Jaume Rossello Mir

• PhD., Associate Professor
• Faculty Member at University of the Balearic Islands

We examined the influence of affective priming on the appreciation of abstract artworks using an evaluative priming task. Facial primes (showing happiness, disgust or no emotion) were presented under brief (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA = 20ms) and extended (SOA = 300ms) conditions. Differences in aesthetic liking for abstract paintings depending...

Symmetry and contour take part in shaping visual preference. However, less is known about their combined contribution to preference. We examined the hedonic tone and preference triggered by the interaction of symmetry and contour. Symmetric/curved, symmetric/sharp-angled, asymmetric/curved, and asymmetric/sharp-angled stimuli were presented in an i...

Objects with curved contours are generally preferred to sharp‐angled ones. In this study, we aim to determine whether different presentation times influence this preference. We used images of real objects (experiment 1) and meaningless novel patterns (experiment 2). Participants had to select one of two images from a contour pair, curved and sharp‐...

Our research explores the convergence of interoception and self-referential processing. We specifically investigated how interactions between our physical bodies and self- referential processing emerge from the integration of internal bodily signals and external stimuli. We used an active sensing paradigm (see Galvez-Pol et al., 2020, 2022) in whic...

Aesthetic and moral evaluations engage appetitive and defensive emotions. While the role played by pleasure in positive aesthetic and moral judgements has been extensively researched, little is known about how defensive emotions influence negative aesthetic and moral judgements. Specifically, it is unknown which defensive emotions such judgements t...

We assessed negative bias in Colombian young offenders towards affective deviants (those who violate emotional norms). Postulating that affective deviants elicit an “uncanny/creepy” feeling resembling that produced by psychopaths, we explored social judgments of affective deviants in individuals with callous-unemotional (CU) traits. 188 young offen...

Judgments of liking and beauty appear to be expressions of a common hedonic state, but they differ in how they engage cognitive processes. We hypothesized that beauty judgments place greater demands on limited executive resources than judgments of liking. We tested this hypothesis by asking two groups of participants to judge works of visual art fo...

Judgments of liking and beauty appear to be expressions of a common hedonic state, but they differ in how they engage cognitive processes. We hypothesized that beauty judgments place greater demands on limited executive resources than judgments of liking. We tested this hypothesis by asking two groups of participants to judge works of visual art fo...

Preference for visual curvature is a well-established effect. Munar et al (2014) found.differences in the effect between long and short presentation time. A useful approach.to study visual preferences is microgenetic perspective, which has been used in different fields. Our first experiment is aimed at getting to know more about the time course of...

According to a growing number of findings humans prefer curved contours, shapes, objects and environmental contexts more than their respective sharp-angled alternatives. Since a good amount of evidences suggests the said preference, like most of aesthetic cues, guides our everyday decision-making -from communication and social judgment to consumer...

Effect of Mental Abacus Calculation Over Executive Functions in a Sample of Elderly People

Booklet of the First SEJyD Meeting hold in Palma (Spain) on July 12-13, 2016. under the auspices of the University of the Balearic Islands, the Society for the Advancement of Judgment and Decision Making Studies (SEJyD), The Spanish Society of Experimental Psychology (SEPEX), the Human Evolution and Cogntion Research Group, IFISC (UIB-CSIC), La Cai...

A growing body of literature reveals a widespread tendency for people to prefer curved-contour objects (Bar & Neta, 2006, 2007), rooms (Vartanian et al., 2013), design elements (Westerman et al., 2012), and geometric figures (Bertamini, Palumbo, Gheorghes, & Galatsidas, 2016; Palumbo & Bertamini, 2016; Palumbo, Ruta, & Bertamini, 2015; Silvia & Bar...

Several studies have shown that people tend to prefer objects (Bar & Neta, 2006, 2007), rooms (Vartanian et al., 2013), design elements (Westerman et al., 2012), and geometric figures (Bertamini, Palumbo, Gheorghes, & Galatsidas, 2016; Palumbo & Bertamini, 2016; Palumbo, Ruta, & Bertamini, 2015; Silvia & Barona, 2009) with curved contours to simila...

People tend to prefer objects with curved contours to objects with sharp contours (e.g. Bar & Neta, 2006; Palumbo & Bertamini, 2016; Palumbo, Ruta, & Bertamini, 2015). Nevertheless, as with other aesthetic features (Jacobsen, 2004), there are also considerable differences among people in the extent to which they prefer curvature. The aim of the res...

Some studies showed that people tend to prefer curved contours to sharp contours (e.g. Bar & Neta, 2006; Palumbo & Bertamini, 2016). However, there are differences among people regarding this preference. In particular, recent studies suggest that there are gender-based differences (Belman et al., 2016). Moreover, the emotional valence modulates pre...

Previous research has shown that there are crucial factors influencing moral judgments. The present study addresses the interplay between moral judgments and four factors: (a) incidental affects,(b) sociocultural context, (c) type of dilemma, and (d) the participant’s sex. Suboptimal affective primes (by sexual, pleasant and neutral pictures) were...

Previous research has identified a set of core factors that influence moral judgments. The present study addresses the interplay between moral judgments and four factors: (a) incidental affects, (b) sociocultural context, (c) type of dilemma, and (d) participant's sex. We asked participants in two different countries (Colombia and Spain) to judge t...

S2 Appendix: Personal and Impersonal moral dilemmas. (DOCX)

Individual-level data (XLSX)

S1 Appendix: Affective primes. (DOC)

State of the Art of the study of the neural basis of psychopathy and implications for therapeutic advances.

Within the extended SOA level aesthetic liking ratings for artworks were significantly higher when primed with happiness expressions than when primed with disgust expressions. On the other hand, within the brief SOA level, priming with happiness expressions also increased the liking ratings in comparison with the disgust expressions, and the neutra...

Critic alreview about the main reasons that contribute to high rates of road accidents in Spain (in catalan language)

We investigate the influence of affective priming on the aesthetic preference of similar abstract pictures. Facial primes were photographs of men and women, expressing happiness, disgust or a neutral state, that were presented for brief (SOA = 20 msec) and extended duration (SOA = 300msec) conditions. The target stimuli acted visually masking the p...

Se sabe que la atención dividida visual juega un papel importante en el ámbito deportivo (Nougier y Rossi, 1999). Existen trabajos que sugieren, que la práctica deportiva potencia, entre otras, las habilidades atencionales (Masley, Roetzheim y Gualtieri, 2009). Parece que las diferencias entre expertos y noveles en atención dividida se deben esenci...

Our results suggest that there are at least some reasons to be uncertain about the EMDR therapeutic outcome in the case of spider phobia.

Aesthetic impression formation emerges later than the genuine perceptive processing. Activity identified in the right LOFC (300-400 ms) corresponds essentially to the representation of the negative value of the initial aesthetic impression. This initial negative impression formation subsequently would drive the second stage of aesthetic experience...

We present a review of the main dance styles, cultures and subcultures within styles in order to provide theoretical background for future studies of aesthetic preference in dance.

The objective of this poster is to show the results of brain activity registered by Magnetoencepahlography (MEG) when participants judged visual stimuli as not beautiful. In an aesthetic appreciation task, participants were asked to respond whether they found each image beautiful or not beautiful, emphasizing the importance of expressing their own...

MEG Experiment about beauty vs. non-beauty perception.

The role of cultural variables on automatic evaluative judgments is still a novel empirical topic. Built on previous studies showing that affective priming by mutilation pictures exclusively reduces the severity of moral judgments, the present study addresses the interaction between a particular cultural context (habituated to violent stimuli) and...

We investigate the influence of affective priming on the aesthetic preference of similar abstract pictures. Facial primes were portraits of men and women, expressing happiness, disgust or a neutral state, that were presented for brief (SOA = 20 msec) and extended duration (SOA = 300msec) conditions. The target stimuli acted visually masking the pri...

We present a review of the main dance styles, cultures and subcultures within styles in order to provide theoretical background for future studies of aesthetic preference in dance.

The objective of this pilot experiment is to show the results of brain activity registered by Magnetoencepahlography (MEG) when participants judged visual stimuli as not beautiful. In an aesthetic appreciation task, participants were asked to respond whether they found each image beautiful or not beautiful, emphasizing the importance of expressing...

We study the role of sociocultural factors (Colombia vs. Spain) on evaluation of moral judgments. The results suggest that the habituation to violence due to sociocultural context could modulate the effect of affective priming on the evaluative task. Nevertheless, further research is needed about the influence of cultural variables on the effects o...

Calling into question the effectiveness of EMDR treatment in the case of spyder phobia

The role of cultural variables on automatic evaluative judgments is still a novel empirical topic. Built on previous studies showing that affective priming by mutilation pictures exclusively reduces the severity of moral judgments, the present study addresses the interaction between a particular cultural context (habituated to violent stimuli) and...

The research from cognitive psychology has found a promising pat h of application in the field of branding and consumer behaviour. In this paper, we review the most striking findings in implicit cognition that are relevant to the research on evaluations and decision making. In doing this, we expect to cl arify the possible scope of cognitive psycho...

Research from cognitive psychology has found a promising application path in the field of branding and consumer behavior. In this paper, we review the most striking findings in implicit cognition that are relevant to research on evaluations and decision making. By doing so, we expect to clarify the possible scope of cognitive psychology as a potent...

El objetivo de este artículo consiste en contrastar la existencia de un factor general subyacente a la percepción estética, analizando mediante la técnica de diferencial semántico las respuestas de los participantes a estímulos de diversa condición artística en las categorías de «bello», «agradable», «interesante» y «original». Dicho análisis se re...

El estudio del desarrollo de la audición demuestra que el funcionamiento del sistema auditivo se puede descomponer en un amplio abanico de funciones y que cada una de estas funciones puede ser evaluada a partir de diversas medidas. Ello conlleva a resultados dispares cuando, en cada una de estas funciones y medidas, pretendemos establecer el moment...

The need for multidisciplinary approaches to the scientific study of human nature is a widely supported academic claim. This assumption has proved to be especially successful in the field of moral psychology. Although studies of moral topics have been ubiquitous in both humanities and social sciences, it is not until the integration of different sc...

The research from cognitive psychology has found a promising path of application in the field of branding and consumer behaviour. In this paper, we review the most striking findings in implicit cognition that are relevant to the research on evaluations and decision making. In doing this, we expect to clarify the possible scope of cognitive psycholo...

Studies of visual esthetic preference have shown that people without art training generally prefer representational paintings to abstract paintings. This, however, is not always the case: preferences can sometimes go against this usual tendency. We aimed to explore this issue, investigating the relationship between “unusual responses” and reaction...

Starting from the applied research on stimulus-driven attentional capture under conditions of inattention, and focusing on the recent controversy triggered off by the PRE/52/2010 Spanish law that proposes the substitution of the amber rotary lights of certain emergency vehicles (ambulances and firefighters) for a blue revolving beacon similar to th...

Background: Disgust is, at its core, an emotion that responds to cues of parasites and infection, likely to be evolved to protect human organism from the risk of disease. Interestingly, a growing body of research implicates disgust as an emotion central to human morality. The fact that disgust is associated with appraisals of moral transgressions...

Las herramientas provenientes de la psicología cognitiva han encontrado una vía de aplicación prometedora en el ámbito del branding y el comportamiento del consumidor. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo establecer sus posibles alcances. Con este fin, se realiza una revisión de los hallazgos más relevantes en cognición implícita relacionados a...

GOALS Previous studies have shown that disgust can shape moral judgments .However, the specificity of this causal relationship remains unclear .The current investigation starts from an affective dimensional point of view that could contribute to clarify this intriguing question. From this conceptual approach, we test how different affective primes...

"I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after."(Ernest Hemingway). In the last ten years, discoveries about intuitions, emotions and the particular ways in which automatic mechanisms interact with controlled processes have led to the beginning of a new era in the study of morality.Thus, r...

It is well established that aesthetic appreciation is related with activity in several different brain regions. The identification of the neural correlates of beauty or liking ratings has been the focus of most prior studies. Not much attention has been directed towards the fact that humans are surrounded by objects that lead them to experience aes...

Analysis Results from SPM8 (Statistical Parametric Mapping). (PDF)

Previous studies have shown that disgust can shape moral judgments. However, the specificity of this causal relationship remains unclear. The current investigation starts from an affective-dimensional point of view that could contribute to clarify this intriguing question. From this conceptual approach, we test how different affective primes (disgu...

Previous findings suggest that negative affect biases the perception of affectively congruent facial expressions of emotion, independently of their approach-withdrawal dimension. We study the effects of anger and sadness inductions in the discrimination of three emotion-related facial expressions, with special interest to examine the influence of t...

muestra, seleccionada de forma no aleatoria, estaba compuesta por un total de 30 varones voluntarios, 10 expertos en fútbol (edad= 20.79±1.72), 10 expertos en tenis (21.45±2.42) y otros 10 sujetos no deportistas habituales (20.27±1.27). Se diseñó una tarea basada en un paradigma de cancelación mediante DirectRT© en la cual se debía discriminar si d...

Resulta razonable pensar que, en la filogenia animal, la percepción visual ha surgido como una forma de control de la acción. Al fin y al cabo, cerebro visual y cerebro motor han evolucionado juntos. En nuestra especie, la información visual –que, como en el resto de primates, predomina sobre la de otros sentidos–, ha sido fundamental para sobreviv...

Background. Disgust is, at its core, an emotion that responds to cues of parasites and infection, likely to be evolved to protect human organism to the risk of disease. Interestingly, a growing body of research implicates disgust as an emotion central to human morality. The fact that disgust is associated with appraisals of moral transgressions and...

http://www.frontiersin.org/10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00152/1034/xi_international_conference_on/all_events/event_abstract Previous studies have not properly delimited if disgust exerts a domain-specific influence on moral judgments. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first experiment investigating how affective priming can in...

http://www.frontiersin.org/10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00284/1034/xi_international_conference_on/all_events/event_abstract Previous findings suggest that negative affect biases the perception of affectively congruent facial expressions of emotion, independently of their approach-withdrawal dimension. We study the effects of anger and sadness induc...

En general, el investigador actual en percepción sigue manteniendo una idea realista y relativamente representacionalista de la percepción, a pesar de que algunos autores sustituyen el énfasis de la representación por el de la percepción para la acción. Sin embargo, hay que tener en cuenta que representacionalismo y los modelos percepción para la a...

Previous studies have not properly delimited if disgust exerts a domain-specific influence on moral judgments. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first experiment investigating how affective priming can influence the moral judgment that a particular participant gives to a particular situation. The present study tests how contex...

Knowledge in neuroaesthetics has considerably increased as a result of neuroimaging studies. Neuroimaging studies have revealed activity in a broad network of brain regions while participants enjoyed the beauty of visual stimuli. Nevertheless, little attention is usually paid to what goes on with regards to the non-beautiful stimulus processing. Th...

El Laboratori Virtual de Psicologia Bàsica (LVPB) és una eina que pretén aprofitar les noves tecnologies per donar un nou enfocament al procés d’aprenentatge dels processos psicològics bàsics. Amb el LVPB s’acompanya a l’estudiant en un recorregut a través d’experiments que s’han convertit en clàssics de la Psicologia Cognitiva amb l’objectiu d’ass...

Aiming to provide a tentative framework for the study of the neural correlates of aesthetic preference, we review three recent neuroimaging studies carried out with the purpose of locating brain activity associated with decisions about the beauty of visual stimuli (Cela-Conde et al., 2004; Kawabata and Zeki, 2004; Vartanian and Goel, 2004). We find...

Traditionally, aesthetic experience has been conceived as a supra-perceptual mental process. However, some current theories and models of aesthetic experience emphasize perceptual processes (Seeley, 2006). Semir Zeki (1994, 1999) argued that there was a close relation between visual art and the selective stimulation of early visual cortical areas....

RESUMEN La propia naturaleza de la atención, tan diversa, ha contribuído a que, a lo largo de la historia del pensamiento, sus estudiosos la hayan concebido de forma muy distinta. Aún hoy encontramos reminiscencias de la controversia generada a raíz de esa heterogeneidad de planteamientos. En este trabajo proponemos una sistematización de la evoluc...

Visual aesthetic perception ("aesthetics") or the capacity to visually perceive a particular attribute added to other features of objects, such as form, color, and movement, was fixed during human evolutionary lineage as a trait not shared with any great ape. Although prefrontal brain expansion is mentioned as responsible for the appearance of such...

Research on visual attention, that has revealed the diverse nature of selection mechanisms, has given rise to different theoretical approaches, some of which understand attention as a supramodal control system, encountering the so-called «homunculus problem». Selection-for-action theories imply an alternative view without such trouble, conceiving a...

El estudio de la atención visual, que ha revelado la naturaleza diversa de los mecanismos selectivos, ha dado lugar a distintos modelos teóricos, algunos de los cuales la entienden como un sistema de control supramodal, topando con el llamado «problema del homúnculo». Las teorías de selección para la acción constituyen una alternativa sin ese incon...

The aim of this paper lies in investigate the existence of an underlying general factor in aesthetic perception. Subjects that took part in this research had to categorize, by means of semantic differential method, diverse artistic stimulus in the categories of «beautiful», «pleasant», «interesting» and «original». Subjects' judgements were made in...

The study of auditory development shows that the activity of the auditory system may he split into several functions. Each one of these functions can be measured using different techniques. The use of several techniques produces different results when we seek to know when the child achieves a similar competence to an adult. We put forward the most...

Starting from the evidence that, in order to manoeuvre in the face of unexpected events or novel situations, two of the driver's key capabilities are non-automated perceptual motor coordination and the supervisory control that executive attention exerts on cognition and action, we intend to contrast, in two samples consisting of 32 both sex volunte...

p. 515-579 Ofrecer una revisión crítica del campo temático determinado por el trimonio atención, alcohol y conducción. Evaluar si alcoholemias entre 0,5 y 0,8 afectan a la precisión y a la rapidez al ejecutar una tarea de atención visual focalizada, una de atención sostenida y una de cambio de disposición atencional, 72 sujetos estudiantes voluntar...

A partir de la evidencia de que dos de las habilidades clave del conductor a la hora de maniobrar ante eventos inesperados o situaciones novedosas son la coordinación psicomotora no automatizada y el control supervisor que ejerce la llamada atención ejecutiva sobre la cognición y sobre la acción, pretendemos contrastar, en dos muestras de 32 volunt...

Se describen dos experimentos, en los cuales un grupo de estudiantes (39 en el experimento 1, 32 en el experimento 2) llevaron a cabo: 1- una tarea dual 2- una prueba de cambio atencional auditivo. En ambos casos, los sujetos pasaron por dos condiciones: A- ingerían una bebida alcohólica hasta alcanzar un nivel de alcohol en sangre entre 0,3 y 0,4...

Este nuevo volumen de la prestigiosa colección de Manuales de la editorial Alianza constituye una obra excepcional, por diversas razones. En primer lugar, porque demuestra fehacientemente el progreso ocurrido en nuestra comunidad científica con respecto a la formación de nuevos investigadores en los campos de atención y percepción, por lo cual hay...

Se describen dos experimentos, en los cuales un grupo de estudiantes (39 en el experimento 1, 32 en el experimento 2) llevaron a cabo: 1- una tarea dual 2- una prueba de cambio atencional auditivo. En ambos casos, los sujetos pasaron por dos condiciones: A- ingerían una bebida alcohólica hasta alcanzar un nivel de alcohol en sangre entre 0,3 y 0,4...

Ribot’s theory of attention is expounded starting from his book Psychologie de l’Attention (1889), which is one of the first relevant monographic approaches to the study of human attention. His proposal is analysed in the context of the 19th century’s main attentional assumptions, yet trying to keep the contemporaneous conceptual reference. Ribot u...

Primera parte: MOTIVACION -2. INTRODUCCIÓN Y DELIMITACIÓN CONCEPTUAL -2.1. Definiciones de motivación y precisiones terminológicas -El instinto -El impulso (drive) -El incentivo -La visión asociacionista: diferencia entre incentivo y recompensa -El concepto de homeostasis -La perspectiva hedonista -2.2. Componentes de la motivación -La ac...

Dr. Pere Mata's sonambulism theory exposed in his "Tratado sobre la razón humana en sus estados intermedios" is synthesized. Firstly, sleep and movement concepts are exposed, as well as the differencial judgements that, by that time, defined the three kinds of sonabulism: the "natural physiological", the "natural pathological", and the artificial o...

Traditionally, it has been several difficulties to distinguish between the cortical activity characteristic of Stage I and that one of REM sleep, due to the similarities between wave amplitude and frequency recorded by the classical electroencephalography. Eecause that difficulty, it has been necessary to record other polygraphic parameters, mainly...

In this paper we take on a brief historic journey since the orgins of psychology of attention in 19th century's introspectionismtill its revival from Cognitive Revolution. We explore, all through this run, the different account of attention in the main psychological approaches and in the works of the most representative psychologists of that period...