People automatically mimic the behaviors of others, which tends to lead mimicked individuals to prefer the mimicking individual. One’s impressions on others can be enhanced by mimicking hand or foot movements, facial expressions, and even pupil dilation. It has also been reported that multiple individuals tend to synchronize their eye blinking when watching a movie or listening to a speech at the same time. Accordingly, although no studies have investigated eye-blinking mimicry to date, we hypothesize that it should occur. This study investigates whether participants will unconsciously mimic the eye blinking of others and whether that enhances impressions towards the mimicking individual. More specifically, we first presented the participants with images of individuals blinking at random times and examined whether the participants would mimic the blinking individual and, then, to investigate the effects of mimicry, we presented individuals blinking at the same time as the participants. The results indicate both that the participants unconsciously blinked at the same time as the individuals in the presented images and that ratings of favorability were higher for the individuals who synchronized their eye-blinking with the participants. These findings demonstrate the eye-blinking mimicry occurs and that it can contribute to enhanced impressions.

People often misperceive the timing of when they made a decision. Bear & Bloom (2016) asked participants to choose one white circle from a selection of five white circles and to continue watching them until a predetermined target circle changed to red, and then report whether it was their chosen circle that had changed color. The participants tended to report having chosen the target circle under a quick-change condition, which indicates that, although choices were affected by the change, people perceive having made their choice prior to the change. As new evidence supporting the postdiction of decision-making timings, the present study reports a similar effect for delays of 25–50 ms, but not for 17 ms. Moreover, the propensity for participants to report having chosen any circle by a deadline was observed to be greater at delays of 167 ms or less, which indicates that awareness of decision-making is postdictive in nature when delays are short.