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We're investigating whether the self-prioritization effect extends to stimuli from other categories (in this case, vegetables) that hold personal significance to individuals using a perceptual-matching task with an experimental and a yoked-control group.

Investigating the self-prioritization effect on stimuli modulated by the law of similarity.

Umilta & Liotti (1987) observed that the classic Simon effect vanishes when such egocentric SR-compatibility is factorially combined with local SR-compatibility, unless a temporal delay is inserted between presentation of the local reference frame and the target stimulus. On the contrary, a conceptual replication of this study by one of the present authors found the Simon effect to be attenuated but not fully vanished in the no-delay condition. Notably, however, small design differences existed between the studies, such as whether a color or shape discrimination task was employed. The rationale for the present study can be subsumed under two points: 1) We aim to test whether the disparate results are due to these subtle design/setup differences between the studies. Thus, we expect to replicate the results of Umilta and Lotti (1987) under conditions of a direct replication (equal setup/design). 2) We aim to better understand the causes of the observed modulation by complementing mean reaction time (RT) analysis with distributional-level analysis. Specifically, it has been suggested that the time-course of the congruency effect as measured via delta plots (DPs) depends on the relative timing of target and distractor processing (e.g., Ulrich et al., 2015; Mackenzie et al., 2022). Accordingly, we expect the DP slopes of the Simon effect to differ between the delay conditions.

The object context effect refers to how the environment or background of an object affects how we perceive or understand the object. Researchers from previous studies concluded that a critical factor in the object context effect is the presence of features that allow upward and downward stimuli to be encoded as left and right with respect to the rotated background. What is not yet known is whether certain objects, lack salient features that enable spatial encoding. The current study aims to discover whether an object context effect occurs when such a salient feature is added to objects.

In this study, we investigate if body position has an influence on a spatial compatibility task. Participants had to perform a stimulus compatibility task in which the relevant stimulus feature is the location of the stimulus (also known as stimulus compatibility proper). Participants have to complete the task in two different body position, once standing upright and once being tilted at a 20 degree angle along the horizontal plane. To manipulate the body position a gyroscope was used. Note that both body positions conditions were conducted with the participants being in the gyroscope.

The aim of this experiment is to investigate the changes in the self-prioritization effect (SPE) after owning a self-related object for one week.

It is well known that humans possess the ability to empathize and take the perspective of others. Previous research has shown that individuals are capable of this process of perspective-taking, which is influenced by situational characteristics. Generally, there is a tendency to alter the frame of reference in order to create dimensional overlap between a stimulus and the response, particularly when they are orthogonal to each other. Perspective-taking can thus serve as a valid strategy to reduce incompatible response effects and enhance compatible ones. Böffel and Müsseler (2019) have already shown that context-dependent features are crucial for whether perspective-taking takes place in a Simon task. Furthermore, they also found that perspective taking towards a human-like avatar has a significantly larger impact on the SRC effect compared to characters that have no resemblance to a human at all. This is why we would like to investigate whether the design of the avatar has a significant impact on whether visual perspective-taking occurs and whether the size or presence of the stimulus-response compatibility effect in a Simon task is influenced by the use of different avatar types.

In our experiment we want to examine if the body position influences the Simon effect in an internal or external condition

The experimental task of this Experiment is similar to that of Sui et al. (2016), which showed that moods modulate the self-prioritization effect measured with a label–shape matching task. We will use the Velten mood induction procedure (Velten, 1968) to induct three different mood states: neutral and positive or negative. The participants are going to read a list of emotional statements while listening to emotional music for 10 minutes. Each participant runs through the neutral condition executing the label-shape matching task as a baseline, followed by either the positive or negative condition with the same label-shape matching task again. In the middle of the task there is a refreshment of the mood induction by listening to a short version of the music again. In the task participants are instructed to associate three identity labels (“Ich”, “Freund”/”Freundin”, “Fremder”/”Fremde”) to three geometric shapes (circle, square, triangle). The pairing of the labels and shapes are counterbalanced across participants. At the beginning of the label–shape matching task, correct pairings of the labels and shapes are presented on the computer for the participants to learn. In each trial the task for the participant is to decide whether the following label-shape-pairs match the previously learned.

The Simon task is well-known for showing robust effects of task-irrelevant features such as spatial features on performance. However, this effect has been shown to be influenced by various manipulations regarding spatial as well as other features. Recently, modulated Simon effects were reported when using for instance verbal stimulus material next to horizontal and vertical stimulus arrangements (Gade et al. 2020). Here we set out to investigate yet another potentially influential variable namely implied agency as operationalized by self-prioritization. The effect of self-prioritization (Sui et al. 2012) reveals that self-related information is processed faster and more accurately in perceptual-matching tasks. Yet, being the causal agent creating an action effect has also been shown to affect the Simon effect (Hommel 1993). This experiment aims at investigating whether implied agency information modulates the Simon effect. To this end a stick figure manikin holding a colorful ball in its left or right hand will be augmented with labels (“me”, ”friend” or ”colleague”). This task will be carried out in a vertical and horizontal layout of the Simon task. The current study investigates the influence of implied agency in both stimulus setups of the Simon task.

Golubickis et al. (2021a) investigated the relation between executive functioning and self-prioritization and found that self-relevance affects executive control by causing inhibition failures. What remains open is whether those inhibition failures also emerge in other components of executive functioning. As a fundamental component in executive functioning, Cognitive control is linked to selective attention in a way, that cognitive control functions direct selective attention in accordance to task-relevant information by maintaining current priorities of stimulus processing between relevant goals and irrelevant distractors (Lavie et al., 2004). With regard to the self-prioritization effect, it is known that the processing of self-related stimuli is facilitated in contrast to stimuli which are associated with others (Sui et al., 2012). Further studies already investigated the relationship between self-prioritization and selective attention processes, including inhibition and cognitive control. Golubickis et al. (2021b) for example used a flanker task to show attentional prioritization of personally meaningful stimuli and the cognitive origin of this effect. They argued that the lower levels of flanker interference when the to-be-judged targets were self-relevant (vs. friend-relevant) might have two different underlying processes. While it might be easier to direct attention to self-relevant targets, it might also be harder to disengage from self-relevant flankers. We want to further investigate these processes and extend their experiment by implementing a third target item. The new target item is a stranger-associated stimulus that makes it possible to investigate whether the inhibition of self-associated flankers is impaired in comparison to non-self-associated flankers. An additional research interest derives from the finding, that the amount of response competition from incongruent distractors in static displays is not solely determined by their distance from the target (Baylis & Driver, 1992). In this context, Fox (1998) stated that spatially proximal items provide an important grouping cue that is efficient in directing visual attention to particular locations in visual space, but that other grouping factors (e.g. common or different color) can have similar effects in directing visual attention. In line with the finding, that self-relevant stimuli might capture visual attention easier or might make it harder to disengage, respectively, we want to investigate, if the association of a flanker as self-relevant or other-relevant might influences the effect of proximity between target and distractor. Therefore, we manipulate the distance between the target stimulus and the flanker (near vs. far). We assume that enlarging the distance between target and flanker facilitates the processing of target stimuli as well as facilitates the inhibition of the flanking stimuli, but that this effect is smaller for incompatible trials with self-associated flanker compared with incompatible trials with other-associated flanker.

The Social Simon Effect (SSE) occurs where the compatibility of spatial positions of a stimulus and its response key affects the behavior of two participants performing a Go/NoGo task together. In these kinds of task, stimuli are arbitrary associated with the different co-actors, for example through assigning one particular stimulus color to each co-actor. Both participants carry out this Go/NoGo task together (joint condition) or alone (individual condition). An open question is whether the SSE would still be present with the involvement of more participants. For example, when three persons perform a Go/NoGo Simon task along side one another. Here, we can differentiate between the middle seating position (having a co-actor to either side) and the out seating positions (having a co-actor only to the middle side). The present research explores the effects of a extended the Simon task to three actors.

The self-priorisation effect is investigated under a cooperative setting with a co-actor.

PhD project

The current study relates to the latest results concerning the self-prioritization of fully unfamiliar faces. Applying the proper matching paradigm, research did not focus on the visual stimuli systematically but investigated much more effort on the specific labels used in the task so far. This attempt however, intends to discover underlying processes of the stimulus itself. Thus, in a current study we covered faces with masks assuming to detect differences between masked faces and non-masked ones. However, the effort didn't result in significant differences in reactiontime and accuracy. This study however uses modified stimuli with eye-covered masks hypothesizing the eyes beeing a more important facial cue in face-recognition and therefore might predict a faster and more accurate performance in the matching paradigm.