Research on judgment, decision-making, and neuroeconomics indicates the active role of visual attention in constructing decisions. This study examined the role of visual attention in the perception of animacy by manipulating the exposure time of targets. Among Studies 1a to 1c conducted in this study, participants saw two face illustrations alternately; one of the faces was shown to be longer than the other. The participants chose the face that they considered more animated and rounder. Consequently, longer exposure time toward targets facilitated animacy perception and preference rather than the perception of roundness. Furthermore, preregistered Study 2 examined the underlying mechanisms. The results suggest that mere exposure, rather than orienting behavior, might play a vital role in the perception of animacy. Thus, in the reverse relationship between visual attention and animacy perception, animate objects capture attention-attention results in the perception of animacy.

How Semantically Labeled Scent-Gender Associations Influence the Evaluations of Scent and Texture.

Sensory evaluation can be influenced by semantic information such as gender descriptions. Gender categories are associated with tactile information (e.g., female = soft/smooth, while male = hard/rough). Feminine scents (e.g., floral) are typically perceived as soft and smooth. Thus, semantic labels of gender (feminine/masculine qualities) may influence congruent sensory evaluation (i.e., female = soft/smooth, male = hard/rough). This study examined how semantically labeled scent-gender associations influence the evaluation of scent and texture. Specifically, we examined whether "feminine" and "masculine" labels applied to neutral scents that have not been associated with gender influence scent and haptic evaluation. Participants sniffed a feminine-labeled or masculine-labeled scent embedded on soft and rough papers. They then evaluated the scent (e.g., gender perception) and texture (e.g., hedonic evaluation). The results demonstrated that participants who sniffed a feminine-labeled (vs. masculine-labeled) scent perceived it as more feminine. However, contrary to our expectations, gender labeling of scent did not influence haptic evaluation. These findings indicate that semantic labeling of scents (i.e., feminine/masculine) may alter the gender perception of a scent but not the tactile evaluation. Practical implications for (online) sensory marketing are discussed.

Ventral-Dorsal Subregions in the Posterior Cingulate Cortex Represent Pay and Interest, Two Key Attributes of Job Value.

Career choices affect not only our financial status but also our future well-being. When making these choices, individuals evaluate their willingness to obtain a job (i.e., job values), primarily driven by simulation of future pay and interest. Despite the importance of these decisions, their underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we examined the neural representation of pay and interest. Forty students were presented with 80 job names and asked to evaluate their job values while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Following fMRI, participants rated the jobs in terms of pay and interest. The fMRI data revealed that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) was associated with job value representation, and the ventral and dorsal regions of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) were associated with pay and interest representations, respectively. These findings suggest that the neural computations underlying job valuation conform to a multi-attribute decision-making framework, with overall value signals represented in the vmPFC and the attribute values (i.e., pay and interest) represented in specific regions outside the vmPFC, in the PCC. Furthermore, anatomically distinct representations of pay and interest in the PCC may reflect the differing roles of the two subregions in future simulations.

Eye-tracking research on sensory and consumer science: A review, pitfalls and future directions.

Visual processing is a core cognitive element of sensory and consumer science. Consumers visually attend to food types, packaging, label design, advertisements, supermarket shelves, food menus, and other visible information. During the past decade, sensory and consumer science have used eye tracking to elucidate visual processing by consumers. This review paper summarizes earlier findings in terms of bottom-up (i.e., stimulus-driven) processing such as visual salience, size, and top-down (i.e., goal-driven) processing such as goals, task instructions, task complexity, and emotions. Downstream effects of gaze on choice are also reviewed. Pitfalls and future directions of eye-tracking research on sensory and consumer science are also discussed.

The temperature of emotions.

Emotions and temperature are closely related through embodied processes, and people seem to associate temperature concepts with emotions. While this relationship is often evidenced by everyday language (e.g., cold and warm feelings), what remains missing to date is a systematic study that holistically analyzes how and why people associate specific temperatures with emotions. The present research aimed to investigate the associations between temperature concepts and emotion adjectives on both explicit and implicit levels. In Experiment 1, we evaluated explicit associations between twelve pairs of emotion adjectives derived from the circumplex model of affect, and five different temperature concepts ranging from 0°C to 40°C, based on responses from 403 native speakers of four different languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese). The results of Experiment 1 revealed that, across languages, the temperatures were associated with different regions of the circumplex model. The 0°C and 10°C were associated with negative-valanced, low-arousal emotions, while 20°C was associated with positive-valanced, low-to-medium-arousal emotions. Moreover, 30°C was associated with positive-valanced, high-arousal emotions; and 40°C was associated with high-arousal and either positive- or negative-valanced emotions. In Experiment 2 (N = 102), we explored whether these temperature-emotion associations were also present at the implicit level, by conducting Implicit Association Tests (IATs) with temperature words (cold and hot) and opposing pairs of emotional adjectives for each dimension of valence (Unhappy/Dissatisfied vs. Happy/Satisfied) and arousal (Passive/Quiet vs. Active/Alert) on native English speakers. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that participants held implicit associations between the word hot and positive-valanced and high-arousal emotions. Additionally, the word cold was associated with negative-valanced and low-arousal emotions. These findings provide evidence for the existence of temperature-emotion associations at both explicit and implicit levels across languages.

Evaluation of energy density and macronutrients after extremely brief time exposure.

Many food decisions are made rapidly and without reflective processing. The ability to determine nutritional information accurately is a precursor of food decisions and is important for a healthy diet and weight management. However, little is known about the cognitive evaluation of food attributes based on visual information in relation to assessing nutritional content. We investigated the accuracy of visual encoding of nutritional information after brief and extended time exposures to food images. The following questions were addressed: (1) how accurately do people estimate energy and macronutrients after brief exposure to food images, and (2) how does estimation accuracy change with time exposure and the type of nutritional information? Participants were first asked to rate the energy density (calories) and macronutrient content (carbohydrates/fat/protein) of different sets of food images under three time conditions (97, 500 or 1000 ms) and then asked to perform the task with no time constraints. We calculated estimation accuracy by computing the correlations between estimated and actual nutritional information for each time exposure and compared estimation accuracy with respect to the type of nutritional information and the exposure time. The estimated and actual energy densities and individual macronutrient content were significantly correlated, even after a brief exposure time (97 ms). The degree of accuracy of the estimations did not differ with additional time exposure, suggesting that <100 ms was sufficient to predict the energy and macronutrients from food images. Additionally, carbohydrate estimates were less accurate than the estimates of other nutritional variables (proteins, fat and calories), regardless of the exposure time. These results revealed rapid and accurate assessment of food attributes based on visual information and the accuracy of visual encoding of nutritional information after brief and extended time exposure to food imagery.

Effects of training of shadowing and reading aloud of second language on working memory and neural systems.

Shadowing and reading aloud both involve multiple complex cognitive processes, and both are considered effective methods for second-language learning. The working memory system, particularly the phonological loop, has been suggested to be involved in shadowing and reading aloud. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a 4-week intensive adaptive training including shadowing and reading aloud of second language on working-memory capacity, regional gray matter volume (rGMV), and functional activation related to the n-back working-memory task in young adults. The results showed that compared with the training groups without speaking (listening to compressed speech and active control involving the second language), the training groups with speaking (shadowing and reading aloud) showed a tendency for greater test-retest increases in digit-span scores, and significantly greater test-retest decreases in N-back task reaction time (increase in working memory performance). Imaging analyses revealed compared with the active control group, shadowing group exhibited decreases in rGMV and brain activity during the working memory task (2-back task), in the left cerebellum and reading group exhibited decreases in them in the right anterior insula. These regions are parts of the phonological loop, suggesting the presence of training-induced neural plasticity in these neurocognitive mechanisms.

Factors influencing the choice of beer: A review.

Research on those variables that have been shown to influence the consumer's choice of beer is reviewed. The focus is on the choice of whether to drink beer as opposed to a beverage from another category, and to a greater extent, the choice between different types or styles of beer. Inspired by previous research on a diverse array of factors that have been shown to influence food and beverage choice, the review examines how beer choice is driven by consumer variables (covering biological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors), product-intrinsic attributes (the sensory aspects of the beer itself), product-extrinsic attributes (external sensory characteristics, such as packaging), and contextual and environmental influences. These situational factors refer to variables such as the location where choice/consumption takes place (i.e., on- versus off-trade), as well as the context, occasion, and reason for drinking. Current trends related to choice and consumption, such as the emerging interest in beer-food pairing, are also examined. The review groups these attributes which affect people's beer wanting, choice, and purchase in order to understand the beer consumer's choice process. Along with general conclusions, a number of key directions for future research are also presented, given that the relative contribution of each type of factor on consumer's choice behaviour is still unclear.

Cross-Modal Correspondences Between Temperature and Taste Attributes.

Temperature is an important characteristic of food and drink. In addition to food-intrinsic temperature (i.e., serving temperature), consumers often experience food-extrinsic temperature (e.g., physical warmth). Emerging research on cross-modal correspondence has revealed that people reliably associate temperature with other sensory features. Building on the literature on cross-modal correspondence and sensation transference theory, the present study aimed to reveal mental representations of temperature-taste correspondence and cross-modal mental representations influencing corresponding sensory/hedonic perceptions of beverages, with a focus on manipulating food-extrinsic warmth. To reveal mental representations of temperature-taste correspondence, Experiment 1 investigated whether temperature words (warm, cool) are associated with sensory/hedonic attributes (e.g., sweet, sour, salty, bitter). The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that warm (vs. cool) was matched more with saltiness, tastiness, healthfulness, and preference (intention to buy), whereas cool (vs. warm) was matched more with sourness and freshness. Experiment 2 assessed whether cross-modal mental representations influence corresponding sensory/hedonic perceptions of beverages. The participants wore hot and cold pads and rated sensory/hedonic attributes of Japanese tea (Experiment 2a) or black coffee (Experiment 2b) before and after tasting it. The results of Experiment 2a demonstrated that physical warmth (vs. coldness) increased healthfulness and the intention to buy Japanese tea. The results of Experiment 2b did not reveal any effects of physical warmth on sensory/hedonic ratings. These findings provide evidence of taste-temperature correspondence and provide preliminary support for the influence of food-extrinsic warmth on taste attributes related to positivity.

Extrinsic Factors Underlying Food Valuation in the Human Brain.

Subjective values for food rewards guide our dietary choices. There is growing evidence that value signals are constructed in the brain by integrating multiple types of information about flavor, taste, and nutritional attributes of the foods. However, much less is known about the influence of food-extrinsic factors such as labels, brands, prices, and packaging designs. In this mini-review article, we outline recent findings in decision neuroscience, consumer psychology, and food science about the effect of extrinsic factors on food value computations in the human brain. To date, studies have demonstrated that, while the integrated value signal is encoded in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, information on the extrinsic factors of the food is encoded in diverse brain regions previously implicated in a wide range of functions: cognitive control, memory, emotion and reward processing. We suggest that a comprehensive understanding of food valuation requires elucidation of the mechanisms behind integrating extrinsic factors in the brain to compute an overall subjective value signal.

Author Correction: Common neural value representations of hedonic and utilitarian products in the ventral striatum: An fMRI study.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Assessing the Relationship Between Drive for Thinness and Taste-Shape Correspondences.

Eating disorder tendencies are psychological characteristics that are prevalent in healthy young females and are known to be among the risk factors for eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa. People with greater eating disorder tendencies strongly associate sweet and fatty foods with weight gain and strictly avoid consuming such foods. However, little is known about how eating disorder tendencies influence the association between taste and body shape impression. Research on crossmodal correspondences suggests that people preferentially associate sweet tastes with round shapes, and individual differences affect the degree of such associations. This study investigates how the degree of taste-shape matching is related to eating disorder tendencies with a preliminary investigation of what mediates this relationship. Two experiments were conducted: in Experiment 1, healthy participants rated the degree of association between basic taste words (sweet/sour/salty/bitter) and roundness of shape and subsequently completed questionnaires addressing eating disorder tendencies. In Experiment 2, participants answered additional questionnaires addressing obsessiveness, dichotomous thinking, and self-esteem. The results of Experiment 1 indicated a positive correlation between drive for thinness, which is one indicator of an eating disorder tendency, and the degree of matching sweetness to round shape. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and revealed the mediating effect of obsessiveness. These findings suggest a relationship between individual differences in taste-shape matching and eating disorder tendency and the preliminary mediating role of obsessiveness. The present study provides new insight into the role of sweet-round matching in eating disorder tendencies and the associated psychological mechanisms.

Common neural value representations of hedonic and utilitarian products in the ventral stratum: An fMRI study.

Hedonic goods are goods that people buy to obtain emotional experiences, such as joy or excitement, while utilitarian goods are bought to meet functional or instrumental needs. Although research in neuroscience suggests that the values of hedonic and utilitarian goods are similarly represented, it remains largely unknown how these values are mapped during purchasing decisions or task-irrelevant judgments. It has been suggested that people rely more on hedonic (vs. utilitarian) factors when making task-irrelevant judgments, and that this is amplified by trait-reward seeking. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can directly measure the mental processes involved in explicit or task-irrelevant value judgments. Using fMRI, we found that the explicit value of hedonic and utilitarian goods was commonly processed in the ventral striatum. In contrast, no significant results were obtained in common neural processing of task-irrelevant hedonic and utilitarian value. Additionally, we did not find any evidence that trait-reward seeking modulates task-irrelevant hedonic (vs. utilitarian) value processing. Our findings show that the value of both hedonic and utilitarian goods is commonly represented in the ventral striatum, and indicate that the value construct underlying consumer purchases is unidimensional.

Does incidental pride increase competency evaluation of others who appear careless? Discrete positive emotions and impression formation.

Emotion plays important and diverse roles across various social relations. Although the social functions of emotion have attracted increased attention, the effects of positive emotions such as pride on impression formation remain poorly understood. Drawing on social projection theory, this study examined how incidental experiences of pride influenced the impressions of those who made a blunder, along with two other characteristics: the person's warmth and competence. Participants were designated randomly to receive inductions of pride, awe, or a neutral emotion. Subsequently, they were asked to indicate their own impression of a person who had made a blunder and to rate their overall sense of that individual's warmth and competence. A laboratory experiment recruiting university students (Study 1, N = 79) demonstrated that pride, a positive emotion elicited by a self-relevant achievement, led to higher competency evaluations of others. However, a pre-registered online experiment in middle-aged adults (Study 2, N = 108) failed to replicate the effects of pride on competency evaluations of others. Furthermore, another pre-registered online experiment in younger adults (Study 3, N = 290) did not show successful manipulation of incidental emotions. These results suggest that strictly controlled experimental settings that induce robust incidental emotions might be better for demonstrating a strong pride effect on the evaluation of others.