Incidental haptic sensations influence judgment of crimes

Abstract

Extralegal factors may influence judicial outcomes. Here we investigated the experience of incidental haptic sensations on the harshness of punishment recommendations. Based on recent theories of embodiment, which claim that cognitive representations are structured by metaphorical mappings from sensory experience, we hypothesized that tactile priming with hard objects would cause subjects to recommend harsher sentences (to be ‘hard on crime’). Furthermore, the theory of embodiment predicts that this effect should be based on sensorimotor brain activation during the judging process. In order to test this we presented participants with scenarios that described various crimes while scanning their brain activity with fMRI. Participants were then asked to rate how severely they would sentence the delinquents. Before the scenarios, the participants were primed by touching either a hard or a soft object. Results revealed tha t hard priming led participants to recommend harder punishments. These results were accompanied by activation of somatosensory brain areas during the judging phase. This outcome is in line with simulation assumptions of the embodiment theory and proposes a central role of the sensorimotor cortices for embodied metaphors. Thus, incidental tactile experiences can influence our abstract cognitions and even how hard we are on criminals.

Grounding language in the neglected senses of touch, taste, and smell

“…Similarly, in Schaefer et al (2014) people were told they were taking part in two separate experiments, and no-one reported being suspicious about a connection between the two studies-although it is not clear exactly how this information was probed. The effects reported also cannot be explained simply by the influence of valence, i.e., sitting uncomfortably makes you behave less favourably in general, as participant ratings of valence did not predict punishment harshness (Schaefer et al, 2018). Overall, these studies suggest some link between tactile experience and behaviour, but do not speak directly to the issue of tactile simulation during language comprehension.…”

“…Evidence from a different line of research, however, suggests perceptual activations related to textural metaphors can affect behaviour, even when the metaphor is not explicitly used (for review see Lee, 2016), suggesting an automatic link between texture perception and texture metaphor. People have been shown to negotiate more strongly and assign crimes harsher sentences after sitting on a hard seat rather than a soft seat (Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010;Schaefer et al, 2018), consistent with metaphors such as "taking a hard line" or "being hard on crime". Similarly, touching a rough texture can make social interactions appear more harsh, difficult, and adversarial than touching a smooth texture (Ackerman et al, 2010;Schaefer, Denke, Heinze, & Rotte, 2014; cf.…”

Empathy-Related Brain Activity in Somatosensory Cortex Protects From Tactile Priming Effects: A Pilot Study

“…At the end of the study all participants were debriefed and probed for suspicions concerning the experiments. For further details with respect to the experimental procedures, see Schaefer et al (2018).…”

“…Fifteen out of the 17 participants that participated in the previous study (Schaefer et al, 2018) were included in the current analyses (11 females, mean age 23 ± 2.84 years).…”

“…In order to test our hypothesis, we tested if there are linear relationships between personality traits (empathy, Big Five) and the size of the tactile priming effect (behavioral effect and brain responses). Therefore, scores of the personality traits (IRI, NEO-FFI) were used to test for correlations (Pearson) with brain activation (parameter estimates for voxels) in the sensorimotor regions of interest (maximum peaks in bilateral SI) and other regions (premotor cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, and secondary somatosensory cortex; separately analyzed and FWE corrected) (see Table 1 and Schaefer et al, 2018).…”