How the fear of COVID-19 changed the way we look at human faces

Do we look at persons currently or previously affected by COVID-19 the same way as we do with healthy ones? In this eye-tracking study, we investigated how participants (N = 54) looked at faces of individuals presented as \u201cCOVID-19 Free\u201d, \u201cSick with COVID-19\u201d, or \u201cRecovered from COVID-19\u201d. Results showed that participants tend to look at the eyes of COVID-19-free faces longer than at those of both COVID-19-related faces. Crucially, we also found an increase of visual attention for the mouth of the COVID-19-related faces, possibly due to the threatening characterisation of such area as a transmission vehicle for SARS-CoV-2. Thus, by detailing how people dynamically changed the way of looking at faces as a function of the perceived risk of contagion, we provide the first evidence in the literature about the impact of the pandemic on the most basic level of social interaction

Unveiling the Associative Mechanisms Underlying the Additive Bias: Using an Implicit Association Test to Gain Insight into People's Preference for Additive Actions

ABSTRACTWhen faced with the need to transform an object, idea, or situation, people have a tendency to favor adding new components rather than removing existing ones. This is called the additive bias. Previous research, along with historical and anecdotal examples, shows that this bias may significantly reduce problem‐solving abilities and have a detrimental impact on the innovation process. In this study, our objective was to develop a novel tool, the additive bias implicit association test (ad‐IAT), to investigate the reasons underlying people's preference for additive actions. By using this tool, we empirically demonstrated that people displayed an inherent tendency to assign a positive valence to additive concepts and to perceive additive actions as safer and more functional than subtractive concepts. Importantly, we also found that implicit preference for addition resulted in participants favoring additive actions while neglecting subtractive alternatives when engaged in a problem‐solving task. Collectively, our series of experiments substantiated the effectiveness of our ad‐IAT in uncovering and quantifying the additive bias. This, in turn, provided a deeper comprehension of the underlying factors contributing to the bias and its impact on people's behavior.</jats:p

The visual encoding of graspable unfamiliar objects

International audienc

The Area Prostriata may play a role in technical reasoning

International audienceMost recent research indicated how technical reasoning (TR), namely, a specific form of causal reasoning aimed at understanding the physical world, may support the development of tools and technologies of increasing complexity. We have recently identified the Area PF of the left inferior parietal lobe (PF) as a critical structural correlate of TR, as assessed by using two ad-hoc psycho-technical tests evaluating the two main aspects of TR, i.e., physical world's understanding and visuospatial imagery. Here, we extended our findings by implementing new ad-hoc analyses of our previous data by using a whole-brain approach. Results showed that the cortical thickness (CT) of the left Area Prostriata of the visual cortex, alongside the left Area PF CT, predicts TR performance