Do we favour our future or past selves the way we favour 'me now'?
Shapes linked to your present self were matched faster and more accurately than shapes linked to yourself even one day in the past or future, which were treated like a stranger's.
Source
Self-prioritization and perceptual matching: The effects of temporal construal
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Three repeated-measures experiments: participants linked geometric shapes to the current self, past or future selves and a stranger, then judged shape-label pairings; accuracy, RT and hierarchical drift diffusion parameters were compared.
- N
- Sixteen undergraduates took part in each of the three experiments; one Experiment 3 participant was excluded for not following instructions. No pooled N is analysed.
- Population
- Undergraduates at the University of Aberdeen, mostly female, with normal or corrected vision
- Outcome
- Matching sensitivity (d'), response times on matching and nonmatching trials, and diffusion model drift rate, starting point and nondecision time
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What they did
In each of three experiments, sixteen undergraduates imagined different versions of themselves (now, in a year or forty years; tomorrow or next month; yesterday or last month) and a stranger, and paired each with a geometric shape. They then saw brief shape-label pairs and pressed a key to say whether each pair matched the learned association. The researchers analysed accuracy with signal detection, reaction times with ANOVA, and fitted a hierarchical Bayesian drift diffusion model to split performance into evidence-uptake speed, starting bias and nondecision time.
What they found
In all three experiments, only shapes tied to the current self produced faster and more accurate matching; future and past selves performed like the stranger, even a single day away. In Experiment 2, the RT advantage for the present self over tomorrow's self was very large (d = 2.31). Diffusion modelling showed the present-self advantage came from a higher drift rate on matching trials, meaning faster evidence accumulation, and participants in every experiment also started with a bias towards answering 'match'.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Each experiment used only sixteen mostly female undergraduates from one university, so estimates are imprecise and generalisation to other groups is untested. The temporal selves were induced by a brief guided-imagery exercise, and the study cannot tell whether a different induction would let near-future selves gain priority. The task uses arbitrary shapes and a single lab paradigm, so the authors note it is unknown whether self-relevance works the same way in other judgments. The drift rate result shows where in decision-making the advantage arises, not that perception itself is literally changed.
Key terms
- Self-prioritization effect
- Faster and more accurate processing of arbitrary stimuli after they have been associated with oneself rather than with another person.
- Construal-level theory
- The idea that things psychologically distant in time, space or social terms are represented more abstractly and less vividly than things close to here and now.
- Drift diffusion model
- A model of two-choice decisions in which evidence builds up over time towards one of two boundaries; it separates the speed of evidence uptake from response bias and non-decision time.
- Drift rate (v)
- The speed and quality of evidence accumulation in a diffusion model; a higher drift rate implies more efficient stimulus processing.
- Starting point (z)
- Where evidence accumulation begins between the two boundaries; a value away from the midpoint indicates a prior bias towards one response.
- d' (d-prime)
- A signal detection measure of sensitivity that combines hits and false alarms to show how well matches are distinguished from mismatches.
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Quiz yourself
In these experiments, which shapes were matched fastest and most accurately?
Common questions
Why use meaningless shapes instead of people's own faces or names?
Own faces and names are far more familiar than strangers' faces, so any advantage could be due to familiarity. Newly learned shape associations equate familiarity, isolating the effect of self-relevance.
What does it mean that the future self was treated like a stranger?
Shapes linked to tomorrow's or next year's self gave matching performance no better than shapes linked to a stranger, fitting the idea that distant selves are represented more like other people.
Does the drift rate result prove the effect is perceptual?
It shows the advantage lies in how quickly evidence builds up about the stimulus rather than in a response bias, which is consistent with a stimulus-processing account but does not directly measure perception.
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