Self-construal priming selectively modulates the scope of visual attention

Self-concept is one of the major factors to explain the cultural differences between East Asians and Westerners. In the field of visual attention, most studies have focused on the modulation of visual spatial-based attention, whereas possible influences of culture or self-concept on other types of visual attention remain largely unexplored. The present study investigated the possible modulation of visual feature-based attention by self-concept, using a within-group self-construal priming design. The experiment paradigm employed visual stimuli consisted of two intermixing random dot clouds presented in the focal visual field with red and green colors. After primed with an interdependent, independent or neutral self-construal, the participants were instructed to attend to one of the focally presented dot cloud and respond to occasional luminance decrement events of the attended dot cloud. The detection of the focal events was found to be significantly faster when exogenously cued by a peripheral dot cloud of either the same or different colors as the attended focal dot cloud (congruent / incongruent), compared to the uncued condition. More importantly, the self-construal priming took effect only on the reaction time (RT) differences between the congruent and incongruent cued conditions: the participants responded much slower to incongruent cued events than congruent cued events under interdependent self-construal priming, while the RT difference was significantly smaller under independent self-construal priming. A closer look on the results suggests that the attention scope is selectively modulated by self-construal priming, and the modulation is mainly reflected by varying the degree of suppression on the processing of the incongruent contextual stimuli that do not share visual features with the focal object. Our findings provide new evidences that could possibly extend the current understanding on the cultural influence on visual attention

What’s in the Chinese Babyface? Cultural differences in understanding the babyface

We investigated the cultural differences in understanding and reacting to the babyface in an effort to identify both cultural and gender biases in the universal hypothesis that the babyfaced individuals are perceived as naïve, cute, innocent and more trustworthy. Sixty-six Chinese and sixty-six American participants were required to evaluate Chinese faces selected from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) - Pose, Expression, Accessories, and Lighting (PEAL) Large-Scale Chinese Face Database. In our study, we applied Active Shape Models, a modern technique of machine learning to measure facial features. We found some cultural similarities and also found that a Chinese babyface has bigger eyes, higher eyebrows, a smaller chin and greater WHR (Facial width-to-height ratio), and looks more attractive and warmer. New findings demonstrate that Chinese babyfaces have a lower forehead and closer pupil distance. We found that when evaluating the babyfacedness of a face, Chinese are more concerned with the combination of all facial features and American are more sensitive to specific highlighted babyfaced features. The Chinese babyface tended to be perceived as more babyfaced for American participants, but not less competent for Chinese participants

Gender differences in the perception of crowd perception

In this study, we investigated whether the first impression of a crowd of faces—crowd perception—is influenced by social background and cognitive processing. Specifically, we explored whether males and females, two groups that are distinct biologically and socially, differ in their ability to extract ensemble characteristics from crowds of faces that were comprised of different identities. Participants were presented with crowds of similar faces and were instructed to scroll through a morphed continuum of faces until they found a face that was representative of the average identity of each crowd. Consistent with previous research, females were more precise in single face perception. Furthermore, the results showed that females were generally more accurate in estimating the average identity of a crowd. However, the correlation between single face discrimination and crowd averaging differed between males and females. Specifically, male subjects’ ensemble integration superiority slightly compensated for their poor single face perception; their performance on the crowd perception task was not as poor as would be expected from their single face discrimination ability. Overall, the results suggest that group perception is not an isolated or uniform cognitive mechanism, but rather one that interacts with biological and social processes

The Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex Modulates Dialectical Self-Thinking

Dialectical self-thinking involves holding the view that one can possess contradictory traits such as extraverted and introverted. Prior work has demonstrated that the dorsal part of anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) plays a crucial role in conflict monitoring as well as self-related processing. Here we tested the function of dACC in dialectical self-thinking using a modified classical self-referential paradigm (self- vs. other-referential thinking), in which participants had to make a judgment whether a simultaneously presented pair of contradictory or non-contradictory traits properly described them while brain activity was recording using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The data showed that activity in the dACC during the processing of self-relevant conflicting information was positively correlated with participants' dispositional level of naïve dialecticism (measured with the Dialectical Self Scale). Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses further revealed increased functional connectivity between the dACC and the caudate, middle temporal gyrus and hippocampus during the processing of self-relevant conflicting information for dialectical thinkers. These results support the hypothesis that the dACC has a key role in dialectical self-thinking