Abstract
To investigate self-prioritization independently of stimulus familiarity, Sui et al. (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 38:1105–1117, 2012. doi:10.1037/a0029792) introduced a new paradigm in which different geometric shapes are arbitrarily associated with self-relevant (e.g., “I”) and neutral labels (e.g., “stranger”). It has now been repeatedly demonstrated that in a subsequently presented matching task, this association leads to faster and more accurate verifications of self-relevant shape–label pairings than neutral shape–label pairings. In order to assess whether this self-prioritization effect represents a general selection mechanism in human information processing, we examined whether it is limited to the visual modality. Therefore, besides visual stimuli, auditory and vibrotactile stimuli were also associated either to self-relevant or to neutral labels. The findings demonstrate that self-prioritization represents a general tendency influencing human information processing, one that operates across the senses. Our results also highlight a top–down component to self-prioritization.
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Notes
For all three stimulus modality conditions, the analyses with the adjusted SPEs replicated the reported effects [in RTs: t(24) = 5.18, p < .001, d = 1.04, for vision, t(30) = 3.25, p = .003, d = 0.58, for audition, and t(23) = 3.25, p = .004, d = 0.66, for touch; in d′: t(24) = −3.43, p = .002, d = 0.69, for vision, t(30) = −2.01, p = .027 (one-tailed), d = 0.36, for audition, and t(23) = −0.58, p = .571, d = 0.12, for touch].
Note that the power to detect a large effect (f = 0.4) between the stimulus modalities, given an α value of .05 and N = 80, was 1 − β = .89 (calculations performed with G*Power 3.1.3; Faul et al. 2007).
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Karina Katarzyna Czech, Fee Carolin Gierens, Benedikt Graf, Ira Katrin Gröne, Jule Heckmann, Miriam Hehlmann, Tabea Milena Henn, Esther Karst, Barbara Lenz, and Julia Strojny from the University of Trier for collecting the data.
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Sarah Schäfer and Ann-Katrin Wesslein have shared first authorship.
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Schäfer, S., Wesslein, AK., Spence, C. et al. Self-prioritization in vision, audition, and touch. Exp Brain Res 234, 2141–2150 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4616-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4616-6