Self-Construal Priming Modulates Ensemble Perception of Multiple-Face Identities

Abstract

This study explored the modulatory role of independent/interdependent self-construal on ensemble perception. Two experiments were conducted to study the effect of self-construal on ensemble coding of multiple-face identities (Experiment 1) and dot size (Experiment 2) separately. Before the implicit ensemble perception task, participants in both experiments were either primed with independent or interdependent self-construal via a well-validated pronoun circle task, in which they were exposed to either singular (“ I ,” “ me ,” and “ my ”) or plural (“ We ,” “ us ,” and “ our ”) pronouns in essays. The results showed that interdependent self-construal (vs. independent self-construal) featured as global processing and emphasizing interconnectedness with others enhanced the ensemble coding of high-level features (e.g., identity in Experiment 1) but not of low-level features (e.g., size in Experiment 2). To the best of our knowledge, this study was the first to investigate the role of self-construal on ensemble representations. In sum, the results of the current study supported the domain-specific mechanism of ensemble perception on one hand, and extended the effect of self-construal on single face recognition to multiple face recognition on the other hand.

Emotion matters: Face ensemble perception is affected by emotional states

“…The effect of positive emotion was thus considerably smaller compared to the effect of negative emotion. The asymmetry was similar to a finding in Peng et al (2019), where little or no increase of endorsements of the set average was observed after the participants were primed to process relational/holistic information, yet the endorsements for this decreased clearly when they were primed to process non-relational/individual information. The unequal effects could in part be due to the cultural background of the samples in these studies.…”

“…Effects in our study demonstrate that the same participants could undergo fairly minor induction and then display differential ensemble processes subsequently. This malleable aspect of ensemble perception has also been demonstrated previously through priming interdependent or independent self (Peng et al, 2019), or through global or local processing orientation (Peng at el. 2020).…”

“…Face stimuli These were derived from Peng et al (2019). A total of 56 Asian Chinese face images with neutral expressions were randomly grouped to 14 sets of four gender-matched faces.…”

Culture variation in the average identity extraction: The role of global vs. local processing orientation

“…Such a cultural difference could play a role in ensemble coding, because an ensemble requires a global orientation. The idea that global processing is conducive to ensemble perception was firstly proposed by Chong and Treisman (2003), and further studied in Treisman, (2005a, 2005b), Chong et al (2008) and Peng et al (2019). Additionally, patients with unilateral spatial neglect (Pavlovskaya et al, 2015) and congenital prosopagnosia (Robson et al, 2018) displayed deficiency in ensemble perception, which might due to their focused attention mechanism and related perception of local features (local processing orientation).…”

Fear appeals for increasing intentions to have colorectal cancer screening among high-risk adults: moderating role of tripartite self-construal

“…Moreover, various researchers in cognition employed pronoun circling task and successfully investigated the effect of the task on cognitive outcomes such as visual scenes (Choi et al, 2016), holistic face processing and face categorization (Liu et al, 2019)or face recognition (Peng, 2019). In line with Oyserman and Lee (2008), the pronoun circling task has a strong effect on both cognitive tasks (d= 0.51) and relationship-related issues (d= 0.51).…”