Judgments and decisions are highly susceptible to influence from reference points. Anchoring effects arise when a benchmark is provided prior to estimation of a target quantity, and are observed even when the anchor is ostensibly shown to be randomly generated. It is commonly assumed that anchoring is automatic and unavoidable, but very little research has directly investigated this assumption. We report five studies aiming to characterize individuals’ awareness of anchors and their effects. High proportions of participants indicated that knowing an anchor would improve their estimates (Studies 1 and 3), and desired to view an ostensibly random anchor – indicating that they would use it to inform their own absolute estimates (Study 2). Anchoring was stronger for participants who indicated that they intended to use (Studies 2 and 3) or reported having used (Study 5) the anchor value to inform their estimate. We also replicated and extended a previous demonstration that anchors have a reduced effect when they are judged to be poor estimates of the target quantity (Studies 1, 3, 4). Although anchoring was not eliminated in participants who reported that they did not intend to use the anchor, or judged it to be a poor estimate, the results overall suggest a substantial explanatory role for intention and awareness in the generation of anchoring effects.
Personal space (PS) refers to the immediate area surrounding the body where intrusions by others often cause discomfort. Recent studies suggest that implicit information such as gait patterns, in addition to explicit cues such as linguistic information, can influence the PS. However, no study has directly examined the interactions between implicit and explicit processes. In this study, we investigated the effects of walking-related visual information on PS discomfort by using a virtual reality technique. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, a point-light biological motion (BM) approached participants after a preceding word indicated whether the BM represented a “friend” or a “stranger,” although only stranger BMs were shown. Experiment 2 used the same design but included both friend and stranger BMs. Participants rated their discomfort in response to the approaching BM. Results from both experiments showed that a preceding “friend” cue reduced PS discomfort compared to a “stranger” cue, and that female BMs elicited lower discomfort than male BMs. These findings suggest that PS discomfort may be influenced by both implicit and explicit processes.
The sense of agency (the feeling of being the cause of one's own actions) is thought to arise from reliability-weighted integration of multiple cues across the intention–action–outcome sequence. Whether integration is coordinated across the stages of this sequence or carried out independently at each stage remains unknown. Using the Libet clock intentional binding task in 578 participants spanning the aphantasia-to-hyperphantasia spectrum, we examined the correlation between action binding and intention binding as an index of this coordination. At the group level, negative coupling between individuals' action and intention binding was present in typical imagers (r = −0.27, p < .001), but was not present in core aphantasia, where voluntary visual imagery is entirely absent (r = −0.05, p = .44). Coupling differed significantly between these two groups, even though neither binding component differed between them. Individuals with weak but present imagery (hypophantasia) showed a distinct binding profile, with intention binding exceeding action binding magnitude, a pattern absent in all other groups. Together these findings suggest that it is the coordination of integration across the action sequence, rather than the strength of individual binding components, that distinguishes those with and without voluntary imagery.
Classic moral dilemmas such as the trolley and footbridge problems involve immediate actions and certain consequences, limiting the study of how temporal and causal structure shapes moral judgment. The present study introduces a novel experimental paradigm—the Killing Baby Hitler (KBH) dilemma—to investigate how the causal-temporal structure linking a moral action to its consequences affects moral decision-making. Inspired by a well-known thought experiment in philosophy and popular culture, the scenario asks whether one should allow a drowning child, known to be Adolf Hitler, to die in order to prevent the future atrocities of the Holocaust. Participants (N = 291) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions varying the target's position within the causal-temporal sequence leading to the Holocaust: Hitler himself, Hitler's father, or Hitler's grandfather. Participants also completed the footbridge dilemma and the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale. Results showed that causal-temporal distance significantly affected moral choice: as the target became more distant from the Holocaust, participants were more likely to endorse the deontological option. Logistic regression analyses confirmed causal-temporal distance as a robust predictor of moral judgment, even after controlling for utilitarian dispositions and sociodemographic variables. Instrumental harm was positively associated with utilitarian responses, whereas social desirability was unrelated to participants' choices. Responses to the KBH dilemma were not strongly associated with the footbridge dilemma, suggesting that the paradigm captures a distinct dimension of moral cognition. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of causal-temporal structure in moral decision-making and introduce the KBH dilemma as a flexible tool for studying delayed consequences.
Stimuli that are unexpected, relatively infrequent, and task-irrelevant can grab attention to the detriment of ongoing tasks. In the surprise-induced blindness (SiB) and surprise-induced deafness (SiD) paradigms, such stimuli render participants unaware of a task-relevant probe presented 300-400 ms thereafter. These initially profound detection deficits, however, quickly habituate across surprise trials. We sought to identify the electroencephalography (EEG) markers of SiB and SiD to better understand the deficits' causes and relationship. Human participants (n = 33; 18 males, 15 females) completed the paradigms in counterbalanced order while EEG was recorded. Participants evidenced SiB and SiD: Probe detection was severely impaired, but only for the first few surprise trials. In contrast, detection was consistently high during standard trials. Surprise-induced deficits were accompanied by a late parietal positivity time-locked to surprise stimulus presentations, which attenuated by trial alongside the behavioral effects. These qualities are characteristic of the P3 complex, especially its novelty P3 (nP3) component, suggesting that SiB and SiD are a consequence of extended stimulus evaluation indexed by the nP3. Putative nP3s were similar for the visual and auditory paradigms, akin to the similar behavioral deficits. Nevertheless, individual differences in behavioral deficit magnitudes were not correlated across modalities, and encountering surprises in one modality did not reduce their effect in the other. Probe-evoked and early perceptual-related components also differed greatly by modality and did not habituate. Our results suggest that surprise-induced deficits are due to late, modality-specific attentional limitations with similar behavioral outcomes and neural features.
