Latest Blog Posts

Witkower and colleagues explored the universality of nonverbal cuing.  They share that “Two universal strategies for attaining influence—dominance, or the use of intimidation and force to obtain power, and prestige, or garnering respect by demonstrating knowledge and expertise—are communicated through distinct nonverbal displays in North America. . . . we demonstrate that the dominance display is recognized by the Mayangna, a small-scale society in rural Nicaragua, and by Canadian children as young as 2 and 3 years old. We also find that the prestige display is reliably differentiated from dominance by both groups, and judged as a high-rank signal by the Mayangna. However, members of the Mayangna confused the prestige display with happiness, and children confused the prestige display with a neutral expression. Overall, findings are consistent with a ubiquitous and early-emerging ability to recognize dominance.”

Zachary Witkower, Alexander Hill, Anthea Pun, Andrew Baron, Jeremy Koster, and Jessica Tracy.  “Nonverbal Displays of Dominance and Prestige:  Evidence for Cross-Cultural and Early-Emerging Recognition.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, in press, https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001481

Hung and associates evaluated mentally refreshing spaces, those that are cognitively restorative. They report that “Two populations, one in Taiwan and one in Sweden, were experimentally compared by showing them photos of restorative landscapes from each country. The results showed that restorativeness was affected more by photos of the restorative landscape in Sweden than in Taiwan. The results showed that restorativeness in terms of psychological and physiological responses was affected. A significant variation in heart rate was observed between the populations: Taiwanese participants experienced higher heart rates when viewing unfamiliar and novel scenery when compared to Swedish participants. No significant differences between the populations were observed regarding attention capacity, working memory, and muscle tension.”

Shih-Han Hung, Anna Palsdottir, Asa Sang, Azadeh Shahrad, Hui-His Liao, Yu-Yun Hsu, and Chun-Yen Chang. 2023. “How Restorative Landscapes Can Benefit Psychological and Physiological Responses:  A Pilot Study of Human-Nature Relationships in Sweden and Taiwan.”  Landscape Research, vol. 48, no. 8, pp. 1073-1090, https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2023.2213634

Henning and associates studied behavior after dark in public spaces lit in different ways.  They report that “A field study was conducted to explore user behaviour in two differently illuminated public squares. Observations of the movements and stationary activities of people in the squares were recorded at both squares for the same times of day in the weeks before and after the daylight savings clock change, enabling a comparison of activity in daylight and after dark. 5296 observations were recorded and lighting conditions were captured with HDR-photography and aerial photos. Kirseberg square, with asymmetric luminaires and metal halide lamps, revealed a decrease in stationary activity after dark. Lindeborg square, with omnidirectional luminaires and high-pressure sodium lamps, revealed an increase in stationary activity. In conclusion, the patterns of user behaviour in the two public squares after dark seem to be differently influenced by electric lighting.”

V. Hennig, N. Gentile, S. Fotios, C. Sternudd, and M. Johansson.  “User Behaviour in Public Squares After Dark.”  Lighting Research and Technology, in press, https://doi.org/10.1177/14771535231200390

Arshamian lead a team that identified scents perceived as pleasant by cultures worldwide.  They report that they asked people “from 9 diverse nonwestern cultures—hunter-gatherer to urban dwelling—to rank . . . odorants from most to least pleasant. . . . there was substantial global consistency. . . . Taken together, this shows human olfactory perception is strongly constrained by universal principles. . . . Ranked most highly pleasant by most people was vanilla, then ethyl butyrate (a fruity smell) and linalool (a floral scent).  Least pleasant was isovaleric acid (a smell like rancid cheese) and second to last was diethyl disulfide (in garlic and durian fruit).”

Artin Arshamian, Richard Gerkin, Nicole Kruspe, Ewelina Wnuk, Simeon Floyd, Carolyn O’Meara, Gabriela Rodriguez, Johan Lundstrom, Joel Mainland, and Asifa Majid. 2022. “The Perception of Odor Pleasantness is Shared Across Cultures.”  Current Biology, vol. 32, no. 9, pp. 2061-2066.e3, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.062

Schwartz, Pierson, and Reece’s work directly relates to animal sounds but can potentially be extended to other contexts. The researchers found that “A growing body of research demonstrates that humans can accurately perceive the emotional states of animals solely by listening to their calls, highlighting shared evolutionary ancestry. . . . One hypothesis is that humans rely on simple acoustic heuristics to make such judgments, for example, perceiving higher-pitched calls as reflecting heightened emotional arousal (the ‘pitch rule’). This could lead to accurate judgments of emotion since in most mammals, as in humans, vocal fundamental frequency (the acoustic determinant of the pitch percept) does objectively correlate with emotional arousal. In the present study, we used digital pitch manipulation to create pairs of animal calls that were perceptually identical except for pitch, and we measured human perceptions of the caller’s emotional arousal using an online survey. Calls of six phylogenetically diverse species were included as stimuli. Participants attributed slightly but statistically significantly higher arousal to higher-pitched versions of the same calls.”

Jay Schwartz, Kayleigh Pierson, and Alexander Reece. “Pitch Affects Human (Homo Sapiens) Perceptions of Emotional Arousal from Diverse Animal Calls.”  Journal of Comparative Psychology, in press, https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000366

In an open access article, Loos and colleagues review study findings related to how humans communicate with each other via scents.  Their work is useful to people pondering remote and face-to-face interactions (at work and otherwise) and to those considering adding scents to environments.

The Loos-lead team shares that “Although chemical signaling is an essential mode of communication in most vertebrates, it has long been viewed as having negligible effects in humans. However, a growing body of evidence shows that the sense of smell affects human behavior in social contexts ranging from affiliation and parenting to disease avoidance and social threat. . . . social volatiles [scents] affect communication in various domains of human social life, including cooperation, mate choice, parenting, and emotional state. . . . the perception of social volatiles is subject to high inter- and intraindividual variation based on . . . factors such as personality and actual mental state, in addition to evolutionary mechanisms ultimately affecting all human beings. . . . social chemical cues show complex integration with other sensory modalities, modulating or even overruling inputs from the other modalities. Finally, social volatiles are processed in social and emotional brain areas.”

Helene Loos, Benoist Schall, Bettina Pause, Minique Smeets, Camille Ferdenzi, S. Roberts, Jasper De Groot, Katrin Lubke, Ilona Croy, Jessica Freiherr, Moustafa Bensafi, Thomas Hummel, and Jan Havlicek. 2023. “Past, Present, and Future of Human Chemical Communication Research.”  Perspectives on Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231188147

Nurmi and Pakarinen’s work probes the effects of virtual sessions on our energy levels and mental performance.  The researchers report that they “challenge the commonly held belief that virtual meeting fatigue manifests as exhaustion (i.e., active fatigue) resulting from overloading demands and instead suggest that participation in virtual meetings may lead to increased drowsiness (i.e., passive fatigue) due to underload of stimulation. Using subjective and cardiac measures (heart rate variability), we investigated the relationships between virtual versus face-to-face meetings and different types of fatigue (active and passive) among . . . knowledge workers during real-life meetings. . . . analys[es] revealed a link between virtual meetings and higher levels of passive fatigue, which then impacted cognitive performance. . . . work engagement . . . [explains] why some knowledge workers are affected, while others are not. Given the growing amount of time spent in virtual meetings, these findings emphasize the risks to mental energy and cognitive performance and highlight the protective role of high general work engagement.”

Niina Nurmi and Satu Pakarinen. 2023. “Virtual Meeting Fatigue: Exploring the Impact of Virtual Meetings on Cognitive Performance and Active Versus Passive Fatigue.”  Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, in press, https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000362   

Redhead and team shed new light on how landmarks can be designed to help people navigate through a space.  They report that in their study “participants learned a route through a computer-generated maze using directional arrows and wall-mounted pictures. On the test trial, the arrows were removed, and participants completed the maze using only the pictures. In the nostalgia condition, pictures were of popular music artists and TV characters from 5 to 10 years ago. In the control condition, they were recent pictures of these same artists and characters. . . . In Maze 1, we placed nostalgic/control landmarks only at non-decision points (whereas we placed them at decision points in Experiment 1). In Maze 2, we placed nostalgic/control landmarks at decision points during acquisition but removed them in the test trial (whereas they were present in the test trial in Experiment 1). In both mazes, participants in the nostalgia (compared to control) condition completed the test trial faster.”

Edward Redhead, Tim Wildschut, Alice Oliver, Matthew Parker, Antony Wood, and Constantine Sedikides.  2023. “Nostalgia Enhances Route Learning in a Virtual Environment.”  Cognition and Emotion, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 617-632, https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2023.2185877

Hutson and Hutson investigated how biophilic design can support neurodiverse populations.  They found that “With an estimated 15 – 20% of the global population considered neurodiverse, it is crucial to understand and accommodate their specific needs, such as those with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum condition, and learning disabilities. . . . biophilic design integrates natural elements and art into the built environment. This integration has been found to reduce activity in the amygdala, promoting stress recovery, prolonged attention, and increased productivity among employees. To effectively acclimate neurodiverse individuals in the work environment, biophilic design should be complemented using extended reality (XR) technology supported by artificial intelligence. Virtual reality, in particular, has been shown to facilitate individuals’ comfort in new workspaces, aid in self-assessments through biofeedback, and enable the adjustment of surroundings for self-regulation. . . . By creating workplaces that prioritize biophilic design principles, organizations can contribute to a more inclusive, sustainable, and productive work environment.”

James Hutson and Piper Hutson.  2023. “Neuroinclusive Workplaces and Biophilic Design:  Strategies for Promoting Occupational Health and Sustainability in Smart Cities.”  Global Health and Economic Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.0549

Ward and teammates’ research confirms how interrelated our sensory experiences are.  They found that “Odors for instance are often perceived with visual cues; these sensations interact to form our own subjective experience. This integration process can have a profound impact on the resulting experience and can alter our subjective reality. . . . Vision is dominant in our multisensory perception and can influence how we perceive information in our other senses, including olfaction. We explored the effect that different odors have on human color perception by presenting olfactory stimuli while asking observers to adjust a color patch to be devoid of hue (neutral gray task). . . . For instance, when asking observers to perform the neutral gray task while presenting the smell of cherry, the perceptually achromatic stimulus was biased toward a red-brown.”  When study participants the odor of caramel was associated with dark brown, the odor of cherry with pink, red, and purple, lemon with yellow, green, and pink and peppermint with green and blue, for example.  So, when people were smelling coffee, they felt that a gray square they were looking was more reddish-brown in color than they did when not smelling the coffee.

Ryan Ward, Maliha Ashraf, Sophie Wuerger, and Alan Marshall.  2023. “Odors Modulate Color Appearance.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1175703