The feedback related negativity encodes both social rejection and explicit social expectancy violationHumans consistently make predictions about the valence of future events and use feedback to validate initial predictions. While the valence of outcomes provides utilitarian information, the accuracy of predictions is crucial for future performance adjustment. The feedback related negativity (FRN), identified as a marker of reward prediction error, possibly encodes social rejection and social prediction error. To test this possibility, we used event related potential (ERP) techniques combined with social tasks in which participants were required to make explicit predictions (whether others will accept their “friend request” or not, Experiment 1) or implicit predictions (whether they would like this person or not, Experiment 2) respectively, and then received social feedback. We found that the FRN is sensitive to social rejection and explicit social prediction error in Experiment 1 but not implicit social prediction error in Experiment 2. We conclude that the FRN encodes social rejection and explicit social expectancy violation.
Expectancy Violation and Student Rating of InstructionExamines whether violations that are incongruent with student expectations are significantly different than congruent violations of expectancy in relation to student ratings of instruction. Shows that college students having high expectations/high experiences evaluated teachers more favorably than students with low expectations/high experiences, low expectations/low experiences and high expectations/low experiences.
Memory for expectation-violating concepts: the effects of agents and cultural familiarityPrevious research has shown that ideas which violate our expectations, such as schema-inconsistent concepts, enjoy privileged status in terms of memorability. In our study, memory for concepts that violate cultural (cultural schema-level) expectations (e.g., ‘‘illiterate teacher’’, ‘‘wooden bottle’’, or ‘‘thorny grass’’) versus domain-level (ontological) expectations (e.g., ‘‘speaking cat’’, ‘‘jumping maple’’, or ‘‘melting teacher’’) was examined. Concepts that violate cultural expectations, or counter-schematic, were remembered to a greater extent compared with concepts that violate ontological expectations
and with intuitive concepts (e.g., ‘‘galloping pony’’, ‘‘drying orchid’’, or ‘‘convertible car’’), in both immediate recall, and delayed recognition tests. Importantly, concepts related to agents showed a memory advantage over concepts not pertaining to agents, but this was true only for expectation-violating concepts. Our results imply that intuitive, everyday concepts are equally attractive and memorable regardless of the presence or absence of agents. However, concepts that
violate our expectations (cultural-schema or domain-level) are more memorable when pertaining to agents (humans and animals) than to non-agents (plants or objects/artifacts). We conclude that due to their evolutionary salience, cultural ideas which combine expectancy violations and the involvement of an agent are especially memorable and thus have an enhanced probability of being successfully propagated.
On the Maintenance of Expectations in Major Depression - Investigating a Neglected Phenomenon.(Report)In this perspective paper, we suggest that among patients suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD), dysfunctional expectations are maintained despite experiences that are contrary to these expectations. Surprisingly, this persistence of expectations in MDD has not yet been addressed by empirical studies. We argue that it is worthwhile to investigate this phenomenon with the aim of improving the treatment of MDD, and we provide a theoretical framework for understanding it. It is hypothesized that the persistence of expectations is primarily due to a process called immunization. That is, people experiencing depressive symptoms may cognitively reappraise the contradictory experience such that expectations do not need to be changed. There may be two mechanisms underlying this immunization: (1) the experience in the expectation-violating situation is considered to be an exception; or (2) the credibility of the information gained from the experience is called into question. Moreover, the maintenance of expectations may be particularly persistent if a person’s expectations reflect his or her self-concept, as self-concept has been shown to be associated with future expectations. To empirically examine the hypothesized maintenance of expectations in MDD, we propose an experimental approach which could provide important implications for the treatment of MDD within cognitive behavioral therapy. We suggest that psychological interventions such as behavioral experiments should more rigorously focus on patients’ appraisal of expectation-violating experiences in order to prevent immunization processes. Therapists should continuously examine whether patients’ expectations were modified and should address the reasons for the maintenance of expectations.
An fMRI investigation of expectation violation in magic tricksMagic tricks violate the expected causal relationships that form an implicit belief system about what is possible in the world around us. Observing a magic effect seemingly invalidates our implicit assumptions about what action causes which outcome. We aimed at identifying the neural correlates of such expectation violations by contrasting 24 video clips of magic tricks with 24 control clips in which the expected action-outcome relationship is upheld. Using fMRI, we measured the brain activity of 25 normal volunteers while they watched the clips in the scanner. Additionally, we measured the professional magician who had performed the magic tricks under the assumption that, in contrast to naïve observers, the magician himself would not perceive his own magic tricks as an expectation violation. As the main effect of magic – control clips in the normal sample, we found higher activity for magic in the head of the caudate nucleus (CN) bilaterally, the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left anterior insula. As expected, the magician’s brain activity substantially differed from these results, with mainly parietal areas (supramarginal gyrus bilaterally) activated, supporting our hypothesis that he did not experience any expectation violation. These findings are in accordance with previous research that has implicated the head of the CN in processing changes in the contingency between action and outcome, even in the absence of reward or feedback.
