The relations between temporal and social perceptual biases: Evidence from perceptual matching

Hyunji Kim,Moritz Stolte,Glyn W Humphreys

doi:10.3758/s13414-018-01662-8

Hyunji Kim, Moritz Stolte + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-018-01662-8

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Abstract

We report a new “now-bias” effect on simple perceptual matching between shapes and labels and examined the relation between this now-bias effect and the self-bias previously established with this task (Sui, He, & Humphreys, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 1105–1117, 2012). The perceptual biases favoring present-relevant and self-relevant information were correlated with each other, suggesting a common underlying mechanism. Nevertheless, temporal biases in decision making, specifically in temporal discounting, correlated with the perceptual self-bias but not with the perceptual now-bias. We suggest that common attentional biases to present-relevant and self-relevant information mediate perceptual prioritization, whereas temporal discounting is likely involved in a separate reward evaluation mechanism that relates to self-bias processes.

Highlights

We report a new Bnow-bias^ effect on simple perceptual matching between shapes and labels and examined the relation between this now-bias effect and the self-bias previously established with this task (Sui, He, & Humphreys, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 1105–1117, 2012)
We investigated whether the perceptual prioritization of proximate over distant selves relates to the prioritization of proximate over distant options often observed in higher-level decision-making
Following the analyses used in Sui et al (2012), a 5 × 2 fully repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) on reaction times (RTs) was conducted for correct trials only

Summary

Introduction

We report a new Bnow-bias^ effect on simple perceptual matching between shapes and labels and examined the relation between this now-bias effect and the self-bias previously established with this task (Sui, He, & Humphreys, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 1105–1117, 2012). By using an association approach, the paradigm reveals perceptual prioritization for neutral shapes when they are associated with self-relevant information We utilized this paradigm to examine perceptual bias in the temporal domain and its relations to self-bias (Sui. Accumulating evidence suggests that the conceptualization of the self extends to social, and to temporal, domains (for a review, see Buckner & Carroll, 2007) and that mental representations of such socially and temporally extended selves operate under a shared cognitive mechanism (e.g., Bar-Anan, Liberman, & Trope, 2006; Tamir & Mitchell, 2011; for reviews, see Fiedler, Jung, Wänke, & Alexopoulos, 2012; Liberman & Trope, 2008; Maglio, Trope, & Liberman, 2013). We investigated whether the perceptual prioritization of proximate (i.e., self, ) over distant (i.e., other, later) selves relates to the prioritization of proximate over distant options often observed in higher-level decision-making (i.e., intertemporal choice)

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