Automatic influence of irrelevant affect on confidence judgments A Chetverikov |
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Department of Psychology, St.Petersburg State University, Russian Federation
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| Growing evidence suggests that error-monitoring is tightly related to emotions. Specifically, negative affect increases error-related negativity, a negative deflection on electroencephalography observed after making an error [Wiswede et al, 2009, Neuropsychologia, 47(1), 83-90]. We hypothesized that affect also influences confidence judgments, which measure subjective probability of error. Experiment followed a 2x2x2, Condition X Subjective Attractiveness (SA) X Objective Attractiveness (OA), mixed-measures design. Subjects (N=42) were shown photographs of faces and made an attractive or unattractive judgment (SA). Faces were selected on the basis of previous experiment: half was attractive and the other half was unattractive (OA). Then, a pair of playing cards was shown consequently (60 ms first card, pre- and post-mask, 500 ms second card). Subjects made same or different judgments and rated confidence. In the “affect attribution” condition they were asked to control for the influence of attractiveness on confidence and in control condition no such instruction was given. The results demonstrated that subjects were more confident after seeing attractive faces as compared to unattractive ones regardless of the condition. This effect holds both for SA and for OA. Thus, the study shows the involvement of affect in automatic error-monitoring process measured by confidence ratings. |
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