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Humans operate in complex environments where social interactions require individuals to constantly attend to people and objects around them. Despite the complexity of these interactions from a visuomotor perspective, humans can engage and thrive in social settings. The purpose of the current study was to examine the simultaneous influence of multiple social cues (i.e., ownership and the presence of a coactor) on the processing of objects. Participants performed an object-based compatibility task in the presence and absence of a coacting confederate. Participants indicated whether pictures of mugs (that were either self-owned or unowned) were upright or inverted. The pictures appeared at one of 2 locations (a near or far location relative to the participant) on a computer screen laid flat on (parallel to) the tabletop. When present, the coactor stood on the opposite side of the screen/table. Analysis of response times (RTs) indicated that the processing of objects was influenced by the object's ownership status, the presence of the coactor, and where the object was located on the screen. Specifically, RTs for pictures of self-owned mugs were shorter than unowned mugs, but only when the pictures were located at the near location. Further, the presence of a confederate resulted in shorter RTs for pictures located at the near but not the far location. These findings suggest that when objects were placed at the far location, the additional social cues of ownership and social context did not influence visuomotor processing of the objects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The purpose of this study was to explore body image correlates of voluntary consumption of physique-salient media. A secondary aim was to assess changes in affect following media consumption. Young adult men (n = 47, mean age = 20.2 years) and women (n = 87, mean age = 19.5 years) were discretely exposed to images of same-sex models with idealized- and average-physiques while completing an irrelevant computer task. Voluntary gaze at the images was covertly recorded via hidden cameras. Participants also completed measures of affect before and after the computer task. Measures of body-related envy, body appreciation, and self-perceptions of attractiveness, thinness, and physical strength were completed. Men and women did not differ in how often nor for how long they looked at the images overall, but body image variables were differentially associated with their voluntary gaze behaviors. For men, higher body-related envy and lower body appreciation were correlated with more looks at the average-physique model. Although women reported higher body-related envy than men, envy and body appreciation were not significant correlates of gaze behaviors for women. Both men and women experienced a general affective decrease over time, but only for men was the change in negative affect associated with their time spent looking at the ideal-physique image. Overall, these findings suggest that body-related envy and body appreciation influence how men choose to consume physique-salient media, and that media consumption may have negative consequences for post-exposure affect. Body image factors appear to be more strongly associated with behavior in men, perhaps because men are generally less often exposed to physique-salient media and, in particular, to average-physique images.

Spatial skills allow us to mentally imagine and manipulate objects and their spatial relations. These skills are crucial in both every day and expert tasks. The present paper reports on an evaluation of a 3D game developed to train a specific spatial skill known as penetrative thinking—the ability to imagine cross-sections of 3D objects from their surface features. In the game, users change the location and orientation of a virtual plane to make cuts through 3D objects in a series of spatial puzzles. Users operate an interface to position the virtual plane until a “slice” at the location of the plane matches a target cross-section of a virtual object. Multiple spatial puzzles with different properties are completed throughout the game. In one version of the game, users completed the puzzles in an immersive virtual environment and operated a tangible interface to move the virtual plane. A secondary version of the game required users to view the puzzles in a virtual environment displayed on a computer screen, and to position the slicing plane with a keyboard and mouse. Participants (n= 45) completed a measure of penetrative thinking (Santa Barbara Solids Test) before and after completing one of three interventions: the game with the tangible interface (n= 15), the game with the keyboard interface (n= 15), or a series of (control) questions (n= 15). Although there were no significant pre-/post-intervention changes in penetrative thinking in any of the groups, participants' performance in the game correlated with scores on a standardized test of penetrative thinking. These results provide evidence that the game and the standardized test accessed similar spatial skills and, as a consequence, indicate that the 3D game has the potential to be a valid approach for training penetrative thinking skills.

Many researchers have proposed that when an individual observes the actions of another individual, the observer simulates the action using many of the same neural areas that are involved in action production. The present study was designed to test this simulation hypothesis by comparing the perception of multisensory stimuli during both the execution and observation of an aiming action. The present work used the fusion illusion - an audio-visual illusion in which two visual stimuli presented with one auditory stimulus are erroneously perceived as being one visual stimulus. Previous research has shown that, during action execution, susceptibly to this illusion is reduced early in the execution of the movement when visual information may be more highly weighted than other sensory information. We sought to determine whether or not a non-acting observer of an action showed a similar reduction in susceptibility to the fusion illusion. Participants fixated a target and either executed or observed a manual aiming movement to that target. Audiovisual stimuli were presented at 0, 100, or 200 ms relative to movement onset and participants reported the number of perceived flashes after the movement was completed. Analysis of perceived flashes revealed that participants were less susceptible to the fusion illusion when the stimuli were presented early (100 ms) relative to later in the movement (200 ms). Critically, this pattern emerged in both execution and observation tasks. These findings support the hypothesis that observers simulate the performance of the actor and experience comparable real-time alterations in multisensory processing.

Self-prioritization is a robust phenomenon whereby judgments concerning self-representational stimuli are faster than judgments toward other stimuli. The present paper examines if and how self-prioritization causes more vivid short-term memories for self-related objects by giving geometric shapes arbitrary identities (self, mother, stranger). In Experiment 1 participants were presented with an array of the three shapes and required to retain the location and color of each in memory. Participants were then probed regarding the identity of one of the shapes and subsequently asked to indicate the color of the probed shape or an unprobed shape on a color wheel. Results indicated no benefit for self-stimuli in either response time for the identification probe or for color fidelity in memory. Yet, a cuing benefit was observed such that the cued stimulus in the identity probe did have higher fidelity within memory. Experiments 2 and 3 reduced the cognitive load by only requiring that participants process the identity and color of one shape at a time. For Experiment 2, the identity probe was memory-based, whereas the stimulus was presented alongside the identity probe for Experiment 3. Results demonstrated a robust self-prioritization effect: self-related shapes were classified faster than non-self-shapes, but this self-advantage did not lead to an increase in the fidelity of memory for self-related shapes’ colors. Overall, these results suggest that self-prioritization effects may be restricted to an improvement in the ability to recognize that the self-representational stimulus is present without devoting more perceptual and short-term memory resources to such stimuli.

The original Barbie doll’s unrealistic body shape can negatively affect young girls’ body image. Mattel produced new Barbie dolls with “tall”, “curvy”, and “petite” body types, yet how girls perceive and evaluate the three new Barbie body types remains unknown. This study investigated whether young girls engage in an automatic “self-other matching” process when viewing the different Barbie doll representations. Female children and adolescents (N = 38; Mage = 10; 6–14 years old; SD = 2.24 years) completed a body-part compatibility task to provide an index of how they implicitly relate cognitive representations of their own body to the different doll images. Significant (p < .05) body-part compatibility effects emerged for the original, curvy and petite dolls, but not for the tall Barbie. These findings indicate that girls engage in a self-other body matching process when viewing Barbie, but that the strength of this matching is influenced by the doll’s body type. Results provide new evidence on the underlying cognitive mechanisms that occur when girls are exposed to physique-salient toys, and may have implications for young girls’ body image development and use of appearance-based social comparisons.

Sensorimotor experiences can modify the internal models for action. These modifications can govern the discrepancies between predicted and actual sensory consequences, such as distinguishing self- and other-generated actions. This distinction may also contribute toward the inhibition of movement interference, which is strongly associated with the coupling of observed and executed actions. Therefore, movement interference could be mediated by the sensorimotor experiences underlying the self-other distinction. The present study examined the impact of sensorimotor experiences on involuntary movement interference (motor contagion). Participants were required to complete a motor contagion paradigm in which they executed horizontal arm movements while observing congruent (horizontal) or incongruent (vertical) arm movements of a model. This task was completed before and after a training protocol in which participants executed the same horizontal arm movements in the absence of the model stimuli. Different groups of participants trained with or without vision of their moving limb. Analysis of participants who were predisposed to motor contagion (involuntary movement interference during the observation of incongruent movements) revealed that the no vision group continued to demonstrate contagion at post-training, although the vision group did not. We propose that the vision group were able to integrate the visual afferent information with an internal model for action, which effectively refines the ability to match self-produced afferent and efferent sources of information during response-execution. This enhanced matching allows for a better distinction between self and other, which in turn, mediates the inhibition of motor contagion.

Predictions about one's own action capabilities as well as the action capabilities of others are thought to be based on a simulation process involving linked perceptual and motor networks. Given the central role of motor experience in the formation of these networks, one's present motor capabilities are thought to be the basis of their perceptual judgments about actions. However, it remains unknown whether the ability to form these action possibility judgments is affected by performance related changes in the motor system. To determine if judgments of action capabilities are affected by long-term changes in one's own motor capabilities, participants with different degrees of upper-limb function due to their level (cervical vs. below cervical) of spinal cord injury (SCI) were tested on a perceptual-motor judgment task. Participants observed apparent motion videos of reciprocal aiming movements with varying levels of difficulty. For each movement, participants determined the shortest movement time (MT) at which they themselves and a young adult could perform the task while maintaining accuracy. Participants also performed the task. Analyses of MTs revealed that perceptual judgments for participant's own movement capabilities were consistent with their actual performance- people with cervical SCI had longer judged and actual MTs than people with below cervical SCI. However, there were no between-group differences in judged MTs for the young adult. Although it is unclear how the judgments were adjusted (altered simulation vs. threshold modification), the data reveal that people with different motor capabilities due to SCI are not completely biased by their present capabilities and can effectively adjust their judgments to estimate the actions of others.

Recent studies have suggested that the observation of another individual executing a movement activates representations of the observed movement in the observer. These representations are thought to be used by other systems to facilitate a variety of social cognitive processes, such as social searches. Previous research on social searches has primarily involved contexts where targets were presented in isolation. Typical environments, however, contain targets and non-targets and one must select the correct information for task completion. To gain insight into the processes underlying social searches, participants completed negative priming tasks alone and in pairs. Results indicated that there were no differences in the negative priming effects resulting from the participants observed or performed the preceding selection task. Further, the correlations between individual and joint negative priming suggest that similar processes were activated on these tasks. The findings support the co-representation hypothesis and provide insight into the processes underlying selection in individual and social settings.

Experimental Brain Research, 209 (1), ISSN:0014-4819, ISSN:1432-1106

Aspects of spatial cognition, specifically spatial skills, are strongly correlated with interest and success in STEM courses and STEM-related professions. Because growth in STEM-related industries is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, it is important to develop evidence-based and theoretically grounded methods and interventions that can help train relevant spatial skills. In this article, we discuss research showing that aspects of spatial cognition are embodied and how these findings and theoretical developments can be used to influence the design of tangible and embodied interfaces (TEIs). TEIs seek to bring interaction with digital content off the screen and into the physical environment. By incorporating physical movement and tangible feedback in digital systems, TEIs can leverage the relationship between the body and spatial cognition to engage, support, or improve spatial skills. We use this knowledge to define a design space for TEIs that engage spatial cognition and illustrate how TEIs that are designed and evaluated from a spatial cognition perspective can expand the design space in ways that contribute to the fields of cognitive science and human computer interaction.