Listening to music reduces eye movements

Listening to music can change the way that people visually experience the environment, probably as a result of an inwardly directed shift of attention. We investigated whether this attentional shift can be demonstrated by reduced eye movement activity, and if so, whether that reduction depends on absorption. Participants listened to their preferred music, to unknown neutral music, or to no music while viewing a visual stimulus (a picture or a film clip). Preference and absorption were significantly higher for the preferred music than for the unknown music. Participants exhibited longer fixations, fewer saccades, and more blinks when they listened to music than when they sat in silence. However, no differences emerged between the preferred music condition and the neutral music condition. Thus, music significantly reduces eye movement activity, but an attentional shift from the outer to the inner world (i.e., to the emotions and memories evoked by the music) emerged as only one potential explanation. Other explanations, such as a shift of attention from visual to auditory input, are discussed

The confidence-frequency effect: A heuristic process explanation

People’s feelings of confidence in the correctness of their knowledge while answering a knowledge test can be inferred in two ways: either by averaging the values of specific confidence values assigned to each item in a test (local confidence) or by asking after the termination of the test for an evaluation of the number of correct answers regarding the entire test (global confidence). Surprisingly, when local and global confidence values of the same test are compared, global confidence tends to be significantly lower than local confidence (the confidence frequency effect). In the present study a heuristic process explanation for the effect is presented and its validity is empirically tested. The global confidence heuristic (GCH) process is based on the ability of participants to recall, after a test was completed, the frequencies of specific confidence values which were assigned to the test’s items. Participants build their global confidence by adding about half the number of their guessed answers, to the number of questions with sure answers. The proposed GCH process was supported quantitatively. A content analysis on retrospective explanations provided by participants indicated that this process was feasible. Further research is needed in order to fully explore the power of the explanation suggested here for the confidence-frequency effect

Two sides of the same coin: Information processing style and reverse biases

This paper examines the effect of information processing styles (indexed by the Rational-Experiential Inventory of Pacini and Epstein, 1999) on adherence to bias judgments, and particularly to reverse biases; i.e., when two choice questions that comprise identical normative components are set in different situations and yield seemingly opposite behavioral biases. We found consistent evidence for a negative correlation between rational score and adherence to reverse biases, as well as overall biases, for all three pairs of reverse biases tested. Further, this effect of rational thinking was more pronounced for high experiential individuals, in that high-rational and high-experiential participants committed fewer biases than all other participants. These results lend weight to our claim that low-rational individuals, who are more sensitive to the context, are more prone to utilize some attribute of the provided information when it is uncalled for, but at the same time tend to ignore it or give it too little weight when it is a crucial factor in a normative decision process

Faster is briefer: The symbolic meaning of speed influences time perception

The present study investigates how the symbolic meaning of the stimuli presented for marking time intervals affects perceived duration. Participants were engaged in a time bisection task in which they were first trained with two standard durations, 400 ms and 1600 ms, and then asked to judge if the following temporal intervals were closer to the short or to the long standard. Stimuli were images of vehicles representing speed, with a motorbike representing fastness and a bicycle representing slowness. Results showed that presenting images with different speed meanings affects time perception: an image representing a fast object, the motorbike, leads to shorter perceived time than presenting an image representing a slower object, the bicycle. This finding is attributed to an impact on the memory mechanism involved in the processing of temporal information. -- Keywords : Symbolic meaning of speed . Time perception . Bisection tas

Two sides of the same coin: Information processing style and reverse biases

This paper examines the effect of information processing styles (indexed by the Rational-Experiential Inventory of Pacini and Epstein, 1999) on adherence to bias judgments, and particularly to reverse biases; i.e., when two choice questions that comprise identical normative components are set in different situations and yield seemingly opposite behavioral biases. We found consistent evidence for a negative correlation between rational score and adherence to reverse biases, as well as overall biases, for all three pairs of reverse biases tested. Further, this effect of rational thinking was more pronounced for high experiential individuals, in that high-rational and high-experiential participants committed fewer biases than all other participants. These results lend weight to our claim that low-rational individuals, who are more sensitive to the context, are more prone to utilize some attribute of the provided information when it is uncalled for, but at the same time tend to ignore it or give it too little weight when it is a crucial factor in a normative decision process.Rational-Experiential Inventory, cognitive bias, individual differences.