Paranoia is the belief that harm is intended by others. It may arise from selective pressures to infer and avoid social threats, particularly in ambiguous or changing circumstances. We propose that uncertainty may be sufficient to elicit learning …
When we look at a face, we cannot help but ‘read’ it: beyond simply processing its identity, we also form robust impressions of both transient emotional states (e.g. surprise) and stable personality traits (e.g. trustworthiness). But perhaps the most …
How is race encoded into memory when viewing faces? Here we demonstrate a novel systematic bias in which our memories of faces converge on certain prioritized regions in our underlying ``face space,'' as they relate to perceived race. This …
The environment is dynamic, but objects move in predictable and characteristic ways, whether they are a dancer in motion, or a bee buzzing around in flight. Sequences of movement are comprised of simpler motion trajectory elements chained together. …
Visual processing recovers not only simple features, such as color and shape, but also seemingly higher-level properties, such as animacy. Indeed, even abstract geometric shapes are readily perceived as intentional agents when they move in certain …
Research shows that positive mood can serve to broaden the scope of attention at both the perceptual and conceptual level (e.g., increasing the size of spatial attentional focus and semantic access to remote associates). We investigated whether this …