Affective Space: Social Influences in Perception

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Unlike social judgments, perceptual judgments are anchored in concrete reality and are thought to be independent of social context. However, recent investigations suggest that even perceptions of physical space can be influenced by the social and emotional context. The proposed research explores such social and affective factors in perception. In contrast to traditional theories, ecological approaches suggest that perception may depend on contextual factors not previously considered. For example, some research shows that hills seem steeper to a person wearing a heavy backpack (Bhalla & Proffitt, 1999). Contextual factors influence perception because they are relevant to actions: A hill is harder to climb for an encumbered person, and thus, appears as steeper. In contrast to physical properties, such as the weight of a heavy backpack, not much is known about properties that are more "psychological," such as the social and affective nature of an interactive environment. Social and affective factors, such as being in a group or being in a good mood, are known to influence social judgments such as ratings of life satisfaction. The proposed research will explore whether perceptual judgments are similarly influenced by "the power of the situation." The goal of the proposed research is to determine to what extent perception is shaped by social and affective factors. Several studies will examine the influence of a number of different factors on estimates of distances to objects and slants of hills, such as whether another person is present, or what affective values judgment objects have. Building on this beginning, an additional outcome of the proposed research is the development of perceptual measures that reveal people's affective responses to various stimuli. That is, if people's feelings influence how they perceive distances to attitude objects, then it should also be the case that one can infer their attitudes from their perceived distances. By examining these hypotheses, we expect to get a glimpse of how social factors affect basic processes previously assumed to be insulated from such influences. The Broader Impact of the project includes educational experiences for the persons involved in the research, such as for the undergraduate and graduate students working on the project, as well as for research participants who will receive detailed information about the research as part of their debriefing after participation. This research promotes interdisciplinary as well as international collaboration. Findings from the project are expect to be broadly disseminated by the public media, because previous research by the investigators involved in the project has attracted considerable attention in the popular press. Findings involving participants' gender, racial and ethnic background will be informative in investigating the extent to which cultural differences in spatial behavior are associated with differences in spatial perception.