Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

When we hear someone speak, we do not just hear ‘a voice’. If the voice is unfamiliar, we form an often complex first impression by inferring various characteristics about the person. If the voice is familiar, at least to some degree, we may be able to recognise and identify the person to whom the voice belongs. Even though first impression formation and identity recognition can thus be seen as being situatied at two opposing ends of a ‘familiarity continuum’, first impressions and identity recognition functionally serve the same purpose: making sense of who another person is. Theories and empirical work examining impression formation and identity perception from voices have, however, developed largely in isolation from one another, with relatively limited cross-talk. In this paper, I will review some recent findings from the literature on first impression formation from unfamiliar voices and voice identity learning and recognition from familiar(ised) voices. I will ask how impression perception and identity perception may interact and interface with one another along this ‘familiarity continuum’ between completely unfamiliar and very familiar voices, trying to bring together these two literatures. Specifically, I will consider what happens to first impressions when we become increasingly familiar with a person, whether first impressions might have an impact on how (well) voices can be learned and recognised, and when and how identity recognition might take over from ad-hoc impression formation.

Mind-wandering and boredom are common phenomena, characterized by shifts in attention and difficulties in sustaining focus. Despite extensive research on the costs and benefits of these states, our understanding of the relationship between mind-wandering, boredom, attention, and memory remains limited. In the current study, we examined the impact that mind-wandering and boredom during encoding have on recognition. In particular, we investigated what impact mind-wandering and boredom have during the encoding of visual stimuli on the pupil old/new effect during recognition. We used an incidental memory task and measured mind-wandering and boredom with thought probes during encoding. Furthermore, we used the pupil old/new effect, assessed via eye-tracking, as a measure of recognition memory. We found a significant effect of boredom on recognition memory and observed the pupil old/new effect in participants regardless of instances of mind-wandering or boredom during encoding. Our findings point toward different mechanisms that underlie mind-wandering and boredom’s obstruction of attention during stimuli encoding and their effects on stimuli processing. In addition, these findings reinforce the idea of the pupil old/new effect as a reliable measure of recognition memory as it remained consistent irrespective of attentional lapses due to mind-wandering and boredom.

Studies of waking rest, whereby passive rest is compared with an active task, have shown a benefit for declarative memory during short waking rest periods, which has been argued to result from the active task disrupting slow oscillations that occur during rest. Arshamian et al. (2018) found that nasal breathing while resting for an hour led to an advantage for olfactory memory consolidation compared with oral breathing, which has also been argued to result from the disruption of slow oscillations during oral breathing. In the present pre-registered research, we looked to see whether this oral breathing disruption extended to impair declarative memory consolidation, and if it is modulated by the presence of an active task. We used a 2 × 2 within-participants counterbalanced design of two sessions separated by a week where participants breathed either orally (induced by a nose clip) or nasally (induced through tape over the mouth). Each session involved learning two sets of pseudowords followed by either waking rest or an active task (N-back) for 15 min during the breathing manipulation. Memory performance was assessed by a recognition task. Our results show that the nasal advantage did not generalise to pseudowords, nor were we able to replicate the waking rest advantage or show an interaction between these factors. This study contributes to a growing body of evidence that challenges the consistency of the waking rest advantage and highlights the need for further exploration of the influence of breathing pathway on memory processes.

The pip-and-pop effect describes the phenomenon of auditory pure-tone stimuli (pip) causing simultaneously visual target to pop out. This study utilised a dynamic visual search paradigm and conducted two eye movement experiments (Experiment 1: set size = 24 items; Experiment 2: set size = 48 items) to explore the influence of auditory singularity on the Pip-and-Pop effect through single-sound condition (singularity) and multiple-sound condition (non-singularity). In Experiment 1, there were no significant differences between the no-sound, single-sound, and multiple-sound conditions in terms of reaction time, accuracy, or fixation number. In Experiment 2, compared with the no-sound condition, both the single-sound and multiple-sound conditions significantly reduced the Search time (RTs), accuracy, and fixation numbers when the target was present. Both Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that the fixation duration under the single-sound condition was significantly longer than that under the no-sound condition. These findings suggest that the singularity of auditory stimuli is not a necessary condition for the pip-and-pop effect. Audiovisual interaction is more likely to be a prerequisite for the occurrence of the pip-and-pop effect.

This study aimed to assess the extent to which human participants co-represent the lexico-semantic processing of a humanoid robot partner. Specifically, we investigated whether participants would engage their speech production system to predict the robot’s upcoming words, and how they would progressively adapt to the robot’s verbal behaviour. In the experiment, a human participant and a robot alternated in naming pictures of objects from 15 semantic categories, while the participant’s electrophysiological activity was recorded. We manipulated word frequency as a measure of lexical access, with half of the pictures associated with high-frequency names and the other half with low-frequency names. In addition, the robot was programmed to provide semantic category labels (e.g., “tool” for the picture of a hammer) instead of the more typical basic-level names (e.g., “hammer”) for items in five categories. Analysis of the stimulus-locked activity revealed a comparable event-related potential (ERP) associated with word frequency both when it was the participant’s and the robot’s turn to speak. Analysis of the response-locked activity showed a different pattern for the category and basic-level responses in the first but not in the second part of the experiment, suggesting that participants adapted to the robot’s lexico-semantic patterns over time. These findings provide empirical evidence for two key points: (1) participants engage their speech production system to predict the robot’s upcoming words and (2) partner-adaptive behaviour facilitates comprehension of the robot’s speech.

Expertise is associated with a knowledge-driven information-processing approach. Experts benefit from long-term knowledge structures—chunks and retrieval structures/templates—leading them to formulate expectations about local stimulus characteristics and to extract information projected onto distant areas from the fixation location. In an attempt to shed light on the way knowledge-driven processing impacts eye movements during music reading, this study aimed to determine how expert musicians deal with local complexity in a sight-reading task. Thirty musicians from two expertise levels had to sight read 4 bar score excerpts. Local analyses were conducted to investigate how the gaze behaves prior to and during the sight reading of different score characteristics, such as alteration, location of the notes on the staff, note count, and heterogeneity of notes. The more experts (1) were less affected by the foveal load induced by local complexity, showing a lower increase in fixation durations between noncomplex features and local complexity compared to the less experts; (2) presented a saccadic flexibility towards the local complexity projected onto the parafoveal area, being the only group to exhibit shorter progressive incoming saccade sizes on accidentals and larger progressive incoming saccade sizes on new notes compared to noncomplex features; and (3) presented a visuo-motor flexibility depending on the played complexity, being the only group to exhibit a shorter eye-hand span when playing accidentals or distant notes compared to noncomplex features. Overall, this study highlights the usefulness of local analyses as a relevant tool to investigate foveal and parafoveal processing skills during music reading.

We examined fear and disgust responses in trypophobia to distinguish between two hypotheses concerning the origin of this phenomenon. According to the hypothesis that trypophobia stems from an ancestral fear of dangerous animals, fear predominates over disgust, whereas the opposite is true according to the disease aversion hypothesis. Currently, the question of which of the two plays a more significant role in trypophobia remains unclear. Adults had to rate on Likert-type scales their level of disgust and fear when presented with photographs of frightening or disgusting stimuli, trypophobia-inducing stimuli, i.e., clusters of holes, or neutral stimuli. They also had to rate the difficulty of viewing these images. Higher levels of disgust than fear were found for the trypophobic images in both the overall sample and in the participants reporting the highest levels of discomfort when viewing them. Trypophobic images had a special status for these latter participants, as they were rated more disgusting than non-trypophobic disgusting images and more frightening than non-trypophobic frightening images. Although disgust is the dominant emotion in trypophobia, fear is also not negligible.

The degree to which face processing abilities inter-relate, and associate with general intelligence, remains a contentious issue. Furthermore, poorer face processing abilities may be a result of reduced social interest associated with higher levels of trait-autism, consistent with the social motivation theory of autism. However, the association between multiple dimensions of face processing (i.e., a general face factor) and trait-autism, specifically autistic-like nonverbal communication, has not been estimated. Consequently, we administered four face processing ability tests (assessing face detection, the perception and memory of face identity, and expression recognition), four cognitive ability tests, and the Autism Quotient to a sample of 253 general community adults. Based on latent variable modelling, we identified a general face processing ability factor (f), and it was positively associated with general intelligence (g; λ = .48). We conclude that face processing abilities may be a candidate ability within the Cattell–Horn–Carroll model of intelligence. Moreover, face memory was positively associated with g (β = .31). We discuss the possibility of developmental prosopagnosia, i.e., deficits in face memory, being diagnosed as a learning disability. Furthermore, autistic-like nonverbal communication was a significant, negative predictor (β = −.45) of f, and g was neither a mediator nor suppressor of the effect. Finally, the unique effect between autistic-like nonverbal communication difficulties and face processing abilities, independently of intelligence, was considered in line with the social motivation theory of autism.

In dual tasks, with a visual-manual choice reaction time task in Task 1 and a go/no-go task in Task 2, not responding to Task 2 can have adverse effects on Task 1 performance, as demonstrated by no-go backward crosstalk effects (no-go BCE). Here, the response inhibition required to not respond to Task 2 spills over and slows response execution in Task 1. Over three experiments, we investigated whether the prospect of reward, which is a potent cognitive control modulator, influences no-go BCE. In Experiment 1, reward for fast and accurate responses in both tasks was modulated as a within-subject factor, and in Experiments 2 and 3, as a between-subject factor. The results revealed three major insights. In all three experiments, reward led to faster Task 1 and Task 2 performance. Second, despite this speeding, the no-go BCE was not modulated by reward. Finally, the reward led to more errors in Task 2 no-go trials. These results reveal a reward-induced bias for action, suggesting better preparedness to respond and, consequently, larger commission errors in Task 2 no-go trials. The absence of a reward-based modulation of the no-go BCE indicates that the reward-induced bias for action does not necessarily translate into larger response inhibition. These findings point towards the complex interactions between reward and inhibitory control and shed light on the potentials and limitations of reward-based modulation of dual-task interference.

The “font size effect” has rarely been studied in the context of valence judgments. In this paper, we aimed to determine whether the font size of neutral words could influence their perceived positivity. We conducted four experiments. In the first two experiments, the words appeared in the participants' peripersonal space (i.e., the area immediately surrounding the body, where one can easily act). The first experiment showed that words in size 36 were judged more positively than words in size 18. The second experiment showed that words in size 18 were judged more positively than words in size 9 and more positively than they were in Experiment 1. In the third and fourth experiments, the words appeared in the participants’ extrapersonal space (i.e., space beyond the reach of the body). The results of the third experiment showed that words in size 36 were judged more positively than those in size 18. The fourth experiment revealed that words in size 72 were judged more positively than those in size 36. However, words in size 36 in this experiment were judged less positively than those in size 36 in Experiment 3. Finally, neutral words in sizes 18 and 36 in Experiment 1 (peripersonal space) were judged more positively than in Experiment 3 (extrapersonal space). Taken together, these results support the idea that valence is influenced by the relative contrast between competing sizes rather than by an inherent size-related valence and the space in which they appear.

Magnitude dimensions influence the processing of each other resulting in shorter reaction times in classification tasks when the magnitude information in both dimensions matches. These effects are often explained by a shared magnitude representation as proposed by A Theory of Magnitude (ATOM). Interactions between numbers and loudness indicate that loudness may also be represented as a magnitude. Three experiments were conducted to investigate loudness-number interactions with regard to cross-modality, automaticity, bidirectionality, and the influence of processing speed. In Experiment 1, participants classified the numerical value of visually presented numbers relative to a preceding standard number. Tones at different loudness levels were presented simultaneously with the target number. In Experiment 2, participants switched between a numerical classification task and a loudness classification task randomly between trials. Experiment 3 was similar to Experiment 1 but with reduced salience of the auditory dimension. Across all experiments, there was an interaction between loudness and number magnitude, with shorter reaction times for large (small) numbers when they were accompanied by loud (soft) tones compared to soft (loud) tones. In addition, Experiment 2 showed a bidirectional influence as the interaction occurred also in the loudness classification task. The effect of distance on the cross-modal loudness-number interaction only partially occurred, as only the loudness distance had an effect on the interaction, and this effect was mediated by task-relevance. This may reflect an asymmetry in the influence between numbers and loudness. Overall, the findings support the hypothesis that loudness is represented as a magnitude according to ATOM.

Facial attractiveness plays a significant role in interpersonal interactions, influencing various aspects of life. This study is the first to explore, from a neurological perspective, the impact of facial attractiveness on individual cooperative behavior in the context of the Stag Hunt game. Twenty-six participants took part in a two-person Stag Hunt experimental task, while their electroencephalogram (EEG) data were recorded. Participants had to decide whether to cooperate with or to defect from a virtual partner in the game, with photos of these partners (high or low attractiveness) shown before the decision. Analysis of the behavioral data indicates that faces with high attractiveness can promote individual cooperative behavior. EEG data analysis revealed that during the facial stimulus presentation phase, low attractiveness faces elicited more negative N2 amplitudes, smaller late positive potential amplitudes, and larger alpha oscillations compared to high attractiveness faces. During the outcome feedback phase, high attractiveness faces elicited smaller feedback-related negativity (FRN) amplitudes, larger P300 amplitudes, and stronger theta oscillations than low attractiveness faces, while loss feedback elicited more negative FRN amplitudes, smaller P300 amplitudes, and larger theta oscillations than gain feedback. These findings indicate that the processing of facial attractiveness occurs early and automatically, and it also influences individuals’ evaluation of behavioral outcomes.

The ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test’ (RMET) is one of the most used tests of theory of mind. Its principle is to match an emotion word to the corresponding face image. The performance at this test has been associated with multiple psychological variables, including personality, loneliness and empathy. Recently, however, the validity of the RMET has been questioned. An alternative version of the test has been tested using eye-tracking in addition to manual responses and was hypothesized to be more sensitive. Here, we put this hypothesis to the test by attempting to reproduce already-assessed correlational results between the performance at the classical RMET and the self-reported personality, loneliness and empathy, now using eye-gaze as an RMET performance index. Despite a marked eye-gaze bias towards the face image corresponding to the target word, the eye-gaze pattern correlated with none of the self-reported psychological variables. This result highlights the interest in using eye-tracking for theory of mind tests, while questioning the robustness of the association between psychological variables and RMET performance, and the validity of the RMET itself.

We report six experiments that examine the relationship between visuospatial and analogical reasoning. In Experiments 1–3b, participants completed a series of spatial assessments and analogical reasoning tasks. In Experiment 2, participants were assigned to one of three training conditions that involved analogical reasoning. One group visualized the elements in each scenario (visualization training), a second group identified the spatial relationships in each scenario (spatial training), and a third group identified the corresponding elements between two scenarios (analogy training). Participants completed pre- and post-tests, wherein they solved various analogy problems; Experiments 3a–4b were similar but did not include an analogy training condition. In Experiments 1–3b, a positive relationship between visuospatial and analogical reasoning was observed (regardless of the perceptibility of the analogy’s spatial relations), as participants who performed better on the spatial measures also demonstrated better analogical reasoning. Furthermore, in Experiments 2 and 4b, spatial training led to greater posttest performance than the visualization training, but this outcome was not observed in Experiments 3a–4a. A combined analysis (Experiments 2–4b), however, revealed a small, but reliable advantage of spatial over visualization training. These findings suggest that strategies that encourage spatial reasoning might better aid analogical learning and reasoning than strategies that encourage visualization.

Human responses to environmental stimuli are essential for adapting to surroundings. Cue informativeness (how accurately a cue provides information about events requiring an action) can be pivotal in guiding behavior. Similarly, timing predictability (the extent to which people can predict when events will occur) influences their responses. However, the interactive effects of these factors on responses remain unclear. This study examined whether cue informativeness and timing predictability jointly influence target detection responses. Participants completed a cued go/no-go task in which we manipulated both factors via an online experiment. We used a constant cue-target delay in the timing predictable condition and variable delays in the timing unpredictable condition. Informative cues indicated a high probability of a go target, whereas non-informative cues signaled equal probabilities for go and no-go targets. In Experiment 1, both informative cues and predictable timing facilitated responses to go targets, with no evidence of interaction. Experiment 2 replicated these findings under more challenging conditions by introducing shorter delays, varying go targets, and adding rev-informative cues, which indicated a low probability of a go target, to mitigate response bias. These findings advance our understanding of cognitive processes in human operators interacting with assistance systems and offer insights for optimizing system design.

Self-concept is the basis for many cognitive and behavioural processes, such as the processing of self-related information (e.g. one’s own face, one’s own name) and the categorisation of people into various social groups (e.g. self vs. other, family vs. non-family). Previous research suggests that one’s self-concept is not only construed from individual characteristics but also from one’s social experiences and group memberships. Thus, important life experiences such as childbirth and becoming a parent have significant impacts on one’s self-concept and subsequently influence the categorisation of information regarding the self and others. In two experiments, women who gave birth within the last 2 years were recruited and tested on a series of categorisation tasks using names (Experiment 1) or faces (Experiment 2) as stimuli. Results consistently revealed faster reaction times in response to the self regardless of stimulus type (name or face) and response category (self vs. other, family vs. non-family, familiar vs. non-familiar). A family bias for one’s own baby name and one’s own mother name over friend was observed in the family versus non-family but not in the familiar versus non-familiar categorisation tasks. These findings indicate that information regarding the self and one’s family members receives preferential processing in social categorisation. These findings contribute to current understandings of the evolving self-concept through social experiences and its influence on group membership categorisations and response behaviour.

Despite extensive research across various modalities, the precise mechanisms of sensory attenuation (SA) remain debated. Specifically, it remains unclear to what extent SA is influenced by stimulus predictability alone, as opposed to the distinct impact of self-generated actions. Forward models suggest that efference copies of motor commands enable the brain to predict and distinguish anticipated changes in self-initiated sensory input. Predictive processing proposes that predictions about upcoming changes in sensory input are not solely based on efference copies, but rather generated in the form of a generative model integrating external, contextual factors, as well. This study investigated the underlying mechanisms of SA in the tactile domain, specifically examining self-initiation and temporal predictions within a virtual reality (VR) framework. This setup allowed for precise control over sensory feedback in response to movement. Participants (N = 33) engaged in an active condition, moving their hands to elicit a virtual touch. Importantly, visual perception was modified in VR, so that participants touched their rendered—but not physical—hands. The virtual touch triggered the test vibrations on a touch controller (intensities: 0.2, 0.35, 0.5, 0.65, 0.8; in arbitrary units.), the intensity of which was then compared to that of a standard stimulus (intensity: 0.5). In the passive condition, vibrations were presented without movement and were preceded by a visual cue. Further, test vibrations appeared either immediately or after a variable onset delay (700–800ms). Our results revealed a significant effect of the factor “onset delay” on perceived vibration intensity. In addition, we observed interactions between the factors “agency” and “test vibration intensity” and between the factors “agency” and “onset delay,” with attenuation effects for immediate vibrations at high intensities and enhancement effects for delayed vibrations at low intensities. These findings emphasize the impact of external, contextual factors and support the notion of a broader, attention-oriented predictive mechanism for the perception of self-initiated stimuli.

This research concerns three channels for emotional communication: voice, semantics, and facial expressions. We used speech in which the emotion in voice and semantics did not match, and we investigated the dominant modality and how they interact with facial expressions. The study used voices emoting anger, happiness, or sadness while saying, “I’m angry,” “I’m pleased,” or “I’m sad.” A facial image accompanied the voice, and it expressed either the same emotion to the voice (voice = face condition), the same emotion to the semantics (semantic = face condition), or a mixed emotion shown in the voice and semantics (morph condition). The phrases were articulated in the participants’ native language (Japanese), second language (English), and unfamiliar language (Khmer). In Study 1, participants answered how much they agreed that the speaker expressed anger, happiness, and sadness. Their attention was not controlled. In Study 2, participants were told to attend to either voice or semantics. The morph condition of study 1 found semantic dominance for the native language stimuli. The semantic = face and voice = face conditions in Studies 1 and 2 revealed that an emotion solely expressed in semantics (while a different emotion was shown in face and voice) had more substantial impacts on assessing the speaker’s emotion than an emotion solely expressed in voice when the semantics were in understandable languages.