Assignment 3: FACTSHEET

Academic skills Psychology A (500327-B-3), 2022-2023

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Submit assignment, first opportunity: Before Seminar 2
Submit rewritten assignment: By December 19, 2022
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Name of student Aylin-Alexia David

Administration number (ANR): 887973

E-mail at Tilburg University: a.a.david@tilburguniversity.edu

Work group: 15

Instructor: Koen van der Ploeg

Opportunity: 1st assessment opportunity

ASSESSMENT: PASS / FAIL

Reasons for fail grade:

Source 1 Sunglasses article:

Authors Dudarev V., Liu M., Kingstone A..

Title of article De-evolving human eyes: The effect of eye camouflage on human
attention.

Publishing Year of Publication: 2022;

information Journal: “Cognition”;
Volume Number: 225.

Type of Research Paper

article Because it conducts research and also all the steps of it are being
described. It has a hypothesis and a description of methods.
Introduction 1. When people believe that their eyes are hidden from others, they allow
themselves to do eye moves which usually are not following the society’s
expectations/norms;
2. When we believe that no one can properly see how we look at specific
thing, especially provocative content, we tend to look just as long and, in

Academic Skills A, 500327-B-3; Assignment 3 FACTSHEET 1

 any matter, we want, because social norms cannot judge or influence;
3.The first one demonstrates that people have to use covert attention in
order to be able to see whether a hand raised keeps something or not,
while the second one suggests that while people are asked to follow
someone’s behavior, they choose to stare away in order to avoid eye
contact. Both studies lead to the same conclusion, that covert attention
determines if direct looking is socially appropriate or not in certain
moments;
4. That people will move their eyes in a way which might not follow the
social norms when they are camouflaged/wearing sunglasses;

Method 5. 56 participants (also 3 participants were excluded due to the fact that
they needed prescription glasses and for one of them the data was lost);
6. Eye reactions to stimuli; SMI RED eye desktop tracking;
7. Sexually provocative and neutral images;
8. Some things were kept secret from participants. For example, they had
to choose from a bowl a slip which was thought to contain 3 different
categories when in reality was only one. Also, participants did an Ishihara
color vision test before the experiment in order to further allow eye
tracker calibration;
Results 9. Fixation number and fixation duration.
10. The glasses participants were wearing (sunglasses or clear glasses)
and the type of picture (provocative, not provocative);
11. Notable interaction between the type of pictures and the type of
glasses. (For fixation number);
12. People who wore sunglasses fixed their eyes longer on provocative
images while those with clear glasses looked the same at provocative and
neutral images. (For fixation duration);
Discussion 13. Covert attention works in service of social norms and when people
have their eyes camouflaged allow themselves to do things they won’t
normally do;
14.Examinations of role played by head position, a new system of covert
attention/orienting;
15. Individual cultural experience and also, the movement of head when
eyes are covered. People tend to hide their true instincts because they
consider that they will be judged and also criticized for their decisions;
16. Covert attention will also work for the benefit of overt social
attention. If we ask people to wear sunglasses, they will feel more
protected/secured, allowing themselves to do things they would not
normally do.

Source 2 Empathy article:

Authors Stephanie C. Goodhew, Mark Edwards.

Title of article Attentional control both helps and harms empathy.

Publishing Year of Publication: 2021;

information Journal: “Cognition”;

Academic Skills A, 500327-B-3; Assignment 3 FACTSHEET 2

 Volume Number: 206.
Type of This is a research paper due to the fact that for this study were used
article questionnaires and based on them a conclusion was reached.
Introduction 1.In this article is described the difference in empathy among people. The
distinguish made is between cognitive and affective empathy.
2. - Cognitive empathy: the ability of putting yourself in someone else’s
shoes and also understanding of what others might be feeling and their
perspectives;
- Affective empathy: the ability to experience what other people are
experiencing and also feeling.
3.Different aspects in attentional control: focusing, shifting.
4. Attentional control can be divided in two subcategories
- focusing your attention in order to avoid distraction;
- change efficiently between tasks.
5. – The cognitive attention needs attention;
- People with psychopathy might have prosperous cognitive empathy, but
not such good affective empathy;
6. Whether the relationship between attentional control and affective
empathy is positive or negative for the general population;

Method 7. 315 participants.

8. 299 participants.
9. 15 participants were excluded from the experiment because they failed
to respond accurately to two check questions.
10. Questionnaire regarding Cognitive and Affective Empathy:
- Cognitive empathy: 19/31 items;
-Affective empathy: 12/31;
11. Affective Empathy (12-48);
Cognitive Empathy (19-76).
12. Attentional control – measured by using the Attentional Control Scale
Shifting – questionnaire containing 5 items which measured the ability of
someone to change between tasks;
Focusing – questionnaire containing 7 items measuring the ability to
eliminate distraction in order to be able to focus on tasks;
13. Shifting: 5-20
Focusing: 7-29;
Results 14. Shows if two (or more) variables/things have a mutual connection
between each other. Also, it depends if them are
strongly/positively/negatively connected/correlated;
15. The score reflects on each other sequence, if one goes down, so the
other one will do the same and vice-versa (one low, also the other one
low);
16. Shifted correlated to Focusing; high score on Shifting= high score on
Focusing; low score on Focusing= low score on Shifting;
17. Cognitive Empathy related to Shifting - r 297 = 0.29, p < 001;
Cognitive Empathy not related to Focusing - r 297 = 0.08, p = 189;
Affective Empathy negatively related to Focusing - r 297 = − 0.26, p
< .001;
Academic Skills A, 500327-B-3; Assignment 3 FACTSHEET 3
 Affective Empathy not reliably related to Shifting – r 297 = − 0.13, p
= .030.
18. Positive correlation between Cognitive Empathy and Attentional
Control. High score on shifting leads to a high score on Cognitive
Empathy.
Negative correlation between affective empathy and attentional control.
Low score on focusing leads to high score on affective empathy;

Discussion 19. People with high levels of cognitive empathy have higher levels of
the capacity to switch their attention and those with low levels of
affective empathy have higher levels of the ability to focus their
attention;
20. - reliance on self-report measures for attentional control and empathy;
- due to the fact that the study has a correlational nature, causalities
cannot be properly drawn;
- all subjects completed the questionnaires in the same order.

Academic Skills A, 500327-B-3; Assignment 3 FACTSHEET 4