Lecture 8-9 - Automatic Influences on Action & Free Will

Describe the (Bargh & Burrows, 1996, Barg, Chen, Burrows, 1996) study about automatic effects on behavior.

• Background

  • participants did scrambled sentence task including either (2 groups):

    • elderly stereotype words (Florida, wrinkle, old, knits)

    • neutral words (thirsty, clean, private)

  • experimenter then measure how long it takes subject to walk to elevator

• Results

  • Elderly primed condition > neutral condition (mean time to walk to elevator)

What conclusion does the Doyen S, Klein O, Pichon C-L, Cleeremans A (2012) study come to in response to the Bargh study?

• they concluded that experimenters’ expectations played a role in the walking speed effect

  • if expecting the participant to walk slower then the experimenter would ultimately get a subjective time that was reflective of that expectation

Describe the (Bargh et al., 2001) on the automatic effects on goal pursuit. Are we able to replicate the results of the Bargh study?

• background

  • word-find task with words related to (2 groups):

    • achievement: win, achieve, compete, attain

    • neutral: ranch, shampoo, river, carpet

  • participants then asked to do scrabble task

  • experimenters measured persistence at task in face of obstacle to goal (after two minutes told to stop via intercom)

• results

  • proportion who continues to work after the experiment said, “stop” over the intercom

    • 57% in achievement condition

    • 22% in neutral condition

• conclusion

  • results imply effect of social priming on behavior

• Replicability

  • nah bruh

What does the Dimberg et al., 2000 study on imitation of facial expressions teach us about unconscious communication between people?

• Background

  • the study measured the facial EMGs of participants (Corrugator and Zygomaticus) in order to determine the type of “invisible” reaction that people are having when exposed to subliminal emotions

• Results

  • “Despite the fact that exposure to happy and angry faces was unconscious, the subjects reacted with distinct facial muscle reactions that corresponded to the happy and angry stimulus faces”

• Conclusion

  • “Our results show that both positive and negative emotional reactions can be unconsciously evoked, and particularly that important aspects of emotional face-to-face communication can occur on an unconscious level.”

Describe the Hofree, Ruvolo, Bartlett & Winkielman (PLOS One, 2014) study that investigates whether the same emotion mimicry can occur between robots and humans.

• Background

  • students are put face-to-face with robot

  • 2 groups

    • spontaneous mimicry (“just watch the robot”)

    • active mimicry (“make this expression”)

  • measures

    • facial EMG

    • android’s servo activity

• Result

  • humans spontaneously imitate a robot

    • despite knowing about robot’s artificial nature

    • despite feeling overtly uncomfortable

  • facial mimicry is automatic (spontaneous)

what is calvin’s illusion of control?

• the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to influence or control events, even when those events are truly random or uncontrollable

Describe Libet’s “illusion of will” experiment (1985).

• Background

  • participants are asked to voluntarily move their finger at a time of their own choosing

  • physiological measures

    • EMG for muscle readings

    • EEG for “readiness potential” (RP) readings

Describe the “2008 Replication: Free will in fMRI” study.

• Background

  • subjects view a letter stream updated every 500 ms

  • at some point they spontaneously make the decision to press either the left or right button (“whether they feel the urge to do so'“)

• Results

  • It is possible to probabilistically decode action in the brain before the timepoint of conscious decision

What were Wegner’s claims with regard to free will in his book “The Illusion of Conscious Will”?

• He claims that

  • Our conscious intention (“Phenomenal Will”) is not causally efficacious. It is illusory.

  • The real cause of action are unconscious brain processes (“Empirical Will”)

  • Phenomenal and Empirical Will are dissociable

What does the story of Clever Hans tell us about automatisms?

• automatism: an individual actually causes (starts and stops) an action, but lacks the feeling of conscious will

  • ex. sleepwalking, automatic writing, hypnosis, dowsing for water, ouija boards, table-turning, tourette syndrome, “Clever Hans”

• Story of Clever Hans

  • Wilhelm Von-Osten thought his horse was smart enough to do math. Pfugst (psychologist) disagreed with that notion

  • Conducted Study on Clever Hans

    • Von-Osten could look at some, but not other, cards before showing them to the horse

      • Result: Hans was only “clever” when Von-Osten knew the answer

    • Von-Osten could ask questions in, or out of the horse’s view.

      • Result: Correct answers were given only in full view

  • Conclusion of Study

    • Von Osten projected his own action to the horse. Von-Osten had an empirical, but not a phenomenal will.

What does the Vons and Schooler (2008) study inform us about the effect that determinism has on our behavior?

• Background

  • 2 groups

    • read section about determinism from Crick, 1994

    • neutral section on consciousness

  • tasked with completing math problems

  • built-in glitch that shows correct answers (can stop answer from appearing by pressing the space bar)

• Results

  • exposure to determinism increases cheating

  • participants who read anti-free will article cheated more frequently (9.67 vs 14 presses of space bar)