Halika, Kain Tayo!

For the great finale of this funny, wonderful, totally amazing blog, we decided to do a legitimate study on one of the five senses in the body: taste.

A lot of research goes into food. This is typical, as food is one of the basic human necessities. From childhood, the four basic tastes taught by the basic education system is: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. There’s a new taste in town however, and it’s called umami. It’s still a little bit controversial, in the sense that some people still refuse to recognize it as a basic taste. Umami is a Japanese word, meaning savory.

Through these four basic tastes, a lot has been discovered. The chemicals that can provide these tastes, the taste receptors that recognize these tastes, and from which specific cortex the tastes are recognized in the brain. Perception psychology has contributed a lot to data regarding taste.

As psychology majors, it’s our job to be able to think up of new ways of researching for more data on food, like figuring out which factors or social constructs are able to affect the way we perceive food. After all, we Filipinos take pleasure in eating with others, even when all we have are two hands and one big banana leaf in front of us. Food just seems so much tastier with great company, which is why we never hesitate to go to the next fiesta spread or to go try new restaurants with the barkada. Eating with friends is a way to celebrate our ups and downs in life as well, whether it’s pigging out after passing a hard exam or comfort eating together after a bad breakup. Since previous research indicates that moods always affect your perception of things, we decided to research on the effect of mood and relationship closeness on taste perception, namely for the sweet taste in cookies.

A well-timed study, considering that Christmas feasts will be starting soon.

In our environment where everything happens, any event that catches our attention might influence and change our moods. Mood is a "general and pervasive feeling state that is not directed toward a specific target” (Wood, Saltzberg, and Goldstampt, 1990) which occurs as a response to situations that happen in the environment (Isen, 1984). On the other hand, relationship closeness is pretty similar to our concept of kapwa. It’s when our representation of the self or ‘me’ as being a part of our representation of others. So the higher the relationship closeness, the greater the overlap between the ‘self’ and ‘others’(Aron & Fraley, 1999).

Previous research has already shown that we tend to eat more when we’re around other people, especially if it’s people that we know (Hetherington, Anderson, Norton, & Newson, 2006). While that doesn’t necessarily mean that we taste differently when we’re around other people, research has also found that eating chocolate together with someone else enhances how much we like or dislike the chocolate (Boothby, Clark, & Bargh, 2014). As for mood, depressed people tend to taste sweetness and bitterness more intensely after feeling a positive or negative mood (Platte, Herbert, Pauli, & Breslin, 2013). But is this true even for the non-depressed?

For our experiment, we looked for 120 volunteers from the Psych 101 subject pool. Days before our actual data gathering schedule, we posted several sign-up sheets for an experiment entitled COOKIE MONSTER (we even drew a cute Cookie Monster on it) on a bulletin board near the classrooms hoping that the students would be interested in participating. Luckily, throughout our data collection we did not have any problems looking for participants (in fact the challenge was how to accommodate all the students who wanted to walk-in). In the end we only had time and research participation credits for 124 participants but at least it's 4 more than our initial intended number.

Cookie says Hi!

For our experiment, we looked for 120 volunteers from the Psych 101 subject pool. Days before our actual data gathering schedule, we posted several sign-up sheets for an experiment entitled COOKIE MONSTER (we even drew a cute Cookie Monster on it) on a bulletin board near the classrooms hoping that the students would be interested in participating. Luckily, throughout our data collection we did not have any problems looking for participants (in fact the challenge was how to accommodate all the students who wanted to walk-in). In the end we only had time and research participation credits for 124 participants but at least it's 4 more than our initial intended number.

Upon arrival outside the experiment room, we asked the participants if they came with a friend or if they signed-up for a solo/stranger slot. Of course, being the sigurista experimenters that we were, we re-checked and quantified the relationship levels of the participants using both a qualitative (small talk while waiting for their turn) and a quantitative method (Person Scale & Interpersonal Solidarity Scale which was administered in the middle of the experiment).

Our actual experiment involved 8 phases that would take about 20-30 minutes in total. A pretty good cover-up story was also used to divert the attention of the participants from guessing our real research objective and to justify the fact that they had to eat the cookies provided while inside the room. Don’t worry; we debriefed our participants before letting them go so there was no harm done besides that of the minimal deception.

We told our participants that we wanted to see how a shared experience, like watching a video, affected their perceived closeness to each other. The mood scales were there, we said, just so that we could check if they were feeling any extreme emotions that could affect the results. As for the cookies, they were told that they were actually free cookies provided by our sponsors!

Anyways, going back to the experiment procedures, the first thing we did upon the arrival of the participants was to give them a consent form and to instruct them about what they would do. Once they agreed to participate, we administered the PANAS-X test to determine a baseline of their moods. Since in this research we are looking at the effects of mood and relationship closeness on taste perception, after they have answered the aforementioned scale, we presented them with either a happy video or a sad video to alter their moods. For the happy condition, we used one of the impossible challenges try not to laugh videos you can find in YouTube. In the same way, we used 2 Thai insurance commercials (those that make the ninjas inside the room cut onions…) from YouTube to induce the sad mood. Ok, so now the question is whether the videos worked. Statistical analysis showed that the videos were effective, so effective in fact that during the experiment the participants were either laughing their hearts out or trying to stifle their tears.

Impossible Challenge

My Dad is a Liar

Silence of Love

      
So now comes the cookie. Each participant was given one cookie to eat while they watch the video. The cookies provided were homemade and baked the day before the experiment. We altered a cookie recipe readily available online to make them taste less sweet and we removed the chocolate chips and nuts so as to make the cookies as simple as possible. You can find the actual recipe we used to for the cookies before the references part of this blog. You guys should try it sometime especially if you are fond of not too sweet desserts.

PANAS v. 1

Once the participants have finished watching the videos (and ideally eating the cookie), they were given the Interpersonal Solidarity Scale and the “Person Scale” to quantitatively measure the participant’s closeness. Then the participants were asked to answer the PANAS scale again but in a different presentation so as not to make them realize that they are answering a form identical to the one given previously. Finally they were asked for feedback on the video and the cookie.

PANAS v. 2
*Would you believe that these two are actually identical?

The Person Scale

When we searched the vast ocean of research, we found several studies that stated being happy increased the perception of sweetness (Boothby, Clark, & Bargh, 2014;Platte, Herbert, Pauli, & Breslin 2013). Unfortunately, it was not to be. There are, after all, other studies that did not obtain a significant perception of sweetness (Dichter et al., 2010), and ours happened to be one of them. Perhaps Filipinos are just so accustomed to sweet cuisine, that it affected our perception of sweetness.

We did find some pretty interesting (and sometimes unexpected) results though. In fact, there was a positive effect of mood induction and relationship closeness on bitterness. This means that those who felt happy and were with a friend actually sensed bitter tastes more accurately. As unusual as it may seem, we also found out that individuals who are with their friends perceived sourness when the positive mood is induced. This might be because an enhanced state of arousal when mood was induced. A similar case happened in Platte, Herbert, Pauli, & Breslin’s (2013) study, wherein they obtained significant sourness scores for both happy and sad conditions! We postulate that while arousal does happen when one is happy or sad, one may become more aroused when happy as compared to sad. There was also an significant interaction between relationship closeness and mood, which affected sour scores. In a way, this wasn’t all that surprising. We do tend to experience greater feelings of excitement when other people are around, especially when they’re people we know.

There still seems to be a long road ahead. Sometimes sweetness doesn’t significantly increase when we’re happy. Maybe we tend to be more sensitive to bitterness when we’re with a friend. Either way, we must continue to search for the tasty truth.

Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:
  2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
  ½ teaspoon baking soda
  ½ teaspoon salt
  1 cup softened butter
  ¾ cups granulated sugar
  ¾ cups packed brown sugar
  1teaspoon vanilla extract
  2 large eggs

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture.  Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Finally bake for 9 minutes or until golden brown.

References:

Aron, A., & Fraley, B. (1999). Relationship closeness as including other in the self: Cognitive
underpinnings and measures. Social Cognition, 17(2), 140–160.
doi:10.1521/soco.1999.17.2.140

Boothby, E. J., Clark, M. S., & Bargh, J. A. (2014). Shared experiences are amplified.
Psychological science, 25(12), 2209-2216.

Hetherington, M. M., Anderson, A. S., Norton, G. N. M., & Newson, L. (2006). Situational effects on meal intake: A comparison of eating alone and eating with others. Physiology & Behavior, 88(4-5), 498–505. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2006.04.025

Isen, A. M. (1984). Toward understanding the role of affect in cognition. In Sedikides, C. (1992). Changes in the Valence of the Self as a Function of Mood. Personality and Social Psychology Review, pp. 271-311

Platte, P., Herbert, C., Pauli, P., Breslin, P. A. S. (2013) Oral perceptions of fat and taste stimuli are modulated by affect and mood induction. PLoS ONE, 8(6):e65006. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0065006

Wood, J.V., Saltzberg, J.A., & Goldstampt, L.A (1990). Does affect induce self-focused attention? In Sedikides, C. (1992). Changes in the Valence of the Self as a Function of Mood. Personality and Social Psychology Review, pp. 271-311

Photo Credits:

[Photo of a painting of a Filipino family having dinner]. Retrieved from http://static.squarespace.com/static/5411d80ae4b02fc94fefce4a/5457e7a5e4b06c364300fd00/5457e901e4b06c3643013042/1291127341000/G00003.jpg?format=original

The Voice- #HALALAN2016

 May 2016 elections is fast approaching and as an excited first time voter, I have been caught up with who is going to run for which position, researching for their political records and alliances. It is very important for me to know which one is credible and worthy enough to get seated as an administrator and public servant. Being interested in politics and voting behaviours right now, I want to explore on the mechanisms that might influence people to vote for a certain candidates. Among other factors, I think that a politician’s voice- biologically and metaphorically- is one important characteristic to influence voting behaviour.

                Public appearances such as press conferences, interviews, media advertisements and debates are essential for a politician who is running for an office whether it may be national or regional. More than what they want to tell and convey, first of all, they must first catch the mass’s attention and maintain that attention until the end. Human voice pitch, which is distinct between the sexes, conveys important information about its owner (Borkowski & Pawlowski,2011). Our auditory perception has helped us in making sense in our environment (Goldstein, 2013) which makes us vulnerable to being bias in judging a person’s attractiveness (Feinber, et al., 2006;  Zuckerman & Miyake, 1993; Hughes, Moailski, & Harrison, 2014) and dominance (Borkowska & Pawlowski, 2011; Klofstad, Anderson & Nowicki, 2015;  Klofstad, Anderson, & Peters, 2012; Hodges-Simeon, Gaulin and Puts 2010). Generally, studies have found out that politicians and candidates with lower pitch voices are favoured and preferred. But why?

PERCEIVED ATTRACTIVENESS

                In a study conducted by Hodges-Simeon, Gaulin and Puts (2010) on predicting perceptions of dominance and attractiveness by examining the different vocal parameters, they have found out that the low mean fundamental frequency in men’s voices has been found to positively influence perceptions on dominance by men and attractiveness by women using standardized speech. Since frequency is a physical measure of pitch (Goldstein, 2010), the study implies that lower pitch for males makes them perceived to be dominant.

                Women with lower voices were also found out to be perceived as more dominant. In a study  by Borkowska and Pawlowski (2011) wherein voices of women that were classified as  low (184.6 Hz), medium (223.7 Hz), high (261.9 Hz) or very high (310.3 Hz) have been recorded and assessed of their dominance and attractiveness, it was found out that low voices are more dominant and the relationship is linear. It was also found out that female voices above 280 Hz are judged to be too high that sounds babyish which is related to being immature.

AGE

                Investigating the influence of perception on competence, strength and age on voters in selecting leaders,  Klofstad, Anderson and Nowicki (2015) found out that lower-pitch voices are generally preferred. Male and female candidates who are in their 40s and 50s, a time in human life cycle when voice pitch is at its lowest, are chosen over candidates on their 30s, 60s and 70s. This is an antithesis to their hypothesis that through age comes wisdom and credibility which might favour older candidates.  It was concluded that speakers with lower voices are stronger, more competent, and older.

LIKABILITY

Lastly, lower-pitched voices were associated with favourable personality traits more often than were higher-pitched voices and that people preferred to vote politicians with lower pitched than higher pitched voices (Tigue and colleagues, 2012). 

References:

Borkowska, B., Pawlowski, B. (2011). Female voice frequency in the context of dominance and attractiveness perception. Animal Behavior. 82(1): 55-59

Feinber, D.R., Jones, B.C, Law SMih, M.J., Moore, F.R., DeBruine, L.M>, Cornwell, R.E., Hillier, S.G., Perrett., D.I. (2006). Menstrual cycle, trait estrogen level, masculinity preferences in the human voice. Hormones and Behavior, 49(2): 215-222

Goldstein, E.B. (2010, 2013) Sensation and Perception. Cengage Learning: Wadsworth

Hodges-Simeon, C.R., Gaulin, S.J.C, Puts, D.A. (2010). Different vocal parameters predict perceptions of dominance and attractiveness. Human Nature 21: 406-420. DOI: 10.1007/s12110-010-9101-5

Hughes, S.M., Moailski, J.K., Harrison, M.A (2014). The Perception and Parameters of Intentional Voice Manipulation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 38(1): 107-127

Klofstad, C.A., Anderson, R.C, Peters, S. (2012). Sounds like winner: voice pitch influences perception of leadership capacity in both men and women. Retrieved from: rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org

Klofstad, C.A., Anderson, R.C., Nowicki, S. (2015). Perceptions of competence, strength and age influence voters to select leaders with lower-pitched voices. Retrieved from: journals.plos.org

Tigue, C.C., Borak, D.J, O’Connor, J.J.M, Schandl,C., Feinberg, D.R. (2012). Voice pitch influences voting behaviour. Evolution and Human Behavior 33(3): 210-216

Zuckerman, M., Miyake, K. (1993). The attractive voice: What makes it so?

The Eye is Deceitful

Our visual experience with the world is one of the most important factors that make us enjoy the world around us. It facilitates our understanding with our environment and helps us distinguish safe from dangerous. No doubt, our sense of sight has aided us with our communication and interaction with other people. But what if we find out that, just like anything (or anyone), it also can deceive us?

Let’s take a close look at three selected illusions (influenced by the author's bias) that we sometimes assume to be real yet... so not.

This is an example of a motion illusion. It is sometimes difficult experience motion but focusing the eye at the right spot will give you the product of the illusion. Certain explanations as to how we perceive the motion in a static drawing has been proposed. According to Bach and Poloschek (2006) "The eye movements affect temporal modulation with the help of either adaptation or possibly saccadic suppression. A grouping arrangement enhances the effect, but colour is not necessary."

Whether the illusion is colorful or composed with neutral shades, the illusion is caused by asymmetric luminance which triggered our perception of motion. The rule is, never assume it's going somewhere when it's obvious that it's not.

Another interesting illusion is the Hermann Grid illusion. In this illusion, we can see white or black dots at the intersections of the grid but when we fixate our eyes into one of them, those dots disappear. In truth, those dots do not really exist, it's just that "we see the world as our retinal ganglion cells encode and thereby compress it" (Bach & Poloschek, 2006). How can we trust ourselves now if even the cells in our bodies commit errors of judgment?

As the picture itself reveals its name, this is called Eye Color Optical illusion. "This is a case of simultaneous colour contrast, and probably also of colour adaptation" (Bach, 2014). Both eyes are of the same neutral gray shade yet one eye with the tint of pink (light red) on the surrounding appears to be bluish. Since the tint is red, it makes the neutral shade into the tint's opposite color, which is blue (simultaneous color contrast). As we continue to stare at it, the bluish color seems to intensify (color adaptation) and removing the pink (light red) tint around the eye will produce the same neutral gray color. This means that in perceiving a stimulus in front of us, the immediate surrounding influences our interpretation of the stimulus, whether we want them to or not.

Explaining optical illusions is a difficult matter, just as how it is difficult to not-believe them. Still, it is interesting to investigate about them and even more interesting to get fascinated on how they can deceive us explicitly.


Resources:

Bach, M. & Poloschek, C.M (2006). Optical Illusion. Visual Neuroscience. Vol. 6, No. 2 pp. 20-21
Bach, M. (2014). Retrieved from: http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/col-context/index.html