Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: We document a new phenomenon: participants' eye movements are influenced by the belief that they are either looking at pictures alone, or that a person next door is looking at the same pictures.The pictures were in sets of four.One had a positive and one a negative valence, and others were neutral.On a trial by trial basis, eye movements to the negative versus the positive pictures were modulated by participants' belief that they were looking alone or jointly.A second experiment manipulated the beliefs participants had about the person in the next cubicle, in an attempt to tease apart possible explanations for this effect of 'joint perception'.In each case, a minimal sense of cooperation with another appears to produce distinct cognitive effects, in manner similar to that found in studies of 'joint action'.We conclude that there may be a pervasive effect of social context upon cognitive and perceptual processes.
Institution: University of California, Santa Cruz
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W164357094