%0 Journal Article
%T I before U: Temporal order judgements reveal bias for self
%A Greg Huffman
%A Jay Pratt
%A Merryn D Constable
%A Timothy N Welsh
%J Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
%@ 1747-0226
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1747021818762010
%X A multitude of studies demonstrate that self-relevant stimuli influence attention. Self-owned objects are a special class of self-relevant stimuli. If a self-owned object can indeed be characterised as a self-relevant stimulus then, consistent with theoretical predictions, a behavioural effect of ownership on attention should be present. To test this prediction, a task was selected that is known to be particularly sensitive measure of the prioritisation of visual information: the temporal order judgement. Participants completed temporal order judgements with pictures of ¡°own¡± and ¡°experimenter¡± owned objects (mugs) presented on either side of a central fixation cross. There was a variable onset delay between each picture, ranging between 0£¿ms and 105£¿ms, and participants were asked to indicate which mug appeared first. The results indicated a reliable change in the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) in favour of their own mug. Such a change in the PSS was not observed for two groups of participants who were exposed to a mug but did not keep the mug. A further experiment indicated that the source of the bias in PSS was more consistent with a criterion shift or top-down attentional prioritisation rather than a perceptual bias. These findings suggest that ownership, beyond mere-touch, mere-choice, or familiarity, leads to prioritised processing and responses, but the mechanism underlying the effect is not likely to be perceptual in nature
%K Ownership
%K self-relevance
%K temporal order judgement
%K attention
%K self-bias
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1747021818762010