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This report explored the hypothesis "Expectations of Actions Can Affect Social Perception". It was written in my third year of my UG psychology degree.
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51874429Title – Expectations of Actions Can Affect Social Perception
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to investigate whether participants perception of a hand could
be influenced by a perceived action. The hypothesis for the study was that if expectations of
efficient action shape social perception, then participants will report inefficient straight
reaches as higher than efficient and similarly inefficient arched reaches will be reported as
lower than efficient ones. Forty-eight participants were recruited via prolific to take part and
the study employed a within-subjects design. A repeated measures Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA) was used to analyse the data where a significant interaction of reach and a
significant interaction between reach and efficiency was found. Consequently, these findings
support the hypothesis. It was therefore concluded that expectations of efficient action can
shape social perception. The findings from the current study align with that from the wider
literature.
Introduction
Predictive perception is an area of research which has evolved over the past two decades.
Previously, it was thought that we used a bottom-up approach to predict an action
(McDonough, 2019). However, some argue that this view has changed. Researchers Bach and
Schenke (2017) suggested that social perception is processed using a top-down hypothesis.
This means that people use their prior knowledge to predict the goals, or mental states, of
other people (Bach & Schenke, 2017). The concept of representational momentum is
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important in perceptual research and links to the goal driven hypothesis in predictive social
perception. Freyd and Ronald (1984) suggest that representational momentum is when a
viewer thinks they last saw an item further along a trajectory than it actually was. This is
important as it can lead to misconceptions of where objects were last placed. One study
found that, generally infants show some goal driven actions and an awareness of efficient
actions. Skerry, Carey and Spelke (2013) recruited 48 infants to participate in their study.
They showed the infants an actor either reaching in a direct or indirect way, in order to grasp
an object (Skerry et al., 2013). They found that if the action was surprising, and the actor
reached inefficiently for the object, they recorded higher levels of attention and sensitivity
compared to when the action was direct (Skerry et al., 2013). This suggests that even non-
verbal infants have goal driven ideals. However, this study was conducted with a small
number of infants so it may not be entirely reliable as it may not be an accurate reflection of
the population.
One study that investigates goal driven perception in adults, to fill this literature gap is
from McDonough, Costantini, Hudson, Ward and Bach (2020). They found that the size of an
object, and the type of grasp a hand took, influenced how participants perceived the location
of the hand (McDonough et al., 2020). They asked participants to tap on the screen where
they last saw the hand when it disappeared (McDonough et al., 2020. The video showed a
hand either in a large grasp position, or a small grasp position with the index finger and
thumb (McDonough et al., 2020). They found that participants perceived the hand to be
closer to the object when there was a large grasp reaching for a large object (McDonough et
al., 2020). Similarly, this also occurred with a small object and small grasp position
(McDonough et al., 2020). This suggests there is some evidence to suggest adults perceive
actions based on previous knowledge, even if this means they overextend expectations to a
movement.
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It is important to investigate whether predictive perception occurs in humans as it is
an important concept used to navigate through social situations. Researchers Hudson,
Nicholson, Simpson, Ellis and Bach (2016) found evidence that coincides with the theory that
predictive social perception occurs in adults. In this study, they added in an auditory element.
investigated predictive social perception through a split decision touch test. They had two
objects, painful or safe and action, reach or withdrawal (Hudson et al., 2016). Participants
were asked to say take it if they saw a safe object or leave it for a painful object. They were
then shown a clip of a hand reaching or withdrawing from the object. The participants were
then asked to press the spacebar if the hands probe position was different to the final hand
position (Hudson et al., 2016). They found significant evidence that participants judged the
hand as being further along the predicted trajectory than it was (Hudson et al., 2016). The
relevant literature all seems to agree that there is an action prediction effect in that people
over-impose expectations when there is a perceived goal.
The current study is a replication of Hudson, McDonough, Edwards and Bach (2018).
Due to the current ongoing ‘replication crisis’ in the discipline it is increasingly important to
account for a studies replicability. It is replicated by recruiting 48 participants to judge where
they last saw a hand disappear along a trajectory while the hand was performing either an
efficient or inefficient action. This was measured by determining the distance on the y axis
participants clicked from where the actual location of where hand disappeared, also on the y
axis. The hypothesis for the current study is participants will report inefficient straight
reaches as higher than efficient and similarly inefficient arched reaches will be reported as
lower than efficient ones.
Methods
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