Does hearing a story about performing an action activate corresponding motor representations? If so, can linguistically-activated motor representations affect our visual experience of the world? The present study tested whether hearing a storyabout performing power or precision grasps would cause people to perceive an ambiguous object in a grasp-congruentmanner. Participants listened to a story in which they tossed water balloons either (1) without touching their knots (powergrasp condition) or (2) by only touching their knots (precision grasp condition). Afterward, participants interpreted anobject that could either be seen as an apple (power grasp) or cherry (precision grasp). To further manipulate participantsavailability for subsequent action in the story, participants either (1) had just grasped, (2) prepared to grasp, or (3) hadrepeatedly grasped the water balloons before the ambiguous image appeared. People perceived the object in a grasp-congruent manner only when their hands were available for action.

Folk theories guide behavior and shape how people make sense oftheir environment. We investigated whether folk economic beliefswould moderate the widely publicized finding that people show aconservative shift in their politics when their majority status insociety is threatened. Across three experiments, participants readabout either projected demographic changes (threat) or changes inonline dating (control), indicated whether they viewed the economyas a zero- or non-zero-sum system, and responded to measures ofsociopolitical attitudes. Compared to controls, participants in thethreat condition who conceptualized the economy in zero-sum termssupported more conservative policies. However, those whoconceptualized the economy in non-zero-sum terms actuallyendorsed more liberal positions in this condition. These effectsobtained only when participants expressed their economic viewsbefore their political attitudes. This suggests folk economic beliefsshape how people respond to threats to their majority status,provided those beliefs are first made explicit.

Previous research has found that people are seen as more attractive when they appear in a group rather than inisolation. Do faces that surround us in time also affect how attractive we seem? Participants rated the attractiveness of famousfemale faces presented in a sequence of three and in isolation. We found that people do integrate information about attractivenessover time, but that temporal context has the opposite effect of static context. People perceived faces as less attractive in a seriesthan when those same faces were presented in isolation. We also varied the attractiveness of surrounding faces in order toexamine how the serial position of contextual information figures into people’s judgments of a face. Faces presented early inthe sequence figured more heavily into people’s judgments than did faces presented at the end. These findings highlight therole that temporal context plays in the perception of attractiveness.

Previous research has found that people are seen as moreattractive when they appear in a group rather than in isolation.The present study asks whether faces that surround us in timealso affect how attractive we appear to be. Participants ratedthe attractiveness of famous female faces presented in asequence of three and in isolation. We found that people dointegrate information about attractiveness over time, but thattemporal context has the opposite effect of static context.People perceived faces as less attractive in a series than inisolation. We also varied the attractiveness of surroundingfaces in order to examine how the serial position of contextualinformation might figure into people’s judgments. We foundthat faces presented earlier in the sequence figured moreheavily into people’s judgment than did faces presented laterin the sequence. These findings highlight the role of temporalcontext in perceptions of attractiveness.