Human face processing relies heavily on configural processing—the ability to perceive the spatial relationships between facial features—rather than on processing individual features in isolation. In this study, we explored configural processing of faces in paintings, comparing artworks along a realism/distortion continuum, including Renaissance, Postimpressionism, Expressionism, and Cubism. To test competing hypotheses regarding a possible modulation by art style in relational processing, we asked how inversion hinders configural processing of faces in paintings. We found gradation in relational processing, with an inversion effect for Renaissance and Postimpressionism face paintings but no inversion effect for Expressionism and Cubism face paintings. Distortion in the positioning of facial features introduced in Expressionism and Cubism is most probably related to the lesser importance of relational processing in these art styles, whereas the higher realism of faces in Renaissance and Postimpressionist paintings fosters the recruitment of mechanisms involved in the processing of real faces.

Learning about certain disciplines can change students’ way of thinking (e.g., economy students become less cooperative, philosophy students become more reflective). We explore whether studying psychology affects students’ beliefs about whether certain psychological phenomena can be explained by science, and whether they stem from a material (brain) or immaterial (soul) basis. A total of 315 psychology students at different levels into their studies (i.e., Years 1–5 of training) and 62 age-matched controls were considered. Participants provided fast and slow ratings about whether psychological phenomena stem from the brain vs. soul, as well as scientific explainability ratings. Finally, their knowledge about psychology was assessed. Training in psychology (years of training) was associated with higher beliefs that psychological phenomena are explainable by science, and that they stem from the brain (even when those beliefs were probed with fast responses), but only when that training translated into greater knowledge of psychology. That is, exposure to psychology per se did not seem to affect beliefs about psychology as a science and psychological phenomena are brain-based; only when participants gained sound knowledge of psychology (which most tended to accrue in their training) did their beliefs about psychological phenomena change. Finally, we found that the more participants considered a psychological phenomenon to be brain-based, the more it was considered to be scientifically explainable.Implications for recent debates about whether practice alone is sufficient for expertise development (e.g., 10,000 h rule) are discussed.

Faces are the most important social signal in our society. Nevertheless, there is a problem with faces: they are all made up of the same features in the same general order (the eyes are above the nose, which is above the mouth). To process faces one uses a special kind of processing, which is holistic, considering the integration of the face’s features and their relative distances. One may distinguish the recognition of known faces and the processing of unfamiliar faces. Face processing abilities may be lost due to either a lesion or developmental reasons, i.e., prosopagnosia. To further explore these reasons, one could consider pictorial representations of faces—such as faces in paintings. These are particularly interesting because different art styles differ in how realistic/distorted they are relative to real faces, which allows for exploring people’s sensitivity to face-likeness. In a way, individuals are not sensitive to face-likeness. In face matching part–whole tasks, performance does not differ across art styles. Still, individuals are not fully impervious to distortion: early markers of face processing (N170 component) are sensitive to face-likeness, with more realistic (vs. distorted) art styles eliciting responses more in line with those of real faces.

Individuals rely on others’ expertise to achieve a basic understanding of the world. But how can non-experts achieve understanding from explanations that, by definition, they are ill-equipped to assess? Across 9 experiments with 6,698 participants (Study 1A = 737; 1B = 734; 1C = 733; 2A = 1,014; 2B = 509; 2C = 1,012; 3A = 1,026; 3B = 512; 4 = 421), we address this puzzle by focusing on scientific explanations with jargon. We identify ‘when’ and ‘why’ the inclusion of jargon makes explanations more satisfying, despite decreasing their comprehensibility. We find that jargon increases satisfaction because laypeople assume the jargon fills gaps in explanations that are otherwise incomplete. We also identify strategies for debiasing these judgements: when people attempt to generate their own explanations, inflated judgements of poor explanations with jargon are reduced, and people become better calibrated in their assessments of their own ability to explain.

Though people readily claim that others fall prey to several biases, they are less likely to recognize those same biases in themselves – a tendency termed bias blind spot (Pronin et al. in Personality Social Psychol Bull 23:369–381, 2002). The bias blind spot is believed to emerge due to people’s overreliance on introspection for assessing their biases (which is unlikely to turn up evidence of bias), while bias in other people is ascribed based on their behaviors. Many biases, however, are perceived as negative and thus the bias blind spot may reflect the desire to see oneself in a positive light. Moreover, not all biases are necessarily undesirable, and thus people may be motivated to admit to biases that are considered desirable. We explore this motivational account for the bias blind spot by manipulating bias desirability within- and across-biases. Participants report a smaller bias blind spot after reading a bias description that focuses on its positive outcomes, relative to when the same description details its negative consequences (Study 1). We obtain convergent evidence when considering perceptions of bias desirability (Study 2): The more a person rates a bias as desirable, the less bias blind spot they report for it. Implications are discussed with regard to what constitutes an adaptative bias – namely that a bias can be considered an error from the logical standpoint and nevertheless be socially advantageous and thus adaptive.