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An eye tracking study on the attraction to human and avatar online dating profiles, investigating the visual attention to profiles high and low in social power.

In a preliminary study, we found that power cues are processed automatically from briefly presented primes. We now search for correlates of this power priming effect. In this study we manipulate the feeling of being in power and examine its effects on the automatic processing of power cues.

Digitization has already influenced human interaction with sexualized media. Today, such media are relatively easy to access, often involve comparatively low costs for the user, and can be consumed anonymously (compare Cooper, 1998; Döring et al., 2017). In the age of machine learning algorithms and vector graphics, however, this increasingly applies to the production of sexualized media as well; the number of computer-generated sexualized media is steadily increasing (Wittmer & Steinebach, 2019). Sexual acts can be shown that on the one hand never took place, but also content that would push real people to their physical limits (often content that is very painful to unfeasible for real people). Accordingly, the present study considers on the one hand the ontological class of the stimuli (human or computer-generated), but also in interaction with the content of the stimulus (dominant or gentle). This study functions as a preliminary study for a project in which similar questions will be investigated using eye tracking as an implicit measure. This study was approved by the ethics committee of the Department of Cognitive and Media Sciences at the University of Duisburg Essen (Germany).

In times of fake news and alternative facts, a differentiated approach to (scientific) knowledge becomes increasingly important. In light of current events, namely the covid19-pandemic, understanding epistemic beliefs and their effect on dealing with misinformation and conspiracy theories is especially relevant. This study therefore explored relationships between epistemic beliefs (how individuals perceive knowledge and science, as well as scientific knowledge within specific research areas) and beliefs in covid19-related conspiracy theories.