Elsevier

Acta Psychologica

Volume 209, September 2020, 103122
Acta Psychologica

Self-relevance enhances evidence gathering during decision-making

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103122Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Self-owned objects are classified more rapidly than friend-owned objects.

  • The self-ownership effect during rapid stimulus presentation is underpinned by a stimulus bias.

  • Self-relevance facilitates the efficiency of evidence gathering during decisional processing.

Abstract

Despite repeated demonstrations that self-relevant material is prioritized during stimulus appraisal, a number of unresolved issues remain. In particular, it is unclear if self-relevance facilitates task performance when stimuli are encountered under challenging processing conditions. To explore this issue, using a backward masking procedure, here participants were required to report if briefly presented objects (pencils and pens) had previously been assigned to the self or a best friend (i.e., object-ownership task). The results yielded a standard self-ownership effect, such that responses were faster and more accurate to self-owned (vs. friend-owned) objects. In addition, a drift diffusion model analysis indicated that this effect was underpinned by a stimulus bias. Specifically, evidence was accumulated more rapidly from self-owned compared to friend-owned stimuli. These findings further elucidate the extent and origin of self-prioritization during decisional processing.

Introduction

Self-relevant stimuli occupy a position of prominence during social-cognitive functioning. Compared to material associated with other people, items coupled with the self are easier to detect, classify, and recall (e.g., Alexopoulos et al., 2012; Bargh & Pratto, 1986; Keyes & Brady, 2010; Kuiper & Rogers, 1979; Shapiro et al., 1997; Symons & Johnson, 1997). These effects, moreover, extend beyond traditional stimulus materials (e.g., faces, names), emerging also for geometric shapes, abstract symbols, and colors/sounds that have been linked with the self (e.g., Schäfer et al., 2015, Schäfer et al., 2016; Sui et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2016; Woźniak & Knoblich, 2019; Yin et al., 2019). Underpinning self-prioritization, it has been argued, is a mind that is preferentially tuned to personally meaningful information, such that self-relevance triggers the enhanced processing of sensory inputs (Humphreys & Sui, 2016; Sui and Humphreys, 2015, Sui and Humphreys, 2017; Sui & Rotshtein, 2019). But is this actually the case? Using an object-ownership task, we explored this issue in the current investigation.

Despite repeated assertions that self-relevant items are privileged during stimulus processing, evidence supporting this viewpoint is scant and garnered primarily (and indirectly) from shape-label matching tasks (e.g., Macrae et al., 2018; Sui et al., 2012, Sui et al., 2015). Indeed, across other paradigms, the beneficial effects of self-relevance have been noticeably absent. For example, in a rapid oculomotor search task, Siebold et al. (2015) reported no facilitation in eye movements to lines previously associated with the self (see also Wade & Vickery, 2018). Similarly, using breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS) to investigate the ease with which items (i.e., Gabors) access visual awareness during a stimulus-localization task, Stein et al. (2016) observed no effect of self-relevance on the time taken for Gabors to overcome interocular suppression (cf. Macrae et al., 2017). Together with related research, these findings contest the perceptual basis of self-prioritization, suggesting instead that task performance is underpinned by a response bias (Constable, Welsh, et al., 2019). Specifically, rather than enhancing the efficiency of stimulus processing, self-relevance triggers a preference for self-relevant (vs. other-relevant) responses.

A similar response-based account of self-prioritization has emerged from closely related research exploring the effects of ownership on object processing. As psychological extensions of the self — even when acquired unintentionally and without value — people's possessions loom large during stimulus appraisal (Pierce et al., 2003). Accordingly, it has been suggested that ownership (vs. perceptual-matching tasks) comprises an ecologically appropriate task context for investigating the effects of self-relevance on thinking and doing (e.g., Constable et al., 2011, Constable et al., 2014; Cunningham et al., 2008; Falbén et al., 2019; Golubickis et al., 2018; Truong et al., 2017; Turk et al., 2011). In perceptual-matching tasks, abstract stimuli serve as proxies for various individuals (e.g., self is a triangle, friend is a square), a methodologically expedient although somewhat artificial strategy for forming target-stimulus mappings (Sui et al., 2012). In object-ownership tasks, in contrast, associations are forged between persons and their possessions, an entirely naturalistic and commonplace aspect of daily life (Constable, Welsh, et al., 2019; Cunningham et al., 2008). As such, ownership has served as a valuable vehicle for exploring the dynamics of self-referential processing. Crucially however, whether items serve as self-proxies or self-associates, prioritization effects (i.e., self-prioritization effect, self-ownership effect) can be interpreted within Humphreys and Sui's (2016) Self-Attention Network (SAN) model, whereby self-relevance facilitates the processing of personally meaningful inputs through the interplay of top-down (i.e., self activation) and bottom-up (i.e., attentional orienting) processes.

In work investigating the effects of ownership on stimulus processing, a consistent pattern of effects has emerged. Compared to other people's belongings, personal possession confers significant advantages during object detection and classification (i.e., self-ownership effect). Constable, Welsh, et al. (2019), for example, demonstrated that when judging which of two objects initially appeared on the computer screen (i.e., temporal-order-judgment task) — a mug owned-by-self or a mug owned-by-the-experimenter — participants were biased toward reporting that self-owned items appeared first (i.e., prior-entry effect). This effect was eliminated, however, when the requested judgment probed a stimulus-related dimension unrelated to ownership (e.g., did the mug appear to the left or right of fixation?), thereby implying that a criterion shift during response preparation (and not stimulus enhancement) underpinned self-prioritization (i.e., participants were biased toward reporting that self-owned objects appeared first; for a competing viewpoint, see Truong et al., 2017).

Related research by Golubickis et al., 2018, Golubickis et al., 2019 has also furnished a response-based account of the self-ownership effect. In a series of experiments, participants were presented with objects (i.e., pencils & pens) that ostensibly belonged either to the self or a best friend (or mother) and their task was simply to classify the items (i.e., owned-by-self vs. owned-by-friend) as quickly and accurately as possible. The results yielded a self-ownership effect, indicating response facilitation for self-owned (vs. friend-owned) objects. Furthermore, using a drift diffusion model analysis to interrogate the processes underpinning task performance (i.e., stimulus and/or response biases; Ratcliff et al., 2016; Voss et al., 2013; White & Poldrack, 2014), this effect was traced to the operation of a response bias (i.e., variability in the evidential requirements of response generation). Specifically, less information was needed to generate owned-by-self compared to owned-by-friend responses. Crucially, no difference in the efficiency of stimulus processing (i.e., rate of information uptake - stimulus bias) was observed as a function of ownership,1 thereby demonstrating that self-relevance expedites performance through its influence on response-related operations (Constable, Welsh, et al., 2019; Miyakoshi et al., 2007; Siebold et al., 2015; Stein et al., 2016; Wade & Vickery, 2018).

Again using drift diffusion modeling, several recent studies have confirmed that the self-ownership effect resides in the operation of a response bias (e.g., Falbén et al., in press; Golubickis et al., 2019, Golubickis et al., n.d). For example, Golubickis et al. (2019) showed that both European and Asian participants were biased to expect items (i.e., pencils & pens) that were owned-by-self compared to owned-by-mother during an object-classification task. Similarly, using an identical task, Falbén et al. (in press) manipulated the likelihood with which to-be-judged self-owned and friend-owned items were presented. The results revealed that, regardless of ownership, responses were facilitated toward the most frequent items, an effect that was underpinned by differences in the evidential requirements of response generation (i.e., response bias). Interestingly, although stimulus biases have also emerged in these studies (e.g., Golubickis et al., 2019, Expt. 2), these effects are occasional and can go in the wrong direction (e.g., friend > self, Falbén et al., in press, Expt. 1). Thus, in object-ownership tasks, stimulus prioritization is characteristically driven by a response bias.2

Based on the existing literature, both the extent of self-ownership effects and whether they originate exclusively in differences in the evidential requirements of response generation are issues that merit additional scrutiny. In the task adopted by Golubickis et al., 2018, Golubickis et al., 2019 — consistent with prior work on self-prioritization (Sui et al., 2012) — to-be-judged items were presented under non-challenging processing conditions (e.g., 100 ms stimulus duration). It remains to be seen, therefore, whether a comparable self-ownership effect would emerge when stimuli are encountered under more taxing circumstances. For example, can the self-relevance (or otherwise) of items be established from stimuli that are presented very briefly? Given the contention that self-prioritization is a pivotal component of social cognition, one would expect this to be the case (Humphreys & Sui, 2016; Sui and Humphreys, 2015, Sui and Humphreys, 2017; Sui & Rotshtein, 2019). That is, information-processing benefits would be most pronounced if self-relevance were extracted successfully from even fleetingly encountered stimuli.

In addition, under conditions of rapid stimulus presentation, it is possible that prioritization may originate in the operation of a stimulus bias. In object-ownership tasks, much like any other decisional context, performance is driven by a combination of stimulus and response-related processes, with each influenced by particular aspects of the experimental paradigm under consideration (White & Poldrack, 2014). Whereas response biases are modulated by factors such as item probability and reward, stimulus biases are sensitive to variation in the quality of sensory inputs (De Loof et al., 2016; Leite & Ratcliff, 2011; Mulder et al., 2012; Ratcliff, 2014; Voss et al., 2004). This suggests that, in a challenging task context, ownership may facilitate object classification via a stimulus bias — specifically, differences in the rate at which decisional evidence is accumulated from self-relevant (vs. friend-relevant) objects. Through the rapid presentation and backward masking of self-owned and friend-owned objects, we examined this hypothesis in the current experiment. To explore the processes underpinning task performance, data were submitted to a drift diffusion model analysis.

Section snippets

Participants and design

Thirty-six undergraduates (14 male, Mage = 19.54, SD = 2.22) took part in the research.3 One male participant failed to follow the instructions by responding with invalid key presses, thus was excluded from the analyses. All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity. Informed consent was obtained prior to the commencement of the experiment and the protocol was

Discussion

The benefits of self-relevance on information processing have been observed across a range of stimuli, tasks, and sensory modalities (Humphreys & Sui, 2016; Schäfer et al., 2016; Sui & Humphreys, 2015; Sui & Rotshtein, 2019). Notwithstanding multiple demonstrations of self-prioritization, however, the scope and origin of this effect remains a matter of debate. Whilst early work asserted that self-relevance facilitates performance via enhanced stimulus processing (Sui et al., 2012, Sui et al.,

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Johanna K. Falbén:Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.Marius Golubickis:Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.Skomantas Tamulaitis:Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Investigation.Siobhan Caughey:Conceptualization, Methodology.Dimitra Tsamadi:Conceptualization, Methodology, Software.Linn M. Persson:Conceptualization, Methodology.Saga L.

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