Effects of Self-Enhancement on Eye Movements During Reading

Ya Lou; Ya Lou; Ya Lou; Huajian Cai; Huajian Cai; Xuewei Liu; Xuewei Liu; Xingshan Li; Xingshan Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00343

Frontiers in Psychology (Feb 2019)

Effects of Self-Enhancement on Eye Movements During Reading

Ya Lou,
Ya Lou,
Ya Lou,
Huajian Cai,
Huajian Cai,
Xuewei Liu,
Xuewei Liu,
Xingshan Li,
Xingshan Li

Affiliations

Ya Lou: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China
Ya Lou: Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Ya Lou: Beijing Institute of Education, Beijing, China
Huajian Cai: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China
Huajian Cai: Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Xuewei Liu: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China
Xuewei Liu: Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Xingshan Li: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China
Xingshan Li: Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00343
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 10

Abstract

Read online

Previous studies show that readers’ eye movements are influenced by text properties and readers’ personal cognitive characteristics. In the current study, we further show that readers’ eye movements are influenced by a social motivation of self-enhancement. We asked participants to silently read sentences that describe self or others with positive or negative traits while their eyes were monitored. First-fixation duration and gaze duration were longer when positive words were used to describe self than to describe others, but there was no such effect for negative words. These results suggest that eye movements can be influenced by the motivation of self-enhancement in addition to various stimuli features and cognitive factors. This finding indicates that the eye movement methodology can potentially be used to study implicit social cognition.

Published in Frontiers in Psychology

ISSN: 1664-1078 (Online)
Publisher: Frontiers Media S.A.
Country of publisher: Switzerland
LCC subjects: Philosophy. Psychology. Religion: Psychology
Website: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology

About the journal

Abstract

Keywords