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Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research 2/2011

01-03-2011 | Original Article

How the social-evaluative context modulates processes of cognitive control

Auteurs: Gesine Dreisbach, Svenja Böttcher

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 2/2011

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Abstract

Cognitive control enables intelligent systems to select relevant information in the face of distracting information. The aim of the research presented here was to investigate the influence of the social-evaluative context on processes of cognitive control. Female participants had to perform the Erikson flanker task with each trial being preceded by a photograph of an attractive woman or a beautiful landscape. Concurrently, another person (partner or fellow student) either evaluated the attractiveness of the pictures of the women or the beauty of the landscapes. Participants showed increased flanker interference on trials following the presentation of pictures of attractive women, but only, if these were concurrently evaluated by another person. By contrast, in the control conditions (social presence without concurrent picture evaluation, or picture evaluation without social presence) no such effect occurred. That is, the concurrent evaluation task selectively increased distractibility presumably due to the affective reaction to the social-evaluative context.
Voetnoten
1
This simple variant of the Eriksen flanker task was chosen, because it is very easy to learn, interference effects are very robust and do not depend on practice. Furthermore, by this we were able to keep the introduction and practice period for the flanker participant very short.
 
2
In two separate ANOVAs only including socialcontrol versus baseline and evaluativecontrol versus baseline, neither a main effect of Context nor interactions with Compatibility were found (all F < 1.7, all p > 0.19). Likewise, the ANOVA only including partner versus fellow condition revealed no main effect of social role, F(1,36) = 2.12, p = 0.15.
 
3
It made no difference whether the evaluating fellow student was male or female. A 2(Compatibility) × 2(Picture) × 2(male vs. female) ANOVA yielded no main effect of Sex (F < 1, p = 0.9), nor did it interact with any other factor (all p > 0.14). Therefore, data of fellow students were collapsed.
 
4
The same ANOVA, only including compatible trials brought up a significant main effect picture, F(1, 90) = 4.61, p < 0.04, η 2  = 0.05, but no main effect Context and no interaction (both p > 0.24).
 
5
Note, that in the evaluativecontrol condition, participants saw each picture at least twice, once during the evaluation task and again during the flanker task. To rule out that the reported null interactions in this condition were due to habituation effects, we reran this condition with 10 female participants, this time using new pictures in the evaluation task and the original pictures in the flanker task only. For the landscape pictures, the interaction Block (Block 1 vs. Block 2) × Compatibility was far from significance (F < 0.3, p = 0.58) as was the interaction Picture (landscape vs. woman) × Compatibility in Block 2 (F < 0.001, p = 0.97). This clearly confirms that the evaluation task in the absence of any other person did not affect the compatibility effect.
 
6
And accordingly, the observed distraction on incompatible flankers can neither be attributed to more resources being available within the social-evaluative context in order to process the irrelevant flanker stimuli. Such reasoning would only be applicable, if the perceptual load had differed between social conditions (see Lavie 2005; Lavie, Hirst, de Fockert, & Viding, 2004).
 
7
We can rule out a further alternative assumption, namely, that the assumed negative affective reaction is modulated by the specific attractiveness of the respective female picture or the outcome of the assumed self-evaluation, respectively. Additional analysis on the picture ratings in the evaluativecontrol condition provided a null correlation between the attractiveness ratings and RTs for incompatible trials (Pearson’s r = 0.02, p = 0.8). Given the high inter-rater reliability for the female picture ratings in that condition (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.84), we also correlated these picture ratings with RTs on incompatible flanker trials in the experimental conditions (remember that in the partner and fellow conditions, flanker participants did not rate the pictures themselves). Both correlations were again far from significance (partner, r = −0.11, p = 0.4; fellow, r = 0.09, p = 0.5).
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
How the social-evaluative context modulates processes of cognitive control
Auteurs
Gesine Dreisbach
Svenja Böttcher
Publicatiedatum
01-03-2011
Uitgeverij
Springer-Verlag
Gepubliceerd in
Psychological Research / Uitgave 2/2011
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-010-0298-z

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