Verschooren, S., Gaebler, M., & Brass, M. (2024). From interoception to control over the internal body: The ideomotor hypothesis of voluntary interoaction. In Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000528
@techreport{verschoorenInteroception2024,
title = {From interoception to control over the internal body: The ideomotor hypothesis of voluntary interoaction},
author = {Verschooren, Sam and Gaebler, Michael and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = dec,
journal = {Psychological Review},
doi = {10.1037/rev0000528},
url = {https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-54358-001}
}
When it comes to body movements in external space, people are experts in learning fine-grained voluntary control, for example, when manipulating tiny objects. Voluntarily controlling actions in the internal body (e.g., decreasing heart rate), however, is far more difficult and requires dedicated training, for example, in meditation or yoga. Not much is currently known about the learning mechanism underlying the acquisition of voluntary control over internal visceromotor actions (i.e., interoaction) or why it is so difficult compared to controlling our external somatomotor actions (i.e., exteroaction). We propose the ideomotor hypothesis of voluntary interoaction in this article, which asserts that voluntary exteroactions and interoactions are governed by the same general principle, namely, the anticipation of sensory feedback. We apply this hypothesis to two techniques that can be used to acquire voluntary control over interoactions, that is, autogenic training and biofeedback training. As the afferent signal we receive from interoaction (i.e., interoceptive signals from the internal body) is of lower sensory quality than the afferent signal that we receive from exteroaction (i.e., exteroceptive signals from the external environment), this hypothesis explains why learning to control interoactions is more difficult. We propose ways in which to test predictions from this hypothesis and show its theoretical value by comparing it to other frameworks in the literature. We hope that this work motivates future empirical studies directly examining voluntary interoaction and its clinical applications, such as autogenic and biofeedback training, and mind–body practices more generally.
Brass, M. (2024). Automatic Imitation and the Correspondence Problem of Imitation: A Brief Historical Overview of Theoretical Positions. In Automatic Imitation. https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=GCMhq8MAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=GCMhq8MAAAAJ:pYKElYtJMmwC
@techreport{brassAutomatic2024,
title = {Automatic Imitation and the Correspondence Problem of Imitation: A Brief Historical Overview of Theoretical Positions},
author = {Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = nov,
journal = {Automatic Imitation},
url = {https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=GCMhq8MAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=GCMhq8MAAAAJ:pYKElYtJMmwC}
}
Imitation is considered one of the major tools for social learning (Boyd & Richerson, 1996). It allows infants and adults to acquire new motor skills. Furthermore, it contributes to smooth social interactions (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). Importantly, imitation might also be a useful mechanism for artificial agents to acquire and transmit behaviour and to create social bonds with human agents (Breazeal & Scassellati, 2002; see also Chaps. 13 and 14; this volume). Therefore, understanding the functional mechanisms underlying imitation is extremely important. Intuitively, imitation is a very simple act: you do what you see. However, on closer inspection, this rather intuitive description becomes less plausible. Already in the eighteenth century, Tetens (1979) described the functional problem of imitation: he wondered how an action that we observe can be imitated, given that we only observe the ‘outside’(the effect) of the action but not the ‘inside’. In other words, when we observe a body movement, we do not perceive the muscle activation underlying that movement but rather the external consequences of the movement. So how can the observer know which muscle activation will lead to the observed movement? This problem has been called the correspondence problem of imitation (Brass & Heyes, 2005; Heyes, 2001), and various solutions to this problem have been proposed ranging from an innate ability to associative learning. In the following, I will give a brief historical overview of potential solutions to the correspondence problem.
Ulloa, J. L., Núñez, D. E., Gaspar, P. A., & Brass, M. (2024). Imitative inhibitory control is associated with psychotic experiences in a sample from the general population. In Frontiers in Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1470030
@techreport{LuisImitative2024,
title = {Imitative inhibitory control is associated with psychotic experiences in a sample from the general population},
author = {Ulloa, José Luis and Núñez, Daniel E and Gaspar, Pablo A and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = nov,
journal = {Frontiers in Psychiatry},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1470030},
url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1470030/full}
}
Psychotic experiences (PE) are prevalent and associated with several negative mental health outcomes in both clinical and general population, particularly in young people. A promising avenue to understand the mechanisms underlying PE is to investigate functions that may be related to specific neural systems. One of these key cognitive mechanisms is the ability to control our imitative responses, which is strongly linked to an adequate social functioning. Emergent evidence suggests that impairments in this function might be involved in the early expressions of psychosis, but few studies have investigated its association with PE in a sample from the general population. Using an imitation-inhibition paradigm we examined this relationship in a community sample of young healthy individuals (N=204) and found that increased levels of PE levels were associated with lower imitative inhibitory control. These effects seem to be specific to imitation-inhibition as no correlation was found for a more general cognitive control as addressed by a Stroop-like task. In addition, these effects seem to be more evident for paranoid ideations. Overall, our results suggest that imitative inhibitory control can serve as a proxy to detect abnormalities associated with psychotic experiences.
Biswas, M., & Brass, M. (2024). Syncing online: A methodological investigation into movement synchrony, proxemics, and self-other blurring in virtual spaces. In Plos one. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308843
@techreport{biswasSynchrony2024,
title = {Syncing online: A methodological investigation into movement synchrony, proxemics, and self-other blurring in virtual spaces},
author = {Biswas, Manisha and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = oct,
journal = {Plos one},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0308843},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0308843}
}
A growing body of literature has found that synchronising movements with a group subsequently increases self-other blurring and social closeness with synchronised partners. However, movement synchrony has not been studied in online settings. Our study has a primarily methodological focus to investigate whether synchronous movement leads to changes in self-other blurring and proxemics in an online, desktop-mediated environment. We conducted two experiments to manipulate synchrony with a group of virtual agents and investigate its impact on self-other blurring and comfort distance judgments. In Experiment 1, we compared synchronous movement to a no-movement condition; in Experiment 2, we introduced an unpredictable movement condition. In both experiments, we found that our manipulation of synchronous movement between participants and a virtual group of agents led to an increase in explicit self-other blurring compared to the no and unpredictable movement conditions; however, we did not find reliable effects on comfort distance judgments.
Shum, Y. H., Galang, C. M., & Brass, M. (2024). Using a Veto paradigm to investigate the decision models in explaining Libet-style experiments. In Consciousness and Cognition (Vol. 124, p. 103732). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2024.103732
@techreport{shumVetoLibet2024,
title = {Using a Veto paradigm to investigate the decision models in explaining Libet-style experiments},
author = {Shum, Yu Hei and Galang, Carl Michael and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = sep,
journal = {Consciousness and Cognition},
volume = {124},
pages = {103732},
doi = {10.1016/j.concog.2024.103732},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810024000990}
}
The question of whether free will exists or not has intrigued philosophers for centuries. About 40 years ago, cognitive neuroscientists such as Benjamin Libet have joined the discussion by demonstrating that an ERP component, the readiness potential (RP), precedes the reported time of decision to act by a few hundred milliseconds. Libet et al.argued that our brains unconsciously prepare the movement before we experience any conscious intention, which led some free will skeptics to argue that free will does not exist. While Libet’s interpretation of his findings initiated an intense philosophical debate, alternative interpretations have been put forward more recently. Integration to bound models of Libet-style experiments suggest that we accumulate information until an intention threshold is reached, which triggers our experience of intention and execution of voluntary behaviors. The RP, from this perspective reflects the decision process itself rather than the consequence of an unconscious decision. To determine if the ITB model better predicts behavioral patterns in Libet-style experiments, we added a whether-component to the classical Libet task and compared the behavioral measures in the Veto Libet task with the Classical Libet task. We hypothesized that the signal accumulation in the Veto Libet task would be less steep than in the Classical Libet task, resulting in longer wait times and earlier self-reported intentions to act. The result in general supported our hypotheses. In addition, these behavioral differences between the Classical Libet task and the Veto Libet task established valuable behavioral correlates for future investigations into the vetoing phenomenon. Finally, this study was also the first application of the Libet task in an online setting, and the behavioral parameters were highly comparable to the previous offline studies, further supporting the possibility of using the online platform to study arbitrary decision-making.
Galang, C. M., Cracco, E., & Brass, M. (2024). Anticipated imitation of multiple agents. In Cognition (Vol. 249, p. 105831). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105831
@techreport{galangAnticipatedImitation2024,
title = {Anticipated imitation of multiple agents},
author = {Galang, Carl Michael and Cracco, Emiel and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = aug,
journal = {Cognition},
volume = {249},
pages = {105831},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105831},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027724001173}
}
It is well-established that people tend to mimic one another’s actions, a crucial aspect of social interactions. Anticipating imitation has been shown to boost motor activation and reaction times for congruent actions. However, prior research predominantly focused on dyads, leaving gaps in our knowledge regarding group dynamics. This study addresses this gap, conducting three experiments using extensive online data. Participants engaged in anticipated imitation tasks with one versus three virtual agents. The results across all three experiments (n = 77; n = 239; n = 457) consistently support the existence of an anticipated imitation effect, with faster reaction times for congruent actions. Furthermore, the research unveils a social facilitation effect, with participants reacting more swiftly when anticipating three agents compared to one. However, we did not find the expected increase of the congruency effect with multiple agents; rather, the data indicates that anticipating multiple agents instead decreases this effect. These findings are discussed within the framework of ideomotor theory, offering insights into how they relate to recent research on the automatic imitation of multiple agents.
Chai, M., Holroyd, C. B., Brass, M., & Braem, S. (2024). Dynamic changes in task preparation in a multi-task environment: The task transformation paradigm. In Cognition (Vol. 247, p. 105784). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105784
@techreport{chaiDynamicChnages2024,
title = {Dynamic changes in task preparation in a multi-task environment: The task transformation paradigm},
author = {Chai, Mengqiao and Holroyd, Clay B and Brass, Marcel and Braem, Senne},
year = {2024},
month = jun,
journal = {Cognition},
volume = {247},
pages = {105784},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105784},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027724000702}
}
A key element of human flexible behavior concerns the ability to continuously predict and prepare for sudden changes in tasks or actions. Here, we tested whether people can dynamically modulate task preparation processes and decision-making strategies when the identity of a to-be-performed task becomes uncertain. To this end, we developed a new paradigm where participants need to prepare for one of nine tasks on each trial. Crucially, in some blocks, the task being prepared could suddenly shift to a different task after a longer cue-target interval, by changing either the stimulus category or categorization rule that defined the initial task. We found that participants were able to dynamically modulate task preparation in the face of this task uncertainty. A second experiment shows that these changes in behavior were not simply a function of decreasing task expectancy, but rather of increasing switch expectancy. Finally, in the third and fourth experiment, we demonstrate that these dynamic modulations can be applied in a compositional manner, depending on whether either only the stimulus category or categorization rule would be expected to change.
Palenciano, A. F., González-García, C., Houwer, J. D., Liefooghe, B., & Brass, M. (2024). Concurrent response and action effect representations across the somatomotor cortices during novel task preparation. In Cortex. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.003
@techreport{palencianoConcurrentResponse2024,
title = {Concurrent response and action effect representations across the somatomotor cortices during novel task preparation.},
author = {Palenciano, Ana F and González-García, Carlos and Houwer, Jan De and Liefooghe, Baptist and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = may,
journal = {Cortex},
doi = {10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.003},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945224001369}
}
Instructions allow us to fulfill novel and complex tasks on the first try. This skill has been linked to preparatory brain signals that encode upcoming demands in advance, facilitating novel performance. To deepen insight into these processes, we explored whether instructions pre-activated task-relevant motoric and perceptual neural states. Critically, we addressed whether these representations anticipated activity patterns guiding overt sensorimotor processing, which could reflect that internally simulating novel tasks facilitates the preparation. To do so, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging data while female and male participants encoded and implemented novel stimulus-response associations. Participants also completed localizer tasks designed to isolate the neural representations of the mappings-relevant motor responses, perceptual consequences, and stimulus categories. Using canonical template tracking, we identified whether and where these sensorimotor representations were pre-activated. We found that response-related templates were encoded in advance in regions linked with action control, entailing not only the instructed responses but also their somatosensory consequences. This result was particularly robust in primary motor and somatosensory cortices. While, following our predictions, we found a systematic decrease in the irrelevant stimulus templates’ representational strength compared to the relevant ones, this difference was due to below-zero estimates linked to the irrelevant category activity patterns. Overall, our findings reflect that instruction processing relies on the sensorimotor cortices to anticipate motoric and kinesthetic representations of prospective action plans, suggesting the engagement of motor imagery during novel task preparation. More generally, they stress that the somatomotor system could participate with higher-level frontoparietal regions during anticipatory task control.
Van der Biest, M., Verschooren, S., Verbruggen, F., & Brass, M. (2024). Perceptual judgements are resistant to the advisor’s perceived level of trustworthiness: a deep fake approach [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/3yx2r
@techreport{biestPerceptualJudgments2024,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Perceptual judgements are resistant to the advisor's perceived level of trustworthiness: a deep fake approach},
author = {Van der Biest, Mattias and Verschooren, Sam and Verbruggen, Frederick and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = may,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/3yx2r},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/ppr/ppr850771}
}
As we navigate our environment, we often make spontaneous judgments about others. Trustworthiness is a key characteristic that we judge instantly and then use when making decisions, especially when we are uncertain. While the effect of trustworthiness on social behaviour has been extensively investigated, it remains unclear how trustworthiness affects more ‘basic’ cognitive processes such as perceptual decision-making. The present study aims to fill this gap. In the first experiment (N = 100), we validated a new trustworthiness manipulation by using deep fake technology to create animated versions of perceptually trustworthy, untrustworthy, and neutral static computer-generated faces. In the second experiment (N = 199), the deep fake procedure was applied to a new set of trustworthy and untrustworthy faces that served as advisors during a perceptual decision-making task. Here participants had to indicate the direction of dots that were either moving coherently to the left or to the right (i.e., random dot motion task). Contrary to our predictions, participants did not follow the advice of the trustworthy advisors more often than the advice of the untrustworthy advisors. We did find that participants decided faster and were more confident when following the advice, but this was also not influenced by the trustworthiness of the advisors. We integrate our findings within theoretical frameworks of advice taking, domain specificity of facial trustworthiness, and task requirements.
Quesque, F., Apperly, I., Baillargeon, R., ..., & Brass, M. (2024). Defining key concepts for mental state attribution. In Communications Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00077-6
@techreport{craccoITopdownModulation2024,
title = {Defining key concepts for mental state attribution},
author = {Quesque, François and Apperly, Ian and Baillargeon, Renée and ... and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = apr,
journal = {Communications Psychology},
doi = {10.1038/s44271-024-00077-6},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00077-6}
}
The terminology used in discussions on mental state attribution is extensive and lacks consistency. In the current paper, experts from various disciplines collaborate to introduce a shared set of concepts and make recommendations regarding future use.
Cracco, E., Liepelt, R., Brass, M., & Genschow, O. (2024). Top-Down Modulation of Motor Priming by Belief About Animacy. In Experimental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169/a000605
@techreport{craccoITopdownModulation2025,
title = {Top-Down Modulation of Motor Priming by Belief About Animacy},
author = {Cracco, Emiel and Liepelt, Roman and Brass, Marcel and Genschow, Oliver},
year = {2024},
month = apr,
journal = {Experimental Psychology},
doi = {10.1027/1618-3169/a000605},
url = {https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1027/1618-3169/a000605}
}
Research has shown that people automatically imitate others and that this tendency is stronger when the other person is a human compared with a nonhuman agent. However, a controversial question is whether automatic imitation is also modulated by whether people believe the other person is a human. Although early research supported this hypothesis, not all studies reached the same conclusion and a recent meta-analysis found that there is currently neither evidence in favor nor against an influence of animacy beliefs on automatic imitation. One of the most prominent studies supporting such an influence is the study by Liepelt and Brass (2010), who found that automatic imitation was stronger when participants believed an ambiguous, gloved hand to be human, as opposed to wooden. In this registered report, we provide a high-powered replication of this study (N = 199). In contrast to Liepelt and Brass (2010), we did not find an effect of animacy beliefs on automatic imitation. However, we did find a correlation between automatic imitation and perceived self-other similarity. Together, these results suggest that the gloved hand procedure does not reliably influence automatic imitation, but interindividual differences in perceived similarity do.
Formica, S., Palenciano, A. F., Vermeylen, L., Myers, N. E., Brass, M., & González-García, C. (2024). Internal attention modulates the functional state of novel stimulus-response associations in working memory. In Cognition (Vol. 245, p. 105739). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105739
@techreport{formicaInternalAttention2024,
title = {Internal attention modulates the functional state of novel stimulus-response associations in working memory},
author = {Formica, Silvia and Palenciano, Ana F and Vermeylen, Luc and Myers, Nicholas E and Brass, Marcel and González-García, Carlos},
year = {2024},
month = apr,
journal = {Cognition},
volume = {245},
pages = {105739},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105739},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027724000258}
}
Information in working memory (WM) is crucial for guiding behavior. However, not all WM representations are equally relevant simultaneously. Current theoretical frameworks propose a functional dissociation between ‘latent’ and ‘active’ states, in which relevant representations are prioritized into an optimal (active) state to face current demands, while relevant information that is not immediately needed is maintained in a dormant (latent) state. In this context, task demands can induce rapid and flexible prioritization of information from latent to active state. Critically, these functional states have been primarily studied using simple visual memories, with attention selecting and prioritizing relevant representations to serve as templates to guide subsequent behavior. It remains unclear whether more complex WM representations, such as novel stimulus-response associations, can also be prioritized into different functional states depending on their task relevance, and if so how these different formats relate to each other. In the present study, we investigated whether novel WM-guided actions can be brought into different functional states depending on current task demands. Our results reveal that planned actions can be flexibly prioritized when needed and show how their functional state modulates their influence on ongoing behavior. Moreover, they suggest the representations of novel actions of different functional states are maintained in WM via a non-orthogonal coding scheme, thus are prone to interference.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., Pailhes, A., & Brass, M. (2024). Priming (dis) Belief in Free Will with Illusionism [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fqjhr
@techreport{pengPrimingFreewillbelief2024,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Priming (dis) Belief in Free Will with Illusionism},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Pailhes, Alice and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = mar,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/fqjhr },
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/ppr/ppr818463}
}
Previous research underscores the significance of free will belief in influencing a spectrum of socially relevant behaviors. To dissect the causal dynamics underpinning this belief, numerous paradigms have been devised. Yet, these interventions often yield marginal and nonspecific effects in free will belief. This study aims to pioneer a novel approach, employing illusionism-based approach, to manipulate free will belief and examine its downstream effects on social behaviors. In our initial exploration, we utilized an illusionist technique, transcending mere magic tricks, to cultivate or diminish free will belief among participants, aligning them with pro- or anti-free will stances, respectively. This intervention demonstrated a moderate, yet targeted, impact on the belief in free will, distinctively affecting it without spilling over to associated beliefs like determinism and dualism. A subsequent experiment sought to validate these effects and probe their potential influence on social bias, particularly the fundamental attribution error. Results echoed the manipulation’s consistent sway on free will belief, albeit without extending to influence the fundamental attribution error. Collectively, our findings illuminate the capacity of illusionism to finely tune free will belief, albeit revealing scant evidence for a direct conduit from such beliefs to social behavior patterns.
Held, L. K., Cracco, E., Bardi, L., Kiraga, M., Cristianelli, E., Brass, M., Abrahamse, E. L., & Braem, S. (2024). Associative Visuomotor Learning Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Induces Stimulus–Response Interference. In Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Vol. 36, pp. 522–533). https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02100
@techreport{heldIAssociateVisualmotor2024,
title = {Associative Visuomotor Learning Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Induces Stimulus–Response Interference},
author = {Held, Leslie K and Cracco, Emiel and Bardi, Lara and Kiraga, Maggie and Cristianelli, Elio and Brass, Marcel and Abrahamse, Elger L and Braem, Senne},
year = {2024},
month = mar,
journal = {Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience},
volume = {36},
pages = {522-533},
issn = {3},
doi = {10.1162/jocn_a_02100},
url = {https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article/36/3/522/118873/Associative-Visuomotor-Learning-Using-Transcranial}
}
Classical conditioning states that the systematic co-occurrence of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus can cause the neutral stimulus to, over time, evoke the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. On a neural level, Hebbian learning suggests that this type of learning occurs through changes in synaptic plasticity when two neurons are simultaneously active, resulting in increased connectivity between them. Inspired by associative learning theories, we here investigated whether the mere co-activation of visual stimuli and stimulation of the primary motor cortex using TMS would result in stimulus–response associations that can impact future behavior. During a learning phase, we repeatedly paired the presentation of a specific color (but not other colors) with a TMS pulse over the motor cortex. Next, participants performed a two-alternative forced-choice task where they had to categorize simple shapes and we studied whether the shapes’ task-irrelevant color (and its potentially associated involuntary motor activity) affected the required motor response. Participants showed more errors on incongruent trials for stimuli that were previously paired with high intensity TMS pulses, but only when tested on the same day. Using a drift diffusion model for conflict tasks, we further demonstrate that this interference occurred early, and gradually increased as a function of associated TMS intensity. Taken together, our findings show that the human brain can learn stimulus–response associations using externally induced motor cortex stimulation. Although we were inspired by the Hebbian learning literature, future studies should investigate whether Hebbian or other learning processes were also what brought about this effect.
Van der Biest, M., Pedinoff, R., Frederick, V., Brass, M., & Kuhlen, A. K. (2024). Instructing somebody else to act: motor co-representations in the instructor. In Royal Society Open Science (Vol. 11, p. 230839). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230839
@techreport{biestInstructingCorepresentation2024,
title = {Instructing somebody else to act: motor co-representations in the instructor},
author = {Van der Biest, Mathias and Pedinoff, Rebecca and Frederick, Verbruggen and Brass, Marcel and Kuhlen, Anna K},
year = {2024},
month = jan,
journal = {Royal Society Open Science},
volume = {11},
pages = {230839},
issn = {1},
doi = {10.1098/rsos.230839},
url = {https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.230839}
}
Instructions enable humans to perform novel tasks quickly. This is achieved by creating and activating the instruction representation for upcoming tasks, which can then modulate ongoing task behaviour in an almost ‘reflexive’ manner, an effect called instruction-based reflexivity. While most research has focused on understanding how verbal instructions are represented within the ‘instructed’ (i.e. the person receiving instructions), here we focus on how the instructor’s (i.e. the person giving instructions) behaviour is affected through instructing. In a series of three experiments and one pooled analysis, we extended the classical instruction-based reflexivity paradigm to a novel social variant in which the instructions are given by an instructor (rather than visual computer-generated instructions). We found an instruction-based reflexivity effect for the instructor, that is, the instructor’s task performance was better on congruent compared to incongruent trials (i.e. Experiments 1 and 2, pooled analysis). This suggests that the instructor represents the instructions of the instructed in an action-oriented format. However, this did not depend on the specific task of the instructed (i.e. Experiment 1), nor is it exclusively social (i.e. Experiment 3).
Formica, S., & Brass, M. (2024). Coordinated social interactions are supported by integrated neural representations [Preprint]. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.16.575885
@techreport{formicaCoordinatedSocial2024,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Coordinated social interactions are supported by integrated neural representations},
author = {Formica, Silvia and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2024},
month = jan,
institution = {{bioRxiv}},
doi = {10.1101/2024.01.16.575885},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.16.575885v1.abstract}
}
Joint actions are defined as coordinated interactions of two or more agents towards a shared goal, often requiring different and complementary individual contributions. However, how humans can successfully act together without the interfering effects of observing incongruent movements is still largely unknown. It has been proposed that interpersonal predictive processes are at play to allow the formation of a Dyadic Motor Plan, encompassing both agents’ shares. Yet, direct empirical support for such an integrated motor plan is still limited. In this study, we aimed at testing the properties of these anticipated representations. We collected EEG data while human participants (N = 36; 27 females) drew shapes simultaneously to a virtual partner, in two social contexts: either they had to synchronize and act jointly, or they performed the movements alongside, but independently. We adopted a multivariate approach to show that the social context influenced how the upcoming action of the partner is anticipated during the interval preceding the movement. We found evidence that acting jointly induces an encoding of the partner’s action that is strongly intertwined with the participant’s action, supporting the hypothesis of an integrative motor plan in joint but not in parallel actions.
2023
Amodeo, L., Nijhof, A. D., Brass, M., & Wiersema, J. R. (2023). The relevance of familiarity in the context of self-related information processing. In Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (Vol. 76, pp. 2823–2836). https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218231154884
@techreport{amodeoFamilitySelf2023,
title = {The relevance of familiarity in the context of self-related information processing},
author = {Amodeo, Letizia and Nijhof, Annabel D and Brass, Marcel and Wiersema, Jan R},
year = {2023},
month = dec,
journal = {Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology},
volume = {76},
pages = {2823-2836},
issn = {12},
doi = {10.1177/17470218231154884},
url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17470218231154884}
}
Humans are inclined to preferentially process self-related content, referred to as the “self-bias.” Different paradigms have been used to study this effect. However, not all paradigms included a familiar other condition (but rather an unfamiliar other condition), needed to differentiate self-specific effects from the impact of familiarity. The primary goal of our study was to test the suitability for studying the self-bias of two paradigms that provide robust measures of salience effects—that is, the Repetition Blindness (RB) effect and the Emotional Stroop (ES) interference—while addressing the familiarity confound. We further explored whether self-bias effects were related to autism symptomatology, as a reduced self-bias in autism has been reported in previous research. In an online procedure, 82 adults performed an RB task and an ES task in a counterbalanced order, while being presented with both self- and familiar other-related stimuli. Results of both frequentist and Bayesian analyses did not provide evidence in favour of a specific self-bias on either task: we found no significant modulation of the RB effect, nor of the ES interference, for the own versus a close other’s name. Moreover, no link with autism symptomatology was found. Tackling a crucial shortcoming from earlier studies, our investigation raises awareness on the importance of accounting for familiarity when investigating self-related processing.
Cracco, E., Genschow, O., & Brass, M. (2023). Covert and overt automatic imitation are correlated. In Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (pp. 1–5). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02420-0
@techreport{craccoCovertOvert2023,
title = {Covert and overt automatic imitation are correlated},
author = {Cracco, Emiel and Genschow, Oliver and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = nov,
journal = {Psychonomic Bulletin & Review},
pages = {1-5},
doi = {10.3758/s13423-023-02420-0},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-023-02420-0}
}
Most theoretical accounts of imitation assume that covert and overt measures of automatic imitation tap into the same underlying construct. Despite this widespread assumption, it is not well supported by empirical evidence. In fact, the only study investigating the relation between covert and overt automatic imitation failed to find a correlation between them (Genschow et al., 2017). However, because overt and covert imitation were measured using two very different tasks, and because the measure of overt imitation was found to be unreliable, it is still not clear whether a correlation between both measures exists. Here, we address this question by reanalyzing the results of a previous virtual reality study in which automatic imitation was indexed with an overt and covert measure of gaze following, both obtained within one and the same task (Cracco et al., 2022). The results show that, in this situation, both types of imitation do correlate. As such, our results provide support for the idea that overt and covert measures of automatic imitation measure the same underlying construct.
Shum, H., Yu, Galang, M., Carl, & Brass, M. (2023). Using a Veto Paradigm to Investigate the Decision Model of Libet-style Experiments [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/wsn4j
@techreport{shumVetoLibet2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Using a Veto Paradigm to Investigate the Decision Model of Libet-style Experiments},
author = {Shum, Yu, Hei and Galang, Carl, Michael and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = nov,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/wsn4j},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/wsn4j/}
}
Decades ago, cognitive neuroscientists revealed the readiness potential (RP) preceding conscious decisions. Libet and colleagues argued that the RP reflected the unconscious movement preparation before our conscious intention, and thus negates the conscious free will. Recent alternative interpretation, the Integration-to-Bound Model (ITB), suggests that we accumulate information until reaching a decision threshold , triggering our conscious intention and voluntary action. Under this perspective, the RP reflects the decision process itself, but not an unconscious decision. To test the ITB against the classical Libet interpretation, the behavioral measures in the Veto Libet task were compared with the Classical Libet task. Based on the ITB, the signal accumulation in the Veto Libet task would be less steep, resulting in longer wait times and later onset of intention. The results favored the ITB model over the classical Libet interpretation. Additionally, this study marked the first online application of the Libet task, supporting the feasibility of studying arbitrary decision-making online.
Galang, M., Carl, Cracco, E., & Brass, M. (2023). Anticipated imitation of multiple agents [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/f7kr4
@techreport{galangAnticipatedImitation2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Anticipated imitation of multiple agents},
author = {Galang, Carl, Michael and Cracco, Emiel and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = oct,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/f7kr4},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/f7kr4/}
}
It is well-established that people tend to mimic one another’s actions, a crucial aspect of social interactions. Anticipating imitation has been shown to boost motor activation and reaction times for congruent actions. However, prior research predominantly focused on dyads, leaving gaps in our knowledge regarding group dynamics. This study addresses this gap, conducting three experiments using extensive online data collected from April to October, 2022. Participants engaged in anticipated imitation tasks with one versus three virtual agents. The results across all three experiments (n = 77; n = 239; n = 457) consistently support the existence of an anticipated imitation effect, with faster reaction times for congruent actions. Furthermore, the research unveils a social facilitation effect, with participants reacting more swiftly when anticipating three agents compared to one. However, we did not find the expected increase of the congruency effect with multiple agents; rather, the data indicates that anticipating multiple agents instead decreases this effect. These findings are discussed within the framework of ideomotor theory, offering insights into how they relate to recent research on the automatic imitation of multiple agents.
Chai, M., Holroyd, C., Brass, M., & Braem, S. (2023). Dynamic changes in task preparation in a multi-task environment: The task transformation paradigm [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7cweu
@techreport{chaiDynamicTaskPreparationMultiTask2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Dynamic changes in task preparation in a multi-task environment: The task transformation paradigm},
author = {Chai, Mengqiao and Holroyd, Clay and Brass, Marcel and Braem, Senne},
year = {2023},
month = sep,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/7cweu},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/7cweu/}
}
A key element of human flexible behavior concerns the ability to continuously predict and prepare for sudden changes in tasks or actions. Here, we tested whether people can dynamically modulate task preparation processes and decision-making strategies when the identity of a to-be-performed task becomes uncertain. To this end, we developed a new paradigm where participants need to prepare for one of nine tasks on each trial. Crucially, in some blocks, the task being prepared could suddenly shift to a different task after a longer cue-target interval, by changing either the stimulus category or categorization rule that defined the initial task. We found that participants were able to dynamically modulate task preparation in the face of this task uncertainty. A second experiment shows that these changes in behavior were not simply a function of decreasing task expectancy, but rather of increasing switch expectancy. Finally, in the third and fourth experiment, we demonstrate that these dynamic modulations can be applied in a compositional manner, depending on whether either only the stimulus category or categorization rule would be expected to switch.
Wisniewski, D., Braem, S., González-García, C., Houwer, J. D., & Brass, M. (2023). Effects of Experiencing CS–US Pairings on Instructed Fear Reversal. In Journal of Neuroscience (Vol. 43, pp. 5546–5558). https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0665-22.2023
@techreport{wisniewskiCSUSPairingFear2023,
title = {Effects of Experiencing CS–US Pairings on Instructed Fear Reversal},
author = {Wisniewski, David and Braem, Senne and González-García, Carlos and Houwer, Jan De and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = jul,
journal = {Journal of Neuroscience},
volume = {43},
pages = {5546-5558},
issn = {30},
doi = {doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0665-22.2023},
url = {https://www.jneurosci.org/content/43/30/5546.abstract}
}
Fear learning allows us to identify and anticipate aversive events and adapt our behavior accordingly. This is often thought to rely on associative learning mechanisms where an initially neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) is repeatedly paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US), eventually leading to the CS also being perceived as aversive and threatening. Importantly, however, humans also show verbal fear learning. Namely, they have the ability to change their responses to stimuli rapidly through verbal instructions about CS–US pairings. Past research on the link between experience-based and verbal fear learning indicated that verbal instructions about a reversal of CS–US pairings can fully override the effects of previously experienced CS–US pairings, as measured through fear ratings, skin conductance, and fear-potentiated startle. However, it remains an open question whether such instructions can also annul learned CS representations in the brain. Here, we used a fear reversal paradigm (female and male participants) in conjunction with representational similarity analysis of fMRI data to test whether verbal instructions fully override the effects of experienced CS–US pairings in fear-related brain regions or not. Previous research suggests that only the right amygdala should show lingering representations of previously experienced threat (“pavlovian trace”). Unexpectedly, we found evidence for the residual effect of prior CS–US experience to be much more widespread than anticipated, in the amygdala but also cortical regions like the dorsal anterior cingulate or dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This finding shines a new light on the interaction of different fear learning mechanisms, at times with unexpected consequences.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., & Brass, M. (2023). Believing is seeing: Belief in dualism is related with illusory pattern detection. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000365
@article{pengDualismBeliefIllusoryPatternDetection2023,
title = {Believing is seeing: Belief in dualism is related with illusory pattern detection},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = jul,
journal = {Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice},
doi = {10.1037/cns0000365},
url = {https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-90637-001?doi=1},
langid = {english}
}
A recent study suggested that belief in dualism (DU) is related to basic social cognitive processes, such as detecting biological motion in noisy displays. However, dualistic beliefs are strongly related to paranormal beliefs, which are also correlated with biological motion perception. The question thus arises whether the previously found relationship between belief in DU and biological motion perception can be explained by paranormal beliefs and whether this relationship is unique to biological motion or reflects a more general tendency to see patterns in noise. We used signal detection theory to measure participants’ ability to discriminate biological motion (Experiments 1 and 3) and random dot motion (Experiment 2) from scrambled background noise. Furthermore, the Free Will Inventory was used to measure the strength of three free will (FW)-related beliefs: belief in FW, belief in determinism (DE), and belief in DU. The Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS) was used to measure the strength of paranormal beliefs. Across the three experiments (N = 1,028), the results revealed that belief in DU correlated negatively with perceptual sensitivity and correlated positively with false alarm rate in both the biological motion and the random dot motion task. In addition, paranormal belief was found to explain the relationship between belief in DU and biological motion perception. The findings of this study suggest that correlations between belief in DU and biological motion perception are best explained in terms of a more general relationship between belief in DU and (illusory) pattern recognition.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., Xu, H., & Brass, M. (2023). Can you see the wolf chasing the sheep? The relationship between free will related beliefs and intention perception [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mg4zt
@techreport{pengFreeWillRelatedBeliefIntentionPerception2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Can you see the wolf chasing the sheep? The relationship between free will related beliefs and intention perception},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Xu, Haokui and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = jul,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/mg4zt},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/mg4zt/}
}
Previous research suggests that belief in free will is related to intention perception, one of the most fundamental processes in social perception and social cognition. However, this research has not been able to distinguish between differences in sensitivity and response bias. Here, we used a chasing detection task that allowed us to investigate whether individuals who believe more in free will are better at detecting intentionality cues (sensitivity) or are instead more prone to see such cues even when they are not there (bias). In addition, we measured three beliefs related to free will: belief in free will, belief in dualism, and belief in determinism. The results showed that belief in determinism was correlated negatively with perceptual sensitivity and positively with response bias. Follow-up analyses further indicated that the negative relationship with sensitivity was entirely explained by the positive relationship with response bias. In contrast, no correlations were observed for belief in free will or belief in dualism. This indicates that beliefs related to free will, but not belief in free will itself, are associated with an increased tendency to perceive intentional behavior, even when there is none.
Wisniewski, D., González-García, C., Formica, S., Woolgar, A., & Brass, M. (2023). Adaptive coding of stimulus information in human frontoparietal cortex during visual classification. NeuroImage, 274, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120150
@article{AdaptiveCodingVisualClassification2023,
title = {Adaptive coding of stimulus information in human frontoparietal cortex during visual classification},
author = {Wisniewski, David and González-García, Carlos and Formica, Silvia and Woolgar, Alexandra and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = jul,
journal = {NeuroImage},
volume = {274},
pages = {1-10},
issn = {120150},
doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120150},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811923003014},
langid = {english}
}
The neural mechanisms of how frontal and parietal brain regions support flexible adaptation of behavior remain poorly understood. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and representational similarity analysis (RSA) to investigate frontoparietal representations of stimulus information during visual classification under varying task demands. Based on prior research, we predicted that increasing perceptual task difficulty should lead to adaptive changes in stimulus coding: task-relevant category information should be stronger, while task-irrelevant exemplar-level stimulus information should become weaker, reflecting a focus on the behaviorally relevant category information. Counter to our expectations, however, we found no evidence for adaptive changes in category coding. We did find weakened coding at the exemplar-level within categories however, demonstrating that task-irrelevant information is de-emphasized in frontoparietal cortex. These findings reveal adaptive coding of stimulus information at the exemplar-level, highlighting how frontoparietal regions might support behavior even under challenging conditions.
Formica, S., Palenciano, A. F., Vermeylen, L., Myers, N. E., Brass, M., & González-García, C. (2023). Internal attention modulates the functional state of novel stimulus-response associations in working memory [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/87djt
@techreport{formicaInternalAttentionWorkingMemory2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Internal attention modulates the functional state of novel stimulus-response associations in working memory},
author = {Formica, Silvia and Palenciano, Ana F and Vermeylen, Luc and Myers, Nicholas E and Brass, Marcel and González-García, Carlos},
year = {2023},
month = jun,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/87djt},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/87djt/}
}
Information in working memory (WM) is crucial for guiding behavior. However, not all WM representations are equally relevant simultaneously. Current theoretical frameworks propose a functional dissociation between ‘latent’ and ‘active’ states, in which relevant representations are prioritized into an optimal (active) state to face current demands, while relevant information that is not immediately needed is maintained in a dormant (latent) state. In this context, task demands can induce rapid and flexible prioritization of information from latent to active state. Critically, these functional states have been primarily studied using simple visual memories, with attention selecting and prioritizing relevant representations to serve as templates to guide subsequent behavior. It remains unclear whether more complex WM representations, such as novel stimulus-response associations, can also be prioritized into different functional states depending on their task relevance, and if so how these different formats relate to each other. In the present study, we investigated whether novel WM-guided actions can be brought into different functional states depending on current task demands. Our results reveal that planned actions can be flexibly prioritized when needed and show how their functional state modulates their influence on ongoing behavior. Moreover, they suggest the representations of novel actions of different functional states are maintained in WM via a non-orthogonal coding scheme, thus are prone to interference.
Verschooren, S., Gaebler, M., & Brass, M. (2023). From interoception to control over the internal body: The ideomotor hypothesis of voluntary interoaction [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qmeyh
@techreport{verschoorenInteroceptionIdeomotorHypothesis2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {From interoception to control over the internal body: The ideomotor hypothesis of voluntary interoaction},
author = {Verschooren, Sam and Gaebler, Michael and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = jun,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/qmeyh},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qmeyh/}
}
When it comes to body movements in space, we are experts in learning fine-grained voluntary control, for example when manipulating tiny objects. Voluntarily controlling actions in the internal body (e.g., decreasing heart rate), however, is something only a few experts achieve after extensive training, as for example in yoga and meditation. Not much is currently known about the learning mechanism underlying the acquisition of voluntary control over visceromotor functions (i.e. interoaction) or why it is so difficult compared to controlling our somatomotor functions (i.e. exteroaction). To address this question, we put forward the ideomotor hypothesis of voluntary interoaction, which asserts that voluntary extero- and interoactions are governed by the same general principle, namely the anticipation of sensory feedback. We apply this hypothesis to two techniques that can used to acquire voluntary control over interoactions, i.e., autogenic training and biofeedback training. Our hypothesis explains why learning to control interoactions is more difficult, as the afferent signal we receive (i.e., interoceptive signals from the internal body) is of lower sensory quality than the afferent signal we receive from exteroaction (i.e., exteroceptive signals from the environment). We support this claim by discussing the nature of interoception and propose ways in which to test predictions from this hypothesis. We show the theoretical value of our hypothesis by comparing its explanatory power with other frameworks in the literature and examine ways in which our work can guide future work on the optimization of voluntary control learning over interoactions, which has several clinical applications.
Cracco, E., Genschow, O., & Brass, M. (2023). Covert and overt automatic imitation are correlated [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2fyb4
@techreport{craccoCovertOvertAutoImitation2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Covert and overt automatic imitation are correlated},
author = {Cracco, Emiel and Genschow, Oliver and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = apr,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/2fyb4},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/2fyb4/}
}
Most theoretical accounts of imitation assume that covert and overt measures of automatic imitation tap into the same underlying construct. Despite this widespread assumption, it is not well-supported by empirical evidence. In fact, the only study investigating the relation between covert and overt automatic imitation failed to find a correlation between them (Genschow et al., 2017). However, because overt and covert imitation were measured using two very different tasks, and because the measure of overt imitation was found to be unreliable, it is still not clear whether a correlation between both measures exists. Here, we address this question by reanalyzing the results of a previous virtual reality study in which automatic imitation was indexed with an overt and covert measure of gaze following, both obtained within one and the same task (Cracco et al., 2022). The results show that, in this situation, both types of imitation do correlate. As such, our results provide support for the idea that overt and covert measures of automatic imitation measure the same underlying construct.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., Troje, N. F., & Brass, M. (2023). Does belief in free will influence biological motion perception? Psychological Research, 87, 751–767. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9
@article{pengFreeWillBeliefBiologicalMotion2023,
title = {Does belief in free will influence biological motion perception?},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Troje, Nikolaus F and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = jul,
journal = {Psychological Research},
volume = {87},
pages = {751-767},
doi = {10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9},
langid = {english}
}
Previous research suggests that belief in free will correlates with intentionality attribution. However, whether belief in free will is also related to more basic social processes is unknown. Based on evidence that biological motion contains intentionality cues that observers spontaneously extract, we investigate whether people who believe more in free will, or in related constructs, such as dualism and determinism, would be better at picking up such cues and therefore at detecting biological agents hidden in noise, or would be more inclined to detect intentionality cues and therefore to detect biological agents even when there are none. Signal detection theory was used to measure participants’ ability to detect biological motion from scrambled background noise (d′) and their response bias (c) in doing so. In two experiments, we found that belief in determinism and belief in dualism, but not belief in free will, were associated with biological motion perception. However, no causal effect was found when experimentally manipulating free will-related beliefs. In sum, our results show that biological motion perception, a low-level social process, is related to high-level beliefs about dualism and determinism.
Oomen, D., Cracco, E., Brass, M., & Wiersema, J. R. (2023). EEG frequency tagging evidence of intact social interaction recognition in adults with autism. Autism Research, 1111–1123. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2929
@article{oomanEEGFreqTagAutism,
title = {EEG frequency tagging evidence of intact social interaction recognition in adults with autism},
author = {Oomen, Danna and Cracco, Emiel and Brass, Marcel and Wiersema, Jan R},
year = {2023},
month = apr,
journal = {Autism Research},
pages = {1111-1123},
doi = {10.1002/aur.2929},
url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/aur.2929},
langid = {english}
}
To explain the social difficulties in autism, many studies have been conducted on social stimuli processing. However, this research has mostly used basic social stimuli (e.g., eyes, faces, hands, single agent), not resembling the complexity of what we encounter in our daily social lives and what people with autism experience difficulties with. Third-party social interactions are complex stimuli that we come across often and are also highly relevant for social functioning. Interestingly, the existing behavioral studies point to altered social interaction processing in autism. However, it is not clear whether this is due to altered recognition or altered interpretation of social interactions. Here, we specifically investigated the recognition of social interaction in adults with and without autism. More precisely, we measured neural responses to social scenes depicting either social interaction or not with an electroencephalogram frequency tagging task and compared these responses between adults with and without autism (N = 61). The results revealed an enhanced response to social scenes with interaction, replicating previous findings in a neurotypical sample. Crucially, this effect was found in both groups, with no difference between them. This suggests that social interaction recognition is not atypical in adults with autism. Taken together with the previous behavioral evidence, our study thus suggests that individuals with autism are able to recognize social interactions, but that they might not extract the same information from those interactions or that they might use the extracted information differently.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., Troje, N. F., & Brass, M. (2023). Does belief in free will influence biological motion perception? Psychological Research, 87, 751–767. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9
@article{pengFreeWillBeliefBiologicalMotion2024,
title = {Does belief in free will influence biological motion perception?},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Troje, Nikolaus F and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = jul,
journal = {Psychological Research},
volume = {87},
pages = {751-767},
doi = {10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9},
langid = {english}
}
Previous research suggests that belief in free will correlates with intentionality attribution. However, whether belief in free will is also related to more basic social processes is unknown. Based on evidence that biological motion contains intentionality cues that observers spontaneously extract, we investigate whether people who believe more in free will, or in related constructs, such as dualism and determinism, would be better at picking up such cues and therefore at detecting biological agents hidden in noise, or would be more inclined to detect intentionality cues and therefore to detect biological agents even when there are none. Signal detection theory was used to measure participants’ ability to detect biological motion from scrambled background noise (d′) and their response bias (c) in doing so. In two experiments, we found that belief in determinism and belief in dualism, but not belief in free will, were associated with biological motion perception. However, no causal effect was found when experimentally manipulating free will-related beliefs. In sum, our results show that biological motion perception, a low-level social process, is related to high-level beliefs about dualism and determinism.
Tavernier, N., Wisniewski, D., & Brass, M. (2023). Manipulating free will beliefs using online video games. Psychological Research, 87, 2283–2296. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-023-01815-x
@article{tavernierFreeWillBeliefOnlineVideoGames2023,
title = {Manipulating free will beliefs using online video games},
author = {Tavernier, Nel and Wisniewski, David and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = mar,
journal = {Psychological Research},
volume = {87},
pages = {2283-2296},
doi = {10.1007/s00426-023-01815-x},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-023-01815-x},
langid = {english}
}
Research in social psychology and experimental philosophy has investigated lay people’s free will beliefs (FWB). Using different approaches (i.e. experimental manipulations and vignette studies), they investigated how FWB relate to other concepts, and whether changing FWB has an impact on downstream processes such as social behavior. However, both approaches have shortcomings. While experimental manipulations used in social psychology suffer from demand effects, vignettes used in experimental philosophy are often highly abstract. Across two pre-registered studies, we developed a new approach by merging them in an online video game setting. Using this novel, experience-based FWB manipulation, we found that decreasing FWB impacted variables such as perceived control and responsibility in both studies. While the experience-based manipulation influenced participants’ beliefs in free will within the context of the experience (“Within the context of the scenario, would the agent believe in free will?”) in the first study, this manipulation effect did not transfer to participants’ general FWB (“Do you believe in free will?”) in the second study. Overall, our findings suggest a way forward in studying laypeople’s beliefs in free will.
Amodeo, L., Nijhof, A. D., Brass, M., & Wiersema, J. R. (2023). The relevance of familiarity in the context of self-related information processing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76, 2823–2836. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218231154884
@article{amodeoFamiliaritySelfrelatedInfoProcess2023,
title = {The relevance of familiarity in the context of self-related information processing},
author = {Amodeo, Letizia and Nijhof, Annabel D and Brass, Marcel and Wiersema, Jan R},
year = {2023},
month = jan,
journal = {Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology},
volume = {76},
pages = {2823-2836},
issn = {12},
doi = {10.1177/17470218231154884},
url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17470218231154884},
langid = {english}
}
Humans are inclined to preferentially process self-related content, referred to as the “self-bias.” Different paradigms have been used to study this effect. However, not all paradigms included a familiar other condition (but rather an unfamiliar other condition), needed to differentiate self-specific effects from the impact of familiarity. The primary goal of our study was to test the suitability for studying the self-bias of two paradigms that provide robust measures of salience effects—that is, the Repetition Blindness (RB) effect and the Emotional Stroop (ES) interference—while addressing the familiarity confound. We further explored whether self-bias effects were related to autism symptomatology, as a reduced self-bias in autism has been reported in previous research. In an online procedure, 82 adults performed an RB task and an ES task in a counterbalanced order, while being presented with both self- and familiar other-related stimuli. Results of both frequentist and Bayesian analyses did not provide evidence in favour of a specific self-bias on either task: we found no significant modulation of the RB effect, nor of the ES interference, for the own versus a close other’s name. Moreover, no link with autism symptomatology was found. Tackling a crucial shortcoming from earlier studies, our investigation raises awareness on the importance of accounting for familiarity when investigating self-related processing.
Genschow, O., Cracco, E., Schneider, J., Protzko, J., Wisniewski, D., Brass, M., & Schooler, J. W. (2023). Manipulating belief in free will and its downstream consequences: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 27, 52–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683221087527
@article{genschowFreeWillBeliefConseq2023,
title = {Manipulating belief in free will and its downstream consequences: A meta-analysis},
author = {Genschow, Oliver and Cracco, Emiel and Schneider, Jana and Protzko, John and Wisniewski, David and Brass, Marcel and Schooler, Jonathan W},
year = {2023},
month = feb,
journal = {Personality and Social Psychology Review},
volume = {27},
pages = {52-82},
issn = {1},
doi = {10.1177/10888683221087527},
url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10888683221087527},
langid = {english}
}
Ever since some scientists and popular media put forward the idea that free will is an illusion, the question has risen what would happen if people stopped believing in free will. Psychological research has investigated this question by testing the consequences of experimentally weakening people’s free will beliefs. The results of these investigations have been mixed, with successful experiments and unsuccessful replications. This raises two fundamental questions: Can free will beliefs be manipulated, and do such manipulations have downstream consequences? In a meta-analysis including 145 experiments (95 unpublished), we show that exposing individuals to anti–free will manipulations decreases belief in free will and increases belief in determinism. However, we could not find evidence for downstream consequences. Our findings have important theoretical implications for research on free will beliefs and contribute to the discussion of whether reducing people’s belief in free will has societal consequences.
Palenciano, A. F., González-García, C., Houwer, J. D., Liefooghe, B., & Brass, M. (2023). Concurrent response and action effect representations across the somatomotor cortices during novel task preparation [Preprint]. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.30.564708
@techreport{palencianoNovelTaskPrep2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Concurrent response and action effect representations across the somatomotor cortices during novel task preparation},
author = {Palenciano, Ana F and González-García, Carlos and Houwer, Jan De and Liefooghe, Baptist and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = oct,
institution = {{bioRxiv}},
doi = {10.1101/2023.10.30.564708},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.30.564708v1.abstract}
}
Instructions allow us to fulfill novel and complex tasks on the first try. This skill has been linked to preparatory brain signals that encode upcoming demands in advance, facilitating novel performance. To deepen insight into these processes, we aimed to explore whether instructions pre-activated task-relevant motoric and perceptual neural states. Critically, we addressed whether these representations anticipated activity patterns guiding overt sensorimotor processing, which could reflect that internally simulating the novel task facilitates the preparation. To do so, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging data while participants encoded and implemented novel stimulus-response associations. Participants also completed localizer tasks designed to isolate the neural representations of the mappings-relevant motor responses, perceptual consequences, and stimulus categories. Using canonical template tracking, we identified whether and where these sensorimotor representations were pre-activated. We found that response-related templates were encoded in advance in regions linked with action control, entailing not only the instructed responses but also their action effects. This result was particularly robust in primary motor and somatosensory cortices. While, following our predictions, we found a systematic decrease in the irrelevant stimulus templates’ representational strength compared to the relevant ones, this difference was due to below-zero estimates linked to the irrelevant category activity patterns. Overall, our findings reflect that instruction processing relies on the sensorimotor cortices to anticipate motoric and kinesthetic representations of prospective action plans, suggesting the engagement of motor imagery during novel task preparation. More generally, they stress that the somatomotor system could participate with higher-level frontoparietal regions during anticipatory task control.
Held, L., Cracco, E., Bardi, L., Kiraga, M., Cristianelli, E., Brass, M., Abrahamse, E. L., & Braem, S. (2023). Hebbian learning of stimulus-response associations using transcranial magnetic stimulation [Preprint]. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.07.547977
@techreport{heldHebbianLearning2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Hebbian learning of stimulus-response associations using transcranial magnetic stimulation},
author = {Held, Leslie and Cracco, Emiel and Bardi, Lara and Kiraga, Maggie and Cristianelli, Elio and Brass, Marcel and Abrahamse, Elger L. and Braem, Senne},
year = {2023},
month = jul,
institution = {{bioRxiv}},
doi = {10.1101/2023.07.07.547977},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.07.547977v1.abstract}
}
Classical conditioning states that the systematic co-occurrence of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus can cause the neutral stimulus to, over time, evoke the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. On a neural level, Hebbian learning suggests that this type of learning occurs through changes in synaptic plasticity when two neurons are simultaneously active, resulting in increased connectivity between them. Inspired by learning theories, we here investigated whether the mere co-activation of visual stimuli and stimulation of the primary motor cortex using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) would result in stimulus-response associations that can impact future behaviour. During a learning phase, we repeatedly paired the presentation of a specific colour (but not other colours) with a TMS pulse over the motor cortex. Next, participants performed a two-alternative forced choice task where they had to categorize simple shapes and we studied whether the shapes’ task-irrelevant colour (and its potentially associated involuntary motor activity) affected the required motor response. Participants showed more errors on incongruent trials for stimuli that were previously paired with high intensity TMS pulses, but only when tested on the same day. Using a drift diffusion model for conflict tasks, we further demonstrate that this interference occurred early, and gradually increased as a function of associated TMS intensity. Taken together, our findings show that the human brain can learn stimulus-response associations using externally induced motor cortex stimulation.
Havlíček, O., Brass, M., Cleeremans, A., & Wykowska, A. (2023). Decoding decision processes to improve metacognition about actions [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jvpcs
@techreport{havlicekDecodingDecisionProcesses2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Decoding decision processes to improve metacognition about actions},
author = {Havlíček, Ondřej and Brass, Marcel and Cleeremans, Axel and Wykowska, Agnieszka},
year = {2023},
month = jan,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/jvpcs},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/jvpcs/}
}
People have been famously found to exhibit relatively poor access to higher-order cognitive processes, such as the determinants of own actions, demonstrated e.g. by choice blindness, where people confabulate reasons leading to their choices. It has been hypothesized, but not directly tested, that such metacognitive errors are partially caused by a lack of adequate feedback about the cognitive processes. In the present study, participants were often mistaken about whether their action was automatic or based on intentional deliberation. Uniquely, we were able to probabilistically determine this fact on a trial-by-trial basis and provide feedback to participants. Participants undergoing such feedback-based training improved their metacognitive sensitivity significantly more than control participants. We discuss possible interpretations of this improvement. Moreover, participants generally exhibited rather good meta-metacognition: awareness of their metacognitive sensitivity. We were able to quantify metacognitive sensitivity by comparing the reported and decoded cognitive processes leading to actions within the framework of “type 1” fuzzy signal detection theory. Although the results do not unequivocally support the hypothesis we set out to explore, its unique methodology can pave the way for further research: We extend the study of metacognition beyond the domains of perception and memory to the domain of action and beyond using the performance-confidence relation as a measure of metacognition.
Wisniewski, D., Rigoni, D., Vermeylen, L., Braem, S., Abrahamse, E., & Brass, M. (2023). The impact of free will beliefs on implicit learning. Consciousness and Cognition, 107, 103448. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2022.103448
@article{wisniewskiFreeWillBeliefImplicitLearning2023,
title = {The impact of free will beliefs on implicit learning},
author = {Wisniewski, David and Rigoni, Davide and Vermeylen, Luc and Braem, Senne and Abrahamse, Elger and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2023},
month = jan,
journal = {Consciousness and Cognition},
volume = {107},
pages = {103448},
doi = {10.1016/j.concog.2022.103448},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810022001805},
langid = {english}
}
A growing number of studies demonstrate that belief in free will (FWB) is dynamic, and can be reduced experimentally. Most of these studies assume that doing so has beneficial effects on behavior, as FWBs are thought to subdue unwanted automatic processes (e.g. racial stereotypes). However, relying on automatic processes can sometimes be advantageous, for instance during implicit learning (e.g. detecting and exploiting statistical regularities in the environment). In this registered report, we tested whether experimentally reducing FWBs positively affected implicit motor learning. We hypothesized that reducing FWBs would lead to both faster and stronger implicit learning, as measured using the alternating serial reaction time (ASRT) task. While we did show a manipulation effect on free will beliefs, there was no detectable effect on implicit learning processes. This finding adds to the growing body of evidence that free will belief manipulations do not meaningfully affect downstream behavior.
2022
Cracco, E., Isterdael, C. V., Genschow, O., & Brass, M. (2022). Concurrently observed actions are represented not as compound actions but as independent actions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 48, 1172–1185. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001043
@article{emielConcurrentObserveAction2022,
title = {Concurrently observed actions are represented not as compound actions but as independent actions},
author = {Cracco, Emiel and Isterdael, Clara Van and Genschow, Oliver and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = nov,
journal = {Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance},
volume = {48},
pages = {1172-1185},
issn = {11},
doi = {10.1037/xhp0001043},
url = {https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-98525-001?doi=1},
langid = {english}
}
Recent research suggests that we can simultaneously represent the actions of multiple agents in our motor system. However, it is unclear exactly how concurrently observed actions are represented. Here, we tested two competing hypotheses. According to the independence hypothesis, concurrently observed actions are represented as independent actions. According to the compound hypothesis, they are instead integrated, whenever possible, into compound actions. In Experiment 1 (N = 32), we first show that the standard imitation-inhibition task with a single hand can be extended to measure automatic imitation of compound actions. In Experiments 2–5 (NTotal = 368), we then investigated the representation of concurrently observed actions by further extending this task to include two hands. The results showed that two hands performing two different actions (e.g., one hand lifts index finger, one hand lifts middle finger) produced an effect similar to that of both hands performing just one of those actions (e.g., both hands lift index finger) but different from that of both hands performing both actions together (i.e., a compound action; lift both index and middle finger). This indicates that concurrently observed actions are coded as independent actions in the motor system.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., & Brass, M. (2022). The relationship between belief in free will and intention attribution depends on the decision stage [Preprint]. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jbr2h
@article{pengintentionattribution2022,
type = {Preprint},
title = {The relationship between belief in free will and intention attribution depends on the decision stage},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = oct,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/jbr2h},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/ppr/ppr564610}
}
Humans have a general tendency to attribute intentionality to other people. Recently it has been demonstrated that such intention attribution depends on whether it happens spontaneously or with deliberation. More specifically, there is a bias to overestimate intentionality only for intention attribution under time pressure when deliberate processes are limited. In addition, more recently, research has suggested that how much intentionality individuals attribute to other people’s behavior also depends on their belief in free will. The first aim of the current study was to replicate the relationship between intention attribution and free will beliefs with an established paradigm based on ratings of text passages. More importantly we wanted to investigate whether belief in free will is more strongly related to spontaneous or deliberate intention attribution. Across two experiments, participants were asked to judge if the protagonist in a sentence was acting on purpose or by accident. The results revealed a positive correlation between belief in free will and intention attribution when participants had to respond under time pressure (Experiment 2) but not when there was no time constraint (Experiment 1). These results suggest that free will beliefs are related to spontaneous intention attribution but not to more deliberate attribution of intentions.
Brass, M., & De Baene, W. (2022). The contribution of functional brain imaging to the understanding of cognitive processes underlying task switching. Handbook of Human Multitasking, 275–301. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-04760-2_7
@article{brassTaskSwitching2022,
title = {The contribution of functional brain imaging to the understanding of cognitive processes underlying task switching},
author = {Brass, Marcel and De Baene, Wouter},
year = {2022},
month = sep,
journal = {Handbook of human multitasking},
pages = {275--301},
url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-04760-2_7},
langid = {english}
}
More than two decades ago, cognitive neuroscientists started to use brain imaging techniques to investigate the neurocognitive bases of task switching. However, has this research contributed to our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying cognitive flexibility? In the present chapter, we will give an overview of brain imaging research on task switching using fMRI. Furthermore, we will address the question to what extent this research has contributed to our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in task switching. We will argue that brain imaging has provided a unique contribution to the cognitive literature in at least three different ways. First, brain imaging findings helped to decompose component processes related to task switching. Second, brain imaging helped to support the idea that common processes underlie task switching paradigms in different domains. Finally, it helped to show that some manipulations that were believed to tap into the same processes, in fact, reflected different cognitive operations.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., Troje, N. F., & Brass, M. (2022). Does Belief in Free Will Influence Biological Motion Perception? In Psychological Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9
@techreport{pengDoesBeliefFree2022,
title = {Does Belief in Free Will Influence Biological Motion Perception?},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Troje, Nikolaus F. and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = jul,
journal = {Psychological Research},
doi = {10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-022-01704-9}
}
Previous research suggests that belief in free will correlates with intentionality attribution. However, whether belief in free will is also related to more basic social processes is unknown. Based on evidence that biological motion contains intentionality cues that observers spontaneously extract, we investigate whether people who believe more in free will, or in related constructs, such as dualism and determinism, would be better at picking up such cues and therefore at detecting biological agents hidden in noise, or would be more inclined to detect intentionality cues and therefore to detect biological agents even when there are none. Signal detection theory was used to measure participants’ ability to detect biological motion from scrambled background noise (d′) and their response bias (c) in doing so. In two experiments, we found that belief in determinism and belief in dualism, but not belief in free will, were associated with biological motion perception. However, no causal effect was found when experimentally manipulating free will-related beliefs. In sum, our results show that biological motion perception, a low-level social process, is related to high-level beliefs about dualism and determinism.
Formica, S., González-García, C., Senoussi, M., Marinazzo, D., & Brass, M. (2022). Theta-phase connectivity between medial prefrontal and posterior areas underlies novel instructions implementation. Eneuro, 9, 1–17. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0225-22.2022
@article{formicaMedialprefrontalnovelinstructions2022,
title = {Theta-phase connectivity between medial prefrontal and posterior areas underlies novel instructions implementation},
author = {Formica, Silvia and {Gonz{\'a}lez-Garc{\'i}a}, Carlos and Senoussi, Mehdi and Marinazzo, Daniele and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = jul,
journal = {Eneuro},
volume = {9},
pages = {1-17},
issn = {4},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0225-22.2022},
url = {https://www.eneuro.org/content/9/4/ENEURO.0225-22.2022.abstract}
}
Implementing novel instructions is a complex and uniquely human cognitive ability, that requires the rapid and flexible conversion of symbolic content into a format that enables the execution of the instructed behavior. Preparing to implement novel instructions, as opposed to their mere maintenance, involves the activation of the instructed motor plans, and the binding of the action information to the specific context in which this should be executed. Recent evidence and prominent computational models suggest that this efficient configuration of the system might involve a central role of frontal theta oscillations in establishing top-down long-range synchronization between distant and task-relevant brain areas. In the present EEG study (human subjects, 30 females, 4 males), we demonstrate that proactively preparing for the implementation of novels instructions, as opposed to their maintenance, involves a strengthened degree of connectivity in the theta frequency range between medial prefrontal and motor/visual areas. Moreover, we replicated previous results showing oscillatory features associated specifically with implementation demands, and extended on them demonstrating the role of theta oscillations in mediating the effect of task demands on behavioral performance. Taken together, these findings support our hypothesis that the modulation of connectivity patterns between frontal and task-relevant posterior brain areas is a core factor in the emergence of a behavior-guiding format from novel instructions.
Wisniewski, D., Braem, S., González-García, C., Houwer, J. D., & Brass, M. (2022). Effects of experiencing CS-US pairings on instructed fear reversal [Preprint]. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.05.487162
@techreport{WisniewskiThetaphaseconnectivity2022,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Effects of experiencing CS-US pairings on instructed fear reversal},
author = {Wisniewski, David and Braem, Senne and {Gonz{\'a}lez-Garc{\'i}a}, Carlos and Houwer, Jan De and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = jan,
institution = {{bioRxiv}},
doi = {10.1101/2022.04.05.487162},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.05.487162v1.full.pdf}
}
Fear learning allows us to identify and anticipate aversive events, and adapt our behavior accordingly. This is often thought to rely on associative learning mechanisms where an initially neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) is repeatedly paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US), eventually leading to the CS also being perceived as aversive and threatening. Importantly, however, humans also show verbal fear learning. Namely, they have the ability to change their responses to stimuli rapidly through verbal instructions about CS-US pairings. Past research on the link between experience-based and verbal fear learning indicated that verbal instructions about a reversal of CS-US pairings can fully override the effects of previously experienced CS-US pairings, as measured through fear ratings, skin conductance, and fear- potentiated startle. However, it remains an open question whether such instructions can also annul memory traces in the brain. Here, we used a fear reversal paradigm in conjunction with representational similarity analysis of fMRI data to test whether verbal instructions fully override the effects of experienced CS-US pairings in fear-related brain regions or not. Previous research suggests that only the right amygdala should show lingering representations of previously experienced threat (a so-called “Pavlovian trace”). Unexpectedly, we found evidence for the residual effect of prior CS-US experience to be much more widespread than anticipated, in the amygdala but also cortical regions like the dorsal anterior cingulate or dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex. This finding shines a new light on the interaction of different fear learning mechanisms, at times with unexpected consequences.
Oomen, D., Cracco, E., Brass, M., & Wiersema, R. (2022). EEG frequency tagging evidence of social interaction recognition. In Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsac032
@techreport{oomenEEGfrequency2022,
title = {EEG frequency tagging evidence of social interaction recognition},
author = {Oomen, Danna and Cracco, Emiel and Brass, Marcel and Wiersema, Roeljan},
year = {2022},
month = apr,
journal = {Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience},
doi = {10.1093/scan/nsac032},
url = {https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8754473/file/8754476.pdf}
}
Previous neuroscience studies have provided important insights into the neural processing of third-party social interaction recognition. Unfortunately, however, the methods they used are limited by a high susceptibility to noise. Electroencephalogram (EEG) frequency tagging is a promising technique to overcome this limitation, as it is known for its high signal-to-noise ratio. So far, EEG frequency tagging has mainly been used with simplistic stimuli (e.g. faces), but more complex stimuli are needed to study social interaction recognition. It therefore remains unknown whether this technique could be exploited to study third-party social interaction recognition. To address this question, we first created and validated a wide variety of stimuli that depict social scenes with and without social interaction, after which we used these stimuli in an EEG frequency tagging experiment. As hypothesized, we found enhanced neural responses to social scenes with social interaction compared to social scenes without social interaction. This effect appeared laterally at occipitoparietal electrodes and strongest over the right hemisphere. Hence, we find that EEG frequency tagging can measure the process of inferring social interaction from varying contextual information. EEG frequency tagging is particularly valuable for research into populations that require a high signal-to-noise ratio like infants, young children and clinical populations.
Cracco, E., Braem, S., & Brass, M. (2022). Observing conflicting actions elicits conflict adaptation. In Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Vol. 151, pp. 493–505). https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001089
@techreport{craccoonflictingactions2022,
title = {Observing conflicting actions elicits conflict adaptation},
author = {Cracco, Emiel and Braem, Senne and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = feb,
journal = {Journal of Experimental Psychology: General},
volume = {151},
pages = {493-505},
doi = {10.1037/xge0001089},
url = {https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-70921-001?doi=1}
}
A key prediction of ideomotor theories is that action perception relies on the same mechanisms as action planning. While this prediction has received support from studies investigating action perception in one-on-one interactions, situations with multiple actors pose a challenge because in order to corepresent multiple observed actions, observers have to represent more actions in their motor system than they can physically execute. If representing multiple observed actions, like representing individual observed actions, recycles action planning processes, this should lead to response conflict by observation. In five experiments, we tested this hypothesis by investigating whether simply seeing two conflicting actions is sufficient to elicit response conflict and therefore adaptive control in the same way as planning conflicting actions does. Experiments 1–3 provided meta-analytical evidence (N = 262) that seeing two conflicting gestures triggered a reverse congruency sequence effect on a subsequent, unrelated prime-probe task. Experiment 4 (N = 250) replicated this finding in a high-powered study. Finally, Experiment 5 (N = 253) revealed that the same effect was not present when using unfolding abstract shapes instead of moving hands. Together, these experiments show that not just planning but also seeing two conflicting actions elicits adaptive control, and they provide initial evidence that this is driven by action conflict. These findings have important implications both for theories of action representation and research on cognitive control.
Cracco, E., Bernardet, U., Sevenhant, R., Vandenhouwe, N., Copman, F., Durnez, W., Bombeke, K., & Brass, M. (2022). Evidence for a two-step model of social group influence (Vol. 25, pp. 1–12). Iscience. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.104891
@techreport{craccosocialgroup2022,
title = {Evidence for a two-step model of social group influence},
author = {Cracco, Emiel and Bernardet, Ulysses and Sevenhant, Robbe and Vandenhouwe, Nette and Copman, Fran and Durnez, Wouter and Bombeke, Klaas and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = sep,
institution = {{Iscience}},
volume = {25},
pages = {1-12},
issn = {9},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.104891},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004222011634?via%3Dihub}
}
Social group influence plays an important role in societally relevant phenomena such as rioting and mass panic. One way through which groups influence individuals is by directing their gaze. Evidence that gaze following increases with group size has typically been explained in terms of strategic processes. Here, we instead tested the role of sensorimotor processes. In an ecologically valid virtual reality task, we found that participants were more likely to follow the gaze of a group when more people looked, even though they knew the group provided no relevant information. Interestingly, participants also sometimes changed their mind after starting to follow the gaze of the group, indicating that automatic imitation can be overruled by strategic processes. Our results suggest that social group influence is best explained by a two-step model in which bottom-up imitative processes first elicit a reflexive tendency to imitate, before top-down strategic processes determine whether to execute or inhibit this reflex. These results provide a deeper understanding of how group dynamics steer behavior.
Wisniewski, D., Cracco, E., González-García, C., & Brass, M. (2022). Relating free will beliefs and attitudes. In Royal Society open science. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.202018
@techreport{wisniewskiFreewillbelief2022,
title = {Relating free will beliefs and attitudes},
author = {Wisniewski, David and Cracco, Emiel and {Gonz{\'a}lez-Garc{\'i}a}, Carlos and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = feb,
journal = {Royal Society open science},
doi = {10.1098/rsos.202018},
url = {https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.202018}
}
Most people believe in free will, which is foundational for our sense of agency and responsibility. Past research demonstrated that such beliefs are dynamic, and can be manipulated experimentally. Much less is known about free will attitudes (FWAs; do you value free will?), whether they are equally dynamic, and about their relation to free will beliefs (FWBs). If FWAs were strongly positive, people might be reluctant to revise their beliefs even in the face of strong evidence to do so. In this registered report, we developed a novel measure of FWAs and directly related FWBs and attitudes for the first time. We found FWBs and attitudes to be positively related, although to a lesser degree than determinism or dualism beliefs/attitudes. Nevertheless, an experimental manipulation technique aimed at reducing FWBs (Crick text) showed remarkably specific effects on FWBs only, and no effects on FWAs. Overall, these results provide valuable new insights into laypeople’s views on free will by including a novel measure of FWAs. They also provide evidence for the validity of a common experimental technique that has been rightfully criticized in the literature lately.
Genschow, O., & Brass, M. (2022). Belief in free will relates to attributions of intentionality and judgments of responsibility. In Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Free Will and Responsibility. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Oliver-Genschow/publication/358762936_Belief_in_Free_Will_Relates_to_Attributions_of_Intentionality_and_Judgments_of_Responsibility/links/62220d0b97401151d2fbf7be/Belief-in-Free-Will-Relates-to-Attributions-of-Intentionality-and-Judgments-of-Responsibility.pdf
@techreport{genschowFreewillbeliefintentionality2022,
title = {Belief in free will relates to attributions of intentionality and judgments of responsibility},
author = {Genschow, Oliver and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = mar,
journal = {Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Free Will and Responsibility},
url = {https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Oliver-Genschow/publication/358762936_Belief_in_Free_Will_Relates_to_Attributions_of_Intentionality_and_Judgments_of_Responsibility/links/62220d0b97401151d2fbf7be/Belief-in-Free-Will-Relates-to-Attributions-of-Intentionality-and-Judgments-of-Responsibility.pdf}
}
Most people believe that they have free will and are capable of free choice. However, ever since skepticism about free will is on the rise, the fundamental question arises of what would happen if people start to believe that free will is an illusion. In the last decade, psychologists approached this question by experimentally manipulating participants’ belief in free will. Such experiments showed that merely presenting participants with short text passages arguing against the plausibility of free will is sufficient to influence a variety of social attitudes, judgments, and behaviors. However, recent research documented difficulties in replicating some of the most influential studies, raising the question whether individuals’ belief in free will is actually related to societal relevant behaviors. In this chapter we present an overview on the conceptualization of free will beliefs, the challenges to experimentally manipulate these beliefs and how they relate to attributions of intentionality and judgments of responsibility. By introducing the intention-hypothesis, we argue that inter-individual differences in free will beliefs are closely related to perceiving intentions in one’s own and others’ behavior and that this link contributes to a variety of different outcome variables such as punishing intentions, rewarding behavior, and victim blaming.
Goris, J., Braem, S., Herck, S. V., Simoens, J., Deschrijver, E., Wiersema, J. R., Paton, B., Brass, M., & Todd, J. (2022). Reduced primacy bias in autism during early sensory processing. In Journal of Neuroscience (Vol. 42, pp. 3989–3999). https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3088-20.2022
@techreport{gorisAutismsensory2022,
title = {Reduced primacy bias in autism during early sensory processing},
author = {Goris, Judith and Braem, Senne and Herck, Shauni Van and Simoens, Jonas and Deschrijver, Eliane and Wiersema, Jan R and Paton, Bryan and Brass, Marcel and Todd, Juanita},
year = {2022},
month = may,
journal = {Journal of Neuroscience},
volume = {42},
pages = {3989-3999},
issn = {19},
doi = {10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3088-20.2022},
url = {https://www.jneurosci.org/content/42/19/3989.abstract}
}
Recent theories of autism propose that a core deficit in autism would be a less context-sensitive weighting of prediction errors. There is also first support for this hypothesis on an early sensory level. However, an open question is whether this decreased context sensitivity is caused by faster updating of one’s model of the world (i.e., higher weighting of new information), proposed by predictive coding theories, or slower model updating. Here, we differentiated between these two hypotheses by investigating how first impressions shape the mismatch negativity (MMN), reflecting early sensory prediction error processing. An autism and matched control group of human adults (both n = 27, 8 female) were compared on the multi-timescale MMN paradigm, in which tones were presented that were either standard (frequently occurring) or deviant (rare), and these roles reversed every block. A well-replicated observation is that the initial model (i.e., the standard and deviant sound in the first block) influences MMN amplitudes in later blocks. If autism is characterized by faster model updating, and thus a smaller primacy bias, we hypothesized (and demonstrate using a simple reinforcement learning model) that their MMN amplitudes should be less influenced by the initial context. In line with this hypothesis, we found that MMN responses in the autism group did not differ between the initial deviant and initial standard sounds as they did in the control group. These findings are consistent with the idea that autism is characterized by faster model updating during early sensory processing, as proposed by predictive coding accounts of autism.
Oomen, D., Kaddouri, R. E. I., Brass, M., & Wiersema, J. R. (2022). Neural correlates of own name and own face processing in neurotypical adults scoring low versus high on symptomatology of autism spectrum disorder. In Biological Psychology (Vol. 172). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108358
@techreport{oomenfaceprocessingasd2022,
title = {Neural correlates of own name and own face processing in neurotypical adults scoring low versus high on symptomatology of autism spectrum disorder},
author = {Oomen, Danna and Kaddouri, Rachida EI and Brass, Marcel and Wiersema, Jan R},
year = {2022},
month = may,
journal = {Biological Psychology},
volume = {172},
issn = {108358},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
doi = {10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108358},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301051122001016}
}
Previous event-related potential (ERP) research showed reduced self-referential processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As different self-related stimuli were studied in isolation, it is unclear whether findings can be ascribed to a common underlying mechanism. Further, it is unknown whether altered self-referential processing is also evident in neurotypicals scoring high on ASD symptomatology. We compared ERPs in response to one’s own name and face (versus other names/faces) between neurotypical adults scoring high versus low on ASD symptomatology. Conform previous research, the parietal P3 was enhanced, both for own name and face, indicating a self-referential effect. The N250 was only enhanced for one’s own face. However, the self-referential parietal P3 effect did not correlate between the names and faces conditions, arguing against a common underlying mechanism. No group effects appeared, neither for names nor faces, suggesting that reduced self-referential processing is not a dimensional ASD feature in the neurotypical population.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., & Brass, M. (2022). Believing is seeing: belief in dualism is related with illusory pattern detection [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/wveah
@techreport{craccosocialgroup2023,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Believing is seeing: belief in dualism is related with illusory pattern detection},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2022},
month = jun,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/wveah},
url = {https://psyarxiv.com/wveah/}
}
Although incompatible with modern scientific thinking, dualistic beliefs are still widespread in society. Previous studies suggest that such beliefs are associated with social behavior and health-related attitudes. More recently, studies have also shown that belief in dualism is related to more basic social cognitive processes, such as detecting biological motion in noisy displays. However, dualistic beliefs are strongly related to paranormal beliefs, which are also correlated with biological motion perception. The question thus arises whether the previously found relationship between belief in dualism and biological motion perception can be explained by paranormal beliefs and whether this relationship is unique to biological motion or reflects a more general tendency to see patterns in noise. In three experiments, we show that belief in dualism correlates negatively with perceptual sensitivity and positively with false alarm rate in both a biological motion perception task and a random dot motion task. In addition, paranormal belief was found to explain the relationship between belief in dualism and biological motion perception. These findings suggest that correlations between belief in dualism and biological motion perception are best explained in terms of a more general relationship between belief in dualism and (illusory) pattern recognition.
2021
De Souter, L., Braem, S., Genschow, O., Brass, M., & Cracco, E. (2021). Social Group Membership Does Not Modulate Automatic Imitation in a Contrastive Multi-Agent Paradigm. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74(4), 746–759. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021820986528
@article{desouterSocialGroupMembership2021,
title = {Social Group Membership Does Not Modulate Automatic Imitation in a Contrastive Multi-Agent Paradigm},
author = {De Souter, Laura and Braem, Senne and Genschow, Oliver and Brass, Marcel and Cracco, Emiel},
year = {2021},
month = apr,
journal = {Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology},
volume = {74},
number = {4},
pages = {746--759},
issn = {1747-0218, 1747-0226},
doi = {10.1177/1747021820986528},
url = {http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1747021820986528},
langid = {english}
}
A key prediction of motivational theories of automatic imitation is that people imitate in-group over out-group members. However, research on this topic has provided mixed results. Here, we investigate the possibility that social group modulations emerge only when people can directly compare in- and out-group. To this end, we conducted three experiments in which we measured automatic imitation of two simultaneously shown hands: one in-group and one out-group hand. Our general hypothesis was that the in-group hand would be imitated more than the out-group hand. However, even though both explicit and implicit manipulation checks showed that we succeeded in manipulating participants’ feelings of group membership, we did not find support for the predicted influence of group membership on automatic imitation. In contrast to motivational theories, this suggests that group membership does not influence who we do or do not imitate, not even in a contrastive multi-agent paradigm.
Formica, S., González-García, C., Senoussi, M., & Brass, M. (2021). Neural Oscillations Track the Maintenance and Proceduralization of Novel Instructions. NeuroImage, 232, 117870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117870
@article{formicaNeuralOscillationsTrack2021,
title = {Neural Oscillations Track the Maintenance and Proceduralization of Novel Instructions},
author = {Formica, Silvia and {Gonz{\'a}lez-Garc{\'i}a}, Carlos and Senoussi, Mehdi and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2021},
month = may,
journal = {NeuroImage},
volume = {232},
pages = {117870},
issn = {10538119},
doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117870},
url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1053811921001476},
langid = {english}
}
Humans are capable of flexibly converting symbolic instructions into novel behaviors. Previous evidence and theoretical models suggest that the implementation of a novel instruction requires the reformatting of its declarative content into an action-oriented code optimized for the execution of the instructed behavior. While neuroimaging research focused on identifying the brain areas involved in such a process, the temporal and electrophysiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. These mechanisms, however, can provide information about the specific cognitive processes that characterize the proceduralization of information. In the present study, we recorded EEG activity while we asked participants to either simply maintain declaratively the content of novel S-R mappings or to proactively prepare for their implementation. By means of time-frequency analyses, we isolated the oscillatory features specific to the proceduralization of instructions. Implementation of the instructed mappings elicited stronger theta activity over frontal electrodes and suppression in mu and beta activity over central electrodes. On the contrary, activity in the alpha band, which has been shown to track the attentional deployment to task-relevant items, showed no differences between tasks. Together, these results support the idea that proceduralization of information is characterized by specific component processes such as orchestrating complex task settings and configuring the motor system that are not observed when instructions are held in a declarative format.
Genschow, O., Cracco, E., Schneider, J., Protzko, J., Wisniewski, D., Brass, M., & Schooler, J. (2021). Meta-Analysis on Belief in Free Will Manipulations [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/quwgr
@techreport{genschowMetaanalysisBeliefFree2021,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Meta-Analysis on Belief in Free Will Manipulations},
author = {Genschow, Oliver and Cracco, Emiel and Schneider, Jana and Protzko, John and Wisniewski, David and Brass, Marcel and Schooler, Jonathan},
year = {2021},
month = feb,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/quwgr},
url = {https://osf.io/quwgr}
}
Whether free will exists is a longstanding philosophical debate. Cognitive neuroscience and popular media have been putting forward the idea that free will is an illusion, raising the question of what would happen if people stopped believing in free will altogether. Psychological research has investigated this question by testing the consequences of experimentally weakening people’s belief in free will. The results of these investigations have been mixed, with successful experiments and unsuccessful replications. This raises two fundamental questions that can best be investigated with a meta-analysis: First, can free will beliefs be manipulated and, second, do such manipulations have downstream consequences? In a meta-analysis across 146 experiments (95 unpublished) with a total of 26,305 participants, we show that exposing individuals to anti-free will manipulations decreases belief in free will, g = -0.29, 95% CI = [-0.35, -0.22], and increases belief in determinism, g = 0.17, 95% CI = [0.09, 0.24]. In contrast, we find little evidence for the idea that manipulating belief in free will has downstream consequences after accounting for small sample and publication bias. Together, our findings have important theoretical implications for research on free will beliefs and contribute to the discussion of whether reducing people’s belief in free will has societal consequences.
Genschow, O., Hawickhorst, H., Rigoni, D., Aschermann, E., & Brass, M. (2021). Professional Judges’ Disbelief in Free Will Does Not Decrease Punishment. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12(3), 357–362. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620915055
@article{genschowProfessionalJudgesDisbelief2021,
title = {Professional {{Judges}}' {{Disbelief}} in {{Free Will Does Not Decrease Punishment}}},
author = {Genschow, Oliver and Hawickhorst, Heinz and Rigoni, Davide and Aschermann, Ellen and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2021},
month = apr,
journal = {Social Psychological and Personality Science},
volume = {12},
number = {3},
pages = {357--362},
issn = {1948-5506, 1948-5514},
doi = {10.1177/1948550620915055},
url = {http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550620915055},
langid = {english}
}
There is a debate in psychology and philosophy on the societal consequences of casting doubts about individuals’ belief in free will. Research suggests that experimentally reducing free will beliefs might affect how individuals evaluate others’ behavior. Past research has demonstrated that reduced free will beliefs decrease laypersons’ tendency toward retributive punishment. This finding has been used as an argument for the idea that promoting anti-free will viewpoints in the public media might have severe consequences for the legal system because it may move judges toward softer retributive punishments. However, actual implications for the legal system can only be drawn by investigating professional judges. In the present research, we investigated whether judges ( N = 87) are affected by reading anti-free will messages. The results demonstrate that although reading anti-free will texts reduces judges’ belief in free will, their recommended sentences are not influenced by their (manipulated) belief in free will.
González-García, C., Formica, S., Wisniewski, D., & Brass, M. (2021). Frontoparietal Action-Oriented Codes Support Novel Instruction Implementation. NeuroImage, 226, 117608. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117608
@article{gonzalez-garciaFrontoparietalActionorientedCodes2021,
title = {Frontoparietal Action-Oriented Codes Support Novel Instruction Implementation},
author = {{Gonz{\'a}lez-Garc{\'i}a}, Carlos and Formica, Silvia and Wisniewski, David and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2021},
month = feb,
journal = {NeuroImage},
volume = {226},
pages = {117608},
issn = {10538119},
doi = {10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117608},
url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1053811920310934},
langid = {english}
}
A key aspect of human cognitive flexibility concerns the ability to convert complex symbolic instructions into novel behaviors. Previous research proposes that this transformation is supported by two neurocognitive states: an initial declarative maintenance of task knowledge, and an implementation state necessary for optimal task execution. Furthermore, current models predict a crucial role of frontal and parietal brain regions in this process. However, whether declarative and procedural signals independently contribute to implementation remains unknown. We report the results of an fMRI experiment in which participants executed novel instructed stimulus-response associations. We then used a pattern-tracking procedure to quantify the contribution of format-unique signals during instruction implementation. This revealed independent procedural and declarative representations of novel S-Rs in frontoparietal areas, prior to execution. Critically, the degree of procedural activation predicted subsequent behavioral performance. Altogether, our results suggest an important contribution of frontoparietal regions to the neural architecture that regulates cognitive flexibility.
Krause, J., Romanczuk, P., Cracco, E., Arlidge, W., Nassauer, A., & Brass, M. (2021). Collective Rule-Breaking. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(12), 1082–1095. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.08.003
@article{krauseCollectiveRulebreaking2021,
title = {Collective Rule-Breaking},
author = {Krause, Jens and Romanczuk, Pawel and Cracco, Emiel and Arlidge, William and Nassauer, Anne and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2021},
month = dec,
journal = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences},
volume = {25},
number = {12},
pages = {1082--1095},
issn = {13646613},
doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2021.08.003},
url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1364661321002060},
langid = {english}
}
Rules form an important part of our everyday lives. Here we explore the role of social influence in rule-breaking. In particular, we identify some of the cognitive mechanisms underlying rule-breaking and propose approaches for how they can be scaled up to the level of groups or crowds to better understand the emergence of collective rule-breaking. Social contagion plays an important role in such processes and different dynamics such as linear or rapid nonlinear spreading can have important consequences for interventions in rule-breaking. A closer integration of cognitive psychology, microsociology and mathematical modelling will be key to a deeper understanding of collective rule-breaking to turn this field of research into a predictive science.
Palenciano, A. F., González-García, C., de Houwer, J., Brass, M., & Liefooghe, B. (2021). Exploring the Link between Novel Task Proceduralization and Motor Simulation. Journal of Cognition, 4(1), 57. https://doi.org/10.5334/joc.190
@article{palencianoExploringLinkNovel2021,
title = {Exploring the {{Link}} between {{Novel Task Proceduralization}} and {{Motor Simulation}}},
author = {Palenciano, Ana F. and {Gonz{\'a}lez-Garc{\'i}a}, Carlos and de Houwer, Jan and Brass, Marcel and Liefooghe, Baptist},
year = {2021},
month = sep,
journal = {Journal of Cognition},
volume = {4},
number = {1},
pages = {57},
publisher = {{Ubiquity Press}},
issn = {2514-4820},
doi = {10.5334/joc.190},
url = {http://www.journalofcognition.org/article/10.5334/joc.190/},
copyright = {Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access ). All third-party images reproduced on this journal are shared under Educational Fair Use. For more information on Educational Fair Use , please see this useful checklist prepared by Columbia University Libraries . All copyright of third-party content posted here for research purposes belongs to its original owners. Unless otherwise stated all references to characters and comic art presented on this journal are \textcopyright, \textregistered{} or \texttrademark{} of their respective owners. No challenge to any owner's rights is intended or should be inferred.},
langid = {english}
}
Our ability to generate efficient behavior from novel instructions is critical for our adaptation to changing environments. Despite the absence of previous experience, novel instructed content is quickly encoded into an action-based or procedural format, facilitating automatic task processing. In the current work, we investigated the link between proceduralization and motor simulation, specifically, whether the covert activation of the task-relevant responses is used during the assembly of action-based instructions representations. Across three online experiments, we used a concurrent finger-tapping task to block motor simulation during the encoding of novel stimulus-response (S-R) associations. The overlap between the mappings and the motor task at the response level was manipulated. We predicted a greater impairment at mapping implementation in the overlapping condition, where the mappings’ relevant response representations were already loaded by the motor demands, and thus, could not be used in the upcoming task simulation. This hypothesis was robustly supported by the three datasets. Nonetheless, the overlapping effect was not modulated by further manipulations of proceduralization-related variables (preparation demands in Exp.2, mapping novelty in Exp.3). Importantly, a fourth control experiment ruled out that our results were driven by alternative accounts as fatigue or negative priming. Overall, we provided strong evidence towards the involvement of motor simulation during anticipatory task reconfiguration. However, this involvement was rather general, and not restricted to novelty scenarios. Finally, these findings can be also integrated into broader models of anticipatory task control, stressing the role of the motor system during preparation.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., Troje, N. F., & Brass, M. (2021). Does Anxiety Induced by Social Interaction Influence the Perception of Bistable Biological Motion? Acta Psychologica, 215, 103277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103277
@article{pengDoesAnxietyInduced2021,
title = {Does Anxiety Induced by Social Interaction Influence the Perception of Bistable Biological Motion?},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Troje, Nikolaus F. and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2021},
month = apr,
journal = {Acta Psychologica},
volume = {215},
pages = {103277},
issn = {00016918},
doi = {10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103277},
url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0001691821000275},
langid = {english}
}
When observing point light walkers orthographically projected onto a frontoparallel plane, the direction in which they are walking is ambiguous. Nevertheless, observers more often perceive them as facing towards than as facing away from them. This phenomenon is known as the “facing-the-viewer bias” (FTV). Two interpretations of the facing-the-viewer bias exist in the literature: a top-down and a bottom-up interpretation. Support for the top-down interpretation comes from evidence that social anxiety correlates with the FTV bias. However, the direction of the relationship between the FTV bias and social anxiety is inconsistent across studies and evidence for a correlation has mostly been obtained with relatively small samples. Therefore, the first aim of the current study was to provide a strong test of the hypothesized relationship between social anxiety and the facing-the-viewer bias in a large sample of 200 participants recruited online. In addition, a second aim was to further extend top-down accounts by investigating if the FTV bias is also related to autistic traits. Our results replicate the FTV bias, showing that people indeed tend to perceive orthographically projected point light walkers as facing towards them. However, no correlation between the FTV bias and social interaction anxiety (tau = −0.01, p = .86, BF = 0.18) or autistic traits (tau = −0.0039, p = .45, BF = 0.18) was found. As such, our data cannot confirm the top-down interpretation of the facing-the-viewer bias.
Peng, W., Cracco, E., Troje, N. F., & Brass, M. (2021). Does Anxiety Induced by Social Interaction Influence the Perception of Bistable Biological Motion? Acta Psychologica, 215, 103277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103277
@article{pengDoesAnxietyInduced2022,
title = {Does Anxiety Induced by Social Interaction Influence the Perception of Bistable Biological Motion?},
author = {Peng, Wei and Cracco, Emiel and Troje, Nikolaus F. and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2021},
month = apr,
journal = {Acta Psychologica},
volume = {215},
pages = {103277},
issn = {00016918},
doi = {10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103277},
url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0001691821000275},
langid = {english}
}
When observing point light walkers orthographically projected onto a frontoparallel plane, the direction in which they are walking is ambiguous. Nevertheless, observers more often perceive them as facing towards than as facing away from them. This phenomenon is known as the “facing-the-viewer bias” (FTV). Two interpretations of the facing-the-viewer bias exist in the literature: a top-down and a bottom-up interpretation. Support for the top-down interpretation comes from evidence that social anxiety correlates with the FTV bias. However, the direction of the relationship between the FTV bias and social anxiety is inconsistent across studies and evidence for a correlation has mostly been obtained with relatively small samples. Therefore, the first aim of the current study was to provide a strong test of the hypothesized relationship between social anxiety and the facing-the-viewer bias in a large sample of 200 participants recruited online. In addition, a second aim was to further extend top-down accounts by investigating if the FTV bias is also related to autistic traits. Our results replicate the FTV bias, showing that people indeed tend to perceive orthographically projected point light walkers as facing towards them. However, no correlation between the FTV bias and social interaction anxiety (tau = −0.01, p = .86, BF = 0.18) or autistic traits (tau = −0.0039, p = .45, BF = 0.18) was found. As such, our data cannot confirm the top-down interpretation of the facing-the-viewer bias.
2020
Eben, C., Chen, Z., Cracco, E., Brass, M., Billieux, J., & Verbruggen, F. (2020). Are Post-Error Adjustments Influenced by Beliefs in Free Will? A Failure to Replicate Rigoni, Wilquin, Brass and Burle, 2013. Royal Society Open Science, 7(11), 200664. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.200664
@article{ebenArePosterrorAdjustments2020,
title = {Are Post-Error Adjustments Influenced by Beliefs in Free Will? {{A}} Failure to Replicate {{Rigoni}}, {{Wilquin}}, {{Brass}} and {{Burle}}, 2013},
shorttitle = {Are Post-Error Adjustments Influenced by Beliefs in Free Will?},
author = {Eben, Charlotte and Chen, Zhang and Cracco, Emiel and Brass, Marcel and Billieux, Jo{\"e}l and Verbruggen, Frederick},
year = {2020},
month = nov,
journal = {Royal Society Open Science},
volume = {7},
number = {11},
pages = {200664},
issn = {2054-5703},
doi = {10.1098/rsos.200664},
url = {https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.200664},
langid = {english}
}
In this pre-registered study, we tried to replicate the study by Rigoni et al. 2013 Cognition 127 , 264–269. In the original study, the authors manipulated the participants’ belief in free will in a between-subject design and subsequently measured post-error slowing (i.e. slower responses after an incorrect trial compared with a correct trial) as a marker of cognitive control. They found less post-error slowing in the group with reduced belief in free will (anti-free will group) compared with a control group in which belief in free will was not manipulated. In the present study, we used the same task procedure and the same free will manipulation (Crick text) in an attempt to replicate these findings. However, we used an online procedure and a larger sample size in order to address concerns about statistical power. Similar to the original study, we also used a questionnaire to measure beliefs in free will as an independent manipulation check. We found a difference in the scores on the questionnaire, thus a reduced belief in free will, after reading the Crick text. However, we did not find any difference in post-error slowing between the anti-free will and control groups. Our findings are in line with several other recent findings suggesting that the Crick text manipulation affects the participants’ self-reported belief in free will but not their behaviour. The present study can be considered a high-powered failed replication attempt.
González-García, C., Formica, S., Liefooghe, B., & Brass, M. (2020). Attentional prioritization reconfigures novel instructions into action-oriented task sets. In Cognition (Vol. 194). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104059
@techreport{garciaattentionalprioritization2020,
title = {Attentional prioritization reconfigures novel instructions into action-oriented task sets},
author = {González-García, Carlos and Formica, Silvia and Liefooghe, Baptist and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2020},
month = jan,
journal = {Cognition},
volume = {194},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
issn = {104059},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104059},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001002771930232X}
}
An astonishing aspect of human cognitive flexibility concerns the ability to efficiently convert complex symbolic instructions into novel behaviors. In such ability, the rapid transformation of relevant content into action plans is particularly crucial as it allows for reflexive, automatic-like execution of merely instructed task sets. However, little is known about the mechanisms that give rise to this transformation. In the current study, we test the hypothesis that novel instructions held in working memory are reformatted into action-oriented representations when selective attention prioritizes their content. To do so, we devised a paradigm in which participants first encoded 4 S-R mappings and later, a retro-cue selected two of them. We first found that participants can benefit from retro-cues during the implementation of novel task-sets. Then, across two preregistered experiments, we observed that cued mappings (but not uncued ones) induced intention-based reflexivity, suggesting that only these entered an action-oriented state. Altogether, our results reveal that selective attention prioritizes relevant novel instructed content, playing an important role in its prospective reformatting into an action-bound task set.
Dezwaef, J., Dossche, W., Cracco, E., Demanet, J., Desmet, T., & Brass, M. (2020). Prospecting the use of reaction times, response force and partial response force to estimate consumers’ willingness-to-pay. [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/vkt2z
@techreport{dezwaefcounsumerswillingness2020,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Prospecting the use of reaction times, response force and partial response force to estimate consumers’ willingness-to-pay.},
author = {Dezwaef, Jasper and Dossche, Wouter and Cracco, Emiel and Demanet, Jelle and Desmet, Timothy and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2020},
month = feb,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/vkt2z},
url = {https://psyarxiv.com/vkt2z/}
}
The present study employed an explicit reaction time task but measured several underlying cognitive processes in an attempt to provide implicit estimates of consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP). Participants were asked to evaluate product-price combinations as cheap or expensive. The prices of the products ranged from very cheap to very expensive. Crucially, participants had to complete the task under time pressure while the dependent variables of interest could not be influenced deliberately. This is because we explored whether the magnitude of the price stimulus interfered with the reaction times (RTs), response force (RF) and partial responses (PRs). The results of our study demonstrated that both RTs and RF are influenced by the magnitude of the price and it is postulated that these dependent measures indeed have the potential to investigate consumers’ WTP. Future studies need to further investigate the possibilities of these implicit variables and validate eventual estimates.
Dezwaef, J., Formica, S., Cracco, E., Huycke, P., Demanet, J., Desmet, T., & Brass, M. (2020). Drift Diffusion modelling reveals decision mechanisms underlying consumers’ evaluation of prices. [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ybqxv
@techreport{dezwaefcounsumerdecisions2020,
type = {Preprint},
title = {Drift Diffusion modelling reveals decision mechanisms underlying consumers' evaluation of prices.},
author = {Dezwaef, Jasper and Formica, Silvia and Cracco, Emiel and Huycke, Pieter and Demanet, Jelle and Desmet, Timothy and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2020},
month = feb,
institution = {{PsyArXiv}},
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/ybqxv},
url = {https://psyarxiv.com/ybqxv/}
}
Little is known about how price evaluation processes unfold. In the current study we explored if reaction times (RTs) can be used to study price evaluations. Additionally, we explored to what extent drift diffusion models (DDMs) are suitable to decompose the different aspects that underlay this decision processes. In a behavioral experiment, participants were asked to evaluate prices as fast as possible as ‘cheap’ or ‘expensive’. We expected that the time needed to evaluate prices would vary in accordance with a price manipulation that was used, and that RTs therefore could be interpreted a proxy of decision difficulty. Analysis of the behavioral data provided evidence for this hypothesis: very cheap and very expensive prices were evaluated faster compared to ambiguous prices. Then, drift diffusion models (DDMs) were used to decompose the different aspect of this decision process, with the goal to obtain a more fine-grained understanding of how the effect in RT data emerged. Results showed that the drift rate of the model was modulated by the price manipulation. Whereas there was no significant effect of the price manipulation on the non-decision time and the starting point parameter. We then contrasted the findings of the RT analysis with the results of the DDMs and outlined what the added value of DDMs is within this context.
Fini, C., Verbeke, P., Sieber, S., Moors, A., Brass, M., & Genschow, O. (2020). The influence of threat on perceived spatial distance to out-group members. In Psychological research (Vol. 84, pp. 757–764). SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-018-1091-7
@techreport{chiaraspatialdistanceoutgroup2020,
title = {The influence of threat on perceived spatial distance to out-group members},
author = {Fini, Chiara and Verbeke, Pieter and Sieber, Sophie and Moors, Agnes and Brass, Marcel and Genschow, Oliver},
year = {2020},
month = sep,
journal = {Psychological research},
volume = {84},
publisher = {{SpringerLink}},
pages = {757-764},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-018-1091-7}
}
A classic example of discriminatory behavior is keeping spatial distance from an out-group member. To explain this social behavior, the literature offers two alternative theoretical options that we label as the “threat hypothesis” and the “shared-experience hypothesis”. The former relies on studies showing that out-group members create a sense of alertness. Consequently, potentially threatening out-group members are represented as spatially close allowing the prevention of costly errors. The latter hypothesis suggests that the observation of out-group members reduces the sharing of somatosensory experiences and, thus, increases the perceived physical distance between oneself and others. In the present paper, we pitted the two hypotheses against each other. In Experiment 1, Caucasian participants expressed multiple implicit “Near/Far” spatial categorization judgments from a Black-African Avatar and a White-Caucasian Avatar located in a 3D environment. Results indicate that the Black-African Avatar was categorized as closer to oneself, as compared with the White-Caucasian Avatar, providing support for “the threat hypothesis”. In Experiment 2, we tested to which degree perceived threat contributes to this categorization bias by manipulating the avatar’s perceived threat orthogonally to group membership. The results indicate that irrespective of group membership, threatening avatars were categorized as being closer to oneself as compared with no threatening avatars. This suggests that provided information about a person and not the mere group membership influences perceived distance to the person.
Vastano, R., Ambrosini, E., Ulloa, J. L., & Brass, M. (2020). Action selection conflict and intentional binding: An ERP study. In Cortex (Vol. 126). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.01.013
@techreport{vastanoactionselection2020,
title = {Action selection conflict and intentional binding: An ERP study},
author = {Vastano, Roberta and Ambrosini, Ettore and Ulloa, José L and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2020},
month = may,
journal = {Cortex},
volume = {126},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
doi = {10.1016/j.cortex.2020.01.013},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945220300381}
}
The fluency with which we plan and execute actions has been demonstrated to increase our sense of agency (SoA). However, the exact mechanisms how fluency influences SoA are still poorly understood. It is an open question whether this effect is primarily driven by fluency of stimulus processing, response preparation or by processes following response execution. In the current study we aim at addressing this question by measuring event-related potentials reflecting pre- and post-response mechanisms and relate them to intentional binding, a measure of implicit SoA. To manipulate the fluency of action we asked participants to perform actions that were congruent or incongruent with a visual target (a finger movement). Participants’ actions triggered an auditory outcome. To measure the intentional binding effect we asked participants to estimate the time between the executed actions and the ensuing auditory effects. We found that congruent actions generated a larger intentional binding effect (i.e., stronger time compression between actions and effects) and this positively correlated with a late P300 evoked during the processing of congruent stimuli. At the action selection level, we found a larger central pre-response positivity for incongruent condition as relates to interference effects. Finally, post response mechanisms elicited a larger central negativity for incongruent responses presumably related to uncertainty. We provide new evidence on the determinants of intentional binding driven by the fluency of action, by showing that both pre and post-response mechanisms are crucial in the generation of the feelings of agency. Importantly, stimulus processing and response preparation ERPs seem to be more selectively modulated by congruency-effects given specific brain-behavioral correlations.
Van der Biest, M., Cracco, E., Wisniewski, D., Brass, M., & González-García, C. (2020). Investigating the effect of trustworthiness on instruction-based reflexivity. In Acta Psychologica (Vol. 207). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103085
@techreport{vanderbiesttrustworthiness2020,
title = {Investigating the effect of trustworthiness on instruction-based reflexivity},
author = {Van der Biest, Mathias and Cracco, Emiel and Wisniewski, David and Brass, Marcel and González-García, Carlos},
year = {2020},
month = jun,
journal = {Acta Psychologica},
volume = {207},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
issn = {103085},
doi = {10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103085},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001691820300111}
}
Unlike other species, humans are capable of rapidly learning new behavior from a single instruction. While previous research focused on the cognitive processes underlying the rapid, automatic implementation of instructions, the fundamentally social nature of instruction following has remained largely unexplored. Here, we investigated whether instructor trustworthiness modulates instruction implementation using both explicit and reflexive measures. In a first preregistered study, we validated a new paradigm to manipulate the perceived trustworthiness of two different virtual characters and showed that such a manipulation reliably induced implicit associations between the virtual characters and trustworthiness attributes. Moreover, we show that trustworthy instructors are followed more frequently and faster. In two additional preregistered experiments, we tested if trustworthiness towards the instructor influenced the cognitive processes underlying instruction implementation. While we show that verbally conveyed instructions led to automatic instruction implementation, this effect was not modulated by the trustworthiness of the instructor. Thus, we succeeded to design and validate a novel trustworthiness manipulation (Experiment 1) and to create a social variant of the instruction-based reflexivity paradigm (Experiments 2 and 3). However, this instruction-based reflexivity effect was not modulated by the instructors’ trustworthiness.
Fini, C., Fischer, M., Bardi, L., Brass, M., & Moors, A. (2020). Support from a TMS/MEP study for a direct link between positive/negative stimuli and approach/avoidance tendencies. In Neuropsychologia (Vol. 143). Elsevier. https://doi.org/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107496
@techreport{chiaraapproachavoidance2020,
title = {Support from a TMS/MEP study for a direct link between positive/negative stimuli and approach/avoidance tendencies},
author = {Fini, Chiara and Fischer, Maja and Bardi, Lara and Brass, Marcel and Moors, Agnes},
year = {2020},
month = jun,
journal = {Neuropsychologia},
volume = {143},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
issn = {107496},
doi = {j.neuropsychologia.2020.107496},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393220301676}
}
Previous behavioral studies using stimulus-response compatibility tasks have shown that people are faster to carry out instructed approach/avoidance responses to positive/negative stimuli. This result has been taken as evidence that positive/negative stimulus valence directly activates a tendency to approach/avoid, which in turn, facilitates execution of instructed approach/avoidance behavior. In these studies, however, it cannot be excluded that the results reflect a purely semantic link between stimulus valence and instructed responses. According to this alternative interpretation, positive/negative stimuli do not elicit an approach/avoidance tendency, but instead they interact with the positive/negative valence of the instructed responses, and in this way, produce the observed compatibility effect. To circumvent this possible disadvantage of compatibility tasks, we used a novel method for the measurement of early action tendencies: TMS induced MEPs. In two experiments, participants were first trained to abduct the index finger to approach and the thumb to avoid. Then, they observed a series of positive and negative stimuli. Each stimulus was followed by a TMS pulse (at 400 ms post-stimulus onset) and MEPs were measured continuously on the muscles of both fingers. These observation trials were randomly intermixed with response trials, in which neutral stimuli were presented and participants were instructed to approach/avoid the stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants received clear visual feedback on the outcome of their response in the response trials. In Experiment 2, we omitted this feedback to test whether it was necessary for the effect to occur. The results indicated higher MEPs for the approach/avoidance finger after positive/negative stimuli in Experiment 1 but not in Experiment 2. Analyses on the data aggregated over both experiments suggest that the visual feedback was necessary for stimulus valence to elicit action tendencies. Taken together, the results are in line with the results of behavioral studies with compatibility tasks, suggesting that stimulus valence directly elicits specific action tendencies already at 400 ms but they indicate that clear visual feedback is necessary for this effect to occur.
Fischer, M., Fini, C., Brass, M., & Moors, A. (2020). Early Approach and Avoidance Tendencies can be Goal-Directed: Support from a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study. In Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience (Vol. 20, pp. 648–657). Springer. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00793-6
@techreport{fischerapproachavoidancegoal2020,
title = {Early Approach and Avoidance Tendencies can be Goal-Directed: Support from a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study},
author = {Fischer, Maja and Fini, Chiari and Brass, Marcel and Moors, Agnes},
year = {2020},
month = apr,
journal = {Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience},
volume = {20},
publisher = {{Springer}},
issn = {3},
pages = {648-657},
doi = {10.3758/s13415-020-00793-6},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13415-020-00793-6}
}
Dual-process models with a default-interventionist architecture explain early emotional action tendencies by a stimulus-driven process, and they allow goal-directed processes to intervene only in a later stage. An alternative dual-process model with a parallel-competitive architecture developed by Moors, Boddez, and De Houwer (Emotion Review, 9(4), 310-318, 2017), in contrast, explains early emotional action tendencies by a goal-directed process. This model proposes that stimulus-driven and goal-directed processes often operate in parallel and compete with each other, and that if they do compete, the goal-directed process often wins the competition. To examine these predictions, we set up a goal-directed process in an experimental group by rewarding participants for avoiding positive stimuli and for approaching negative stimuli and punishing them for the opposite behavior. We expected this process to compete with a potentially preexisting stimulus-driven process in which positive stimuli are associated with approach and negative stimuli with avoidance. We compared the elicited action tendencies of participants in this group with a control group in which only the stimulus-driven process could operate. Early approach and avoidance tendencies were assessed via motor evoked potentials (MEP) measured in the finger muscles previously trained to approach or to avoid stimuli after single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) delivered at 400 ms. Results confirmed that positive/negative stimuli led to stronger avoidance/approach tendencies in the experimental group but not to approach/avoidance tendencies in the control group. This suggests that goal-directed processes are indeed able to determine relatively early emotional action tendencies, but it does not show that goal-directed process can defeat stimulus-driven processes.
Goris, J., Brass, M., Cambier, C., Delplanque, J., Wiersema, J. R., & Braem, S. (2020). The Relation Between Preference for Predictability and Autistic Traits. In Autism Research (Vol. 13, pp. 1144–1154). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1002/aur.2244
@techreport{gorispredictabilityautistic2020,
title = {The Relation Between Preference for Predictability and Autistic Traits},
author = {Goris, Judith and Brass, Marcel and Cambier, Charlotte and Delplanque, Jeroen and Wiersema, Jan R and Braem, Senne},
year = {2020},
month = dec,
journal = {Autism Research},
volume = {13},
publisher = {{John Wiley & Sons, Inc.}},
issn = {7},
pages = {1144-1154},
doi = {doi.org/10.1002/aur.2244},
url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/aur.2244}
}
A common idea about individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is that they have an above-average preference for predictability and sameness. However, surprisingly little research has gone toward this core symptom, and some studies suggest the preference for predictability in ASD might be less general than commonly assumed. Here, we investigated this important symptom of ASD using three different paradigms, which allowed us to measure preference for predictability under well-controlled experimental conditions. Specifically, we used a dimensional approach by investigating correlations between autistic traits (as measured with the Autism-Spectrum Quotient and Social Responsiveness Scale in a neurotypical population) and the scores on three different tasks. The “music preference” task assessed preferences for tone sequences that varied in predictability. The “perceptual fluency” task required participants to evaluate stimuli that were preceded by a similar versus dissimilar subliminally presented prime. The “gambling” task presented four decks of cards that had equal outcome probabilities but varied in predictability. We observed positive correlations between autistic traits and a preference for predictability in both the music preference and perceptual fluency task. We did not find our hypothesized correlation with gambling behavior but did observe a post hoc correlation showing that participants with more autistic traits were faster to choose the predictable deck. Together, these findings show that a relation between autistic traits and preference for predictability can be observed in a standardized lab environment, and should be considered an important first step toward a better, more mechanistic understanding of insistence on sameness in ASD.
Durnez, W., Bombeke, K., Joundi, J., Zheleva, A., Cracco, E., Copman, F., Brass, M., Saldien, J., & Marez, L. D. (2020). Fake people, real effects. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (Vol. 12190, pp. 440–452). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49695-1_29
@techreport{durnezfakepeople2020,
title = {Fake people, real effects},
author = {Durnez, Wouter and Bombeke, Klaas and Joundi, Jamil and Zheleva, Aleksandra and Cracco, Emiel and Copman, Fran and Brass, Marcel and Saldien, Jelle and Marez, Lieven De},
year = {2020},
month = jul,
journal = {International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction},
volume = {12190},
publisher = {{Springer, Cham}},
pages = {440-452},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-49695-1_29},
url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-49695-1_29}
}
Can effects of social influence be elicited in virtual contexts, and if so, under which conditions can they be observed? Answering these questions has theoretical merit, as the answers can help broaden our understanding of the interaction mechanisms described by social psychology. The increasing popularity of immersive media in training applications, however, has made these questions of practical significance. Virtual reality (VR), in particular, is a weapon of choice in designing training and education simulations, as it can be used to generate highly realistic characters and environments. As a consequence, it is key to understand under which circumstances virtual ‘others’ can facilitate or impede performance and – especially – learning. In this study, we investigated the impact of virtual onlookers on an adapted Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task that was presented in VR. In each trial, participants responded to a series of spherical stimuli by tapping them with handheld controllers when they lit up. Depending on the experiment block, the sequence order was either the permutation of a fixed order (and therefore predictable given the first stimulus), or fully random (and therefore unpredictable). Participants were divided into three groups (audience variable), depending on the environment in which the task was set: a group without onlookers (none condition), a group with a computer-generated audience (CGI condition), and a group being watched by a prerecorded audience (filmed condition). Results showed that the presence of a virtual audience can hamper both overall performance and learning, particularly when the audience appears more realistic. This study further reinforces the notion that the effects of social influence transcend the physical presence of others, but rather extend to virtual audiences.
Hudson, A. R., Orlemann, C., Tricht, T. V., Brass, M., & Mueller, S. C. (2020). Depression, trauma and mentalizing: No influence of depressive symptoms on spontaneous theory of mind in a subclinical sample. In International journal of social psychiatry (Vol. 66, pp. 442–451). Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764020914918
@techreport{hudsontraumamentalizing2020,
title = {Depression, trauma and mentalizing: No influence of depressive symptoms on spontaneous theory of mind in a subclinical sample},
author = {Hudson, Anna R and Orlemann, Corinne and Tricht, Tine Van and Brass, Marcel and Mueller, Sven C},
year = {2020},
month = aug,
journal = {International journal of social psychiatry},
volume = {66},
publisher = {{Sage Publications}},
pages = {442-451},
doi = {10.1177/0020764020914918},
url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0020764020914918}
}
Depressive symptoms are associated with impaired social functioning, arguably because of reduced mentalizing abilities. However, findings in persons with depressive symptoms and/or major depressive disorder (MDD) are presently mixed, finding evidence both for and against the hypothesis of reduced mentalizing abilities. This study investigated spontaneous cognitive mentalizing in 36 age-, sex- and education-matched students with depressive symptoms and 45 comparisons with minimal depressive symptoms. To assess spontaneous mentalizing, we used the implicit theory of mind (ToM) task, which looks specifically at spontaneous computation of false belief. Bayesian analysis did not support the hypothesis of impaired mentalizing; in fact, it suggested that the results were 3.90 times more likely to have occurred under the null hypothesis. Results remained stable when comparing depressed and non-depressed individuals without maltreatment exposure but were inconclusive in the maltreatment-exposed groups. The findings suggest no effect of spontaneous mentalizing in a high-functioning depressed sample. Moreover, the findings also emphasize the need to control for childhood maltreatment experiences in future ToM and social functioning research, as these may constitute subgroups within depressed samples. Tailored therapy for maltreated depression individuals may be beneficial.
Formica, S., González-García, C., & Brass, M. (2020). The effects of declaratively maintaining and proactively proceduralizing novel stimulus-response mappings. In Cognition (Vol. 201). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104295
@techreport{formicaproceduralizing2020,
title = {The effects of declaratively maintaining and proactively proceduralizing novel stimulus-response mappings},
author = {Formica, Silvia and González-García, Carlos and Brass, Marcel},
year = {2020},
month = aug,
journal = {Cognition},
volume = {201},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
issn = {104295},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104295},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010027720301141}
}
Working memory (WM) allows for the maintenance and manipulation of information when carrying out ongoing tasks. Recent models propose that representations in WM can be either in a declarative format (as content of thought) or in a procedural format (in an action-oriented state that drives the cognitive operation to be performed). Current views on the implementation of novel instructions also acknowledge this distinction, assuming these are first encoded as declarative content, and then reformatted into an action-oriented procedural representation upon task demands. Although it is widely accepted that WM has a limited capacity, little is known about the reciprocal costs of maintaining instructions in a declarative format and transforming them in an action code. In a series of three experiments, we asked participants to memorize two or four S-R mappings (i.e., declarative load), and then selected a subset of them by means of a retro-cue to trigger their reformatting into an action-oriented format (i.e., procedural load). We measured the performance in the implementation of the proceduralized mapping and in the declarative recall of the entire set of memorized mappings, to test how the increased load on one component affected the functioning of the other. Our results showed a strong influence of declarative load on the processing of the procedural component, but no effects in the opposite direction. This pattern of results suggests an asymmetry in the costs of maintenance and manipulation in WM, at least when procedural representations cannot be retrieved from long term memory and need to be reformatted online. The available resources seem to be first deployed for the maintenance of all the task-relevant declarative content, and proceduralization takes place to the extent the system can direct attention to the relevant instruction.
El Kaddouri, R., Bardi, L., Bremaeker, D. D., Brass, M., & Wiersema, J. R. (2020). Measuring spontaneous mentalizing with a ball detection task: putting the attention-check hypothesis by Phillips and colleagues (2015) to the test. In Psychological Research (Vol. 84, pp. 1749–1757). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01181-7
@techreport{rachidamentalizingballdetection2020,
title = {Measuring spontaneous mentalizing with a ball detection task: putting the attention-check hypothesis by Phillips and colleagues (2015) to the test},
author = {El Kaddouri, Rachida and Bardi, Lara and Bremaeker, Diana De and Brass, Marcel and Wiersema, Jan R},
year = {2020},
month = sep,
journal = {Psychological Research},
volume = {84},
publisher = {{Springer}},
issn = {6},
pages = {1749-1757},
doi = {10.1007/s00426-019-01181-7},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-019-01181-7#citeas}
}
Theory of Mind (ToM) or mentalizing refers to the ability to attribute mental states (such as desires, beliefs or intentions) to oneself or others. ToM has been argued to operate in an explicit and an implicit or a spontaneous way. In their influential paper, Kovács et al. (Science 330:1830–1834, 2010) introduced an adapted false belief task—a ball detection task—for the measurement of spontaneous ToM. Since then, several studies have successfully used versions of this paradigm to investigate spontaneous ToM. This paradigm has, however, been criticized by Phillips et al. (Psychol Sci 26(9):1353–1367, 2015), who argue that the effects are fully explained by timing artifacts in the paradigm, namely differences in timing of the attention check. The main objective of the current study is to test this attention-check hypothesis. An additional aim was to relate the findings to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptomatology in our neurotypical sample, as ASD has been linked to deficits in spontaneous mentalizing. We applied an adjusted version of the paradigm in which the timings for all conditions are equalized, ruling out any potential timing confounds. We found significant main effects of own and agent beliefs on reaction times. Additionally, we found a significant ‘ToM-effect’: When participants believe the ball is absent, they detect the ball faster if the agent believes the ball would be present rather than absent, which refers to the original effect in the paper of Kovács et al. (2010), taken as evidence for spontaneous ToM and which was contested by Phillips et al. (2015). Our findings cannot be explained by the attention-check hypothesis. Effects could not be associated with ASD symptoms in our neurotypical sample, warranting further investigation on the link between spontaneous mentalizing and ASD.