The pleasure of multiple images

Abstract

How many pleasures can you track? In a previous study, we showed that people can simultaneously track the pleasure they experience from two images. Here, we push further, probing the individual and combined pleasures felt from seeing four images in one glimpse. Participants (N = 25) viewed 36 images spanning the entire range of pleasure. Each trial presented an array of four images, one in each quadrant of the screen, for 200 ms. On 80% of the trials, a central line cue pointed, randomly, at some screen corner either before (precue) or after (postcue) the images were shown. The cue indicated which image (the target) to rate while ignoring the others (distractors). On the other 20% of trials, an X cue requested a rating of the combined pleasure of all four images. Later, for baseline reference, we obtained a single-pleasure rating for each image shown alone. When precued, participants faithfully reported the pleasure of the target. When postcued, however, the mean ratings of images that are intensely pleasurable when seen alone (pleasure >4.5 on a 1-9 scale) dropped below baseline. Regardless of cue timing, the rating of the combined pleasure of four images was a linear transform of the average baseline pleasures of all four images. Thus, while people can faithfully track two pleasures, they cannot track four. Instead, the pleasure of otherwise above-medium-pleasure images is diminished, mimicking the effect of a distracting task.

Keywords: Object recognition; Precuing; Scene perception.

Fig. 1

Timeline for a typical trial of the main experiment (a) and baseline rating (b). a During the main experiment, participants were either cued by a line to rate the image in the screen corner pointed to by the line, or cued by an X to rate the combined pleasure of all four images. Each line cue lies along the path from fixation to a screen corner. The X (not shown) is the combination of all four possible line cues

Fig. 2

Scatterplots of mean faithful-prediction error per participant (data minus prediction). Light gray lines indicate zero error. The dashed black line is the equality line. Each point indicates the average error across predicted ratings for one participant. a Relation between errors in precued and postcued trials for 1-of-4 ratings. b Relation between errors in precued and postcued trials for 4-combined ratings. c Relation between errors for 1-of-4 and 4-combined ratings in precued trials. d Relation between errors for 1-of-4 and 4-combined ratings in postcued trials

Fig. 3

Model fits. a, d For each model: average root-mean-square error (RMSE) between ratings and model predictions across LOOCV iterations and participants. The ratings are precued (light gray) and postcued (dark gray) trials for 1-of-4 (a) and 4-combined trials (d). Bars represent ±SEM. The dashed lines indicate the average RMSE for the faithful model for precued (light gray) and postcued trials (dark gray). Models are described in the Methods section. b, c, e, f Scatterplots of data (horizontal axes) versus predictions of the best-fitting model (vertical axes) for precued (b, e) and postcued (c, f) trials for 1-of-4 (b, c) and 4-combined ratings (e, f). Dashed lines represent equality. b, c Each data point represents the average observed and predicted rating for one participant for a 1-point range of average 1-of-4 pleasure across presented images. e, f Each data point represents the average observed and predicted rating for one participant for a 1-point range of average 4-combined pleasure across presented images. This means that 4-image trials whose average 1-of-4 pleasures were, for example, 4.25 and 4.75 contributed to the same data point, and trials with averages of 4.25 and 5.25 to separate ones

Fig. 4

Scatterplots of average pleasure rating standard deviations (SD) per participant. Dashed black lines are equality lines. Each point refers to the average standard deviation across expected ratings for one participant. a Relation between standard deviations in precued and postcued trials for 1-of-4 ratings. b Relation between standard deviations in precued and postcued trials for 4-combined ratings. c Relation between standard deviations for 1-of-4 and 4-combined ratings in precued trials. d Relation between standard deviations for 1-of-4 and 4-combined ratings in postcued trials