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Social modulation of object-directed but not image-directed actions
Jill A Dosso1, Alan Kingstone1
1Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Plos One
|October 24, 2018
Summary
Social factors influence actions differently depending on whether stimuli are real objects or virtual images. Real objects show social effects, while images do not, cautioning against generalizing findings between these domains.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Neuroscience
- Human Behaviour
Background:
- Growing research explores social influences on human cognition, attention, and action.
- Current studies often use virtual stimuli (on-screen images), limiting ecological validity.
- Differences in neural and behavioral responses to real vs. virtual objects are known, but their social sensitivity is unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To directly compare the impact of social context on actions directed towards real objects versus virtual images.
- To investigate whether social factors modulate behavior differently based on stimulus type (real object vs. image).
Main Methods:
- Participants played a shape-matching game involving reaching actions.
- Stimuli included both real objects and their on-screen images.
- Social context was manipulated by varying the proximity of an observer.
Main Results:
- Social context significantly interacted with stimulus type to influence reaching behavior.
- A delay in reaching for distant stimuli was observed when an observer was present, but only for real objects.
- Virtual images did not elicit this social modulation effect.
Conclusions:
- Real objects and virtual images differ in their sensitivity to social influences, even when visually similar and equally reachable.
- Findings from studies using on-screen stimuli may not accurately predict social effects on actions involving real-world objects.
- Generalizations from virtual to real object interactions in social contexts should be made with caution.
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