Shana Cole

Affective Signals of Threat Increase Perceived Proximity

Do stimuli appear to be closer when they are more threatening? We tested people’s perceptions of distance to stimuli that they felt were threatening relative to perceptions of stimuli they felt were disgusting or neutral. Two studies demonstrated that stimuli that emitted affective signals of threat (e.g., an aggressive male student) were seen as physically closer than stimuli that emitted affective signals of disgust (e.g., a repulsive male student) or no affective signal. Even after controlling for the direct effects of physiological arousal, object familiarity, and intensity of the negative emotional reaction, we found that threatening stimuli appeared to be physically closer than did disgusting ones (Study 2). These findings highlight the links among biased perception, action regulation, and successful navigation of the environment.

Effects of Implementation Intentions on Anxiety, Perceived Proximity, and Motor Performance

Anxiety leads to exaggerated perceptions of distance, which may impair performance on a physical task. In two studies, we tested one strategy to reduce anxiety and induce perceived proximity to increase performance. We predicted implementation intentions that reduce anxiety would increase perceived visual proximity to goal-relevant targets, which would indirectly improve performance. In two studies, we induced performance anxiety on a physical task. Participants who formed implementation intentions to reduce anxiety perceived goal-relevant targets (e.g., golf hole, dartboard) as physically closer and performed better than both participants without a strategy (Study 1) and participants with only a goal to regulate anxiety (Study 2). Furthermore, perceived proximity improved performance indirectly by increasing subjective task ease (Study 2). Results suggest that implementation intentions can reduce anxiety and lead to perceived proximity of goal-relevant targets, which helps perceivers make progress on goals.

Visual perception and regulatory conflict: Motivation and physiology influence distance perception

Regulatory conflict can emerge when people experience a strong motivation to act on goals but a conflicting inclination to withhold action because physical resources available, or physiological potentials, are low. This study demonstrated that distance perception is biased in ways that theory suggests assists in managing this conflict. Participants estimated the distance to a target location. Individual differences in physiological potential measured via waist-to-hip ratio interacted with manipulated motivational states to predict visual perception. Among people low in physiological potential and likely to experience regulatory conflict, the environment appeared easier to traverse when motivation was strong compared with weak. Among people high in potential and less likely to experience conflict, perception was not predicted by motivational strength. The role of motivated distance perception in self-regulation is discussed.

In the Eye of the Betrothed Perceptual Downgrading of Attractive Alternative Romantic Partners

People in monogamous relationships can experience a conflict when they interact with an attractive individual. They may have a desire to romantically pursue the new person, while wanting to be faithful to their partner. How do people manage the threat that attractive alternatives present to their relationship goals? We suggest that one way people defend their relationships against attractive individuals is by perceiving the individual as less attractive. In two studies, using a novel visual matching paradigm, we found support for a perceptual downgrading effect. People in relationships perceived threatening attractive individuals as less attractive than did single participants. The effect was exacerbated among participants who were highly satisfied with their current relationships. The studies provide evidence for a perceptual bias that emerges to protect long-term goals. We discuss the findings within the context of a broader theory of motivated perception in the service of self-control.

Perceiving Systematically, Not Just Differently: Calling for Perceptual Models With Explanatory Power

Evidence across social psychology, vision science, health science, judgment and decision making, and affective neuroscience suggests that perception is inherently tied to social experiences. To this ever-expanding body of evidence, Y. Jenny Xiao, G eraldine Coppin, and Jay J. Van Bavel (hereafter referred to as XCVB) proffer an extensive list of perceptual (and attentional, judgmental, and memory) biases that are predicted by many factors relevant to social groups. XCVB’s assemblage serves to catalog and organize relevant findings and clearly suggests that context is capable of changing perception (broadly speaking) and impacting behavioral outcomes particularly within the domain of intergroup relations. However, any approach holds a trade-off. Within XCVB’s target article, the choice to compile such a broad array of effects comes at the expense of offering a theory that is high in explanatory power. The “New Look” literature (e.g., Bruner & Goodman, 1947) and its descendants have historically been plagued with one-off, isolated studies seeking to demonstrate that social factors are capable of shifting perceptual experience. Anthologies, like this one, that stop with amassing relevant findings do not go far enough to advance the state of knowledge; the act of compiling relevant findings should serve the larger goal of building a theoretical model. A perceptual model of intergroup relations that pushes the field forward, resolves inconsistencies, increases coherence, advances novel insights and predictions, and inspires the next wave of research needs to go beyond stating that perceptual experiences between people and contexts can vary and that social group variables help to account for some of this variability. Instead, we encourage researchers, and XCVB in particular, to develop theories that propose systematic and directional shifts in perceptual experiences. Researchers must model those factors that extremitize, minimize, or foster veridicality within perceptual experience; explain how and why characteristics of a perceiver and the environment can systematically shape perception; and specify the functions served by such perceptual biases. In so doing, they will increase the precision and clarity of the model while reducing the possibility of deriving mutually contradictory conclusions from the model’s assumptions; this increases the model’s coherence (Trope, 2004). It is not enough to say that people perceive the world differently. We must explain how and why people perceive the world systematically. Models relevant to the social psychology of visual perception that are capable of offering high explanatory power are being developed at present. Here we review two bodies of work to which we have contributed that are doing just that. The first body of work involves motivated distance perception, and a second within the domain of intergroup relations involves motivated perception of skin tone. These lines of work and the models that are emerging from them propose that specific visual experiences arise under prespecified conditions in order to facilitate goal-relevant responding. These models demonstrate the benefits of attempting to address how and why people vary systematically in their perceptual experiences, rather than simply stating that people do differ. Moreover, we evaluate the ability of these developing models to offer high explanatory power according to established evaluative criteria. Specifically, models with explanatory power (a) offer novel predictions; (b) can reconcile conflicting findings; (c) can be evaluated in terms of the amount of data that are consistent rather than inconsistent with the models’ predictions, thereby increasing coherence; and (d) integrate narrower models (Trope, 2004). We consider the ability of two emerging perceptual models to accomplish these aims and encourage the development of perceptual models of intergroup relations to aspire to achieve these criteria as well.

Task demand not so damning: Improved techniques that mitigate demand in studies that support top-down effects

Firestone & Scholls (F&Ss) techniques to combat task demand by manipulating expectations and offering alternative cover stories are fundamentally flawed because they introduce new forms of demand. We review five superior techniques to mitigate demand used in confirmatory studies of top-down effects. We encourage researchers to apply the same standards when evaluating evidence on both sides of the debate.