People tend to underestimate their own vulnerabilities. We examine the effects of social distance and victim fault on perceived risks of food poisoning. Based on social comparison theory, we hypothesized that risk perceptions should be heightened when an individual is socially closer to a victim and when a victim is not at fault. After 740 participants evaluated their own risk perceptions for food poisoning, they read risk vignettes in which the victim’s circumstances were manipulated (close/far; at fault/not at fault) and they evaluated their risk perceptions again. The results indicate that risk perceptions were heightened more when the victims were not at fault. Moreover, correlation results suggest risk perceptions assimilated to victims with similar attitudes. Social distance from a victim did not influence risk perceptions. We discuss why victim fault influences our perceptions of risk primarily in terms of social comparison theory.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the cognitive loads of lying narrow an individual’s useful field of view (UFOV). After first being assigned to either liar or control groups, participants were requested to memorize a presented playing card, to respond with either the same or different card-information (match or mismatch conditions), and then to identify the position of a white dot appearing after their responses. The two groups differed in terms of the instructions provided: liar-group participants were instructed to deceive the experimenter by acting sincerely while lying but control-group participants were not asked to do so. The results indicate the UFOV for liar-group participants was narrower than for control participants, although no UFOV differences were observed between the match and mismatch conditions. These findings suggest that the cognitive loads of intentionally deceiving others (intentionality) narrows the UFOV but merely providing false information (falsity) and acting sincerely while lying do not.

There has been an increase in studies utilizing electric or magnetic brain stimulations to investigate the causal relationships between brain regions and cognitive functions. Within this paper, we review recent developments within this area, covering studies about the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on working-memory enhancements, the effects of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on visual perception, and the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on time perception. Finally, we discuss this new perspective and some of the possible applications of future brain stimulation techniques to cognitive psychology.