Processing immediate and extended self-relevant information

One of the key features that define modern life is the ever-expanding need for flexibility and mobility in work places, living environments and social life. As the nature of work and activities becomes broader and changes more quickly, we are no longer bound to physical locations and thus, the ability to make decisions beyond the immediate self and current environment becomes a crucial skill. Indeed, many decisions we make on a daily basis require an integrated analysis of alternative situations at various points in time and space. This project explores the organisation of the cognitive functions that help explain how we understand the complexity of the decision-making environment and examines the relationship between cognitive functions and actual choices we make in a day-to- day context. The essential aspect of the ability to make adaptive decisions is that our mind is able to simulate various situations that are not directly experienced by the physical self. This cognitive ability helps us understand others minds better, plan for the future, and act appropriately in unknown situations. In social cognition, this cognitive function is conceptualized as projecting oneself onto a possible target scenario, namely, self-projection. When engaging in self-projection, people not only think about what they experience at the moment (immediate self-information) but also think about what other people would experience in the same situation or how they themselves would experience it differently if the same situation would happen in different times and spaces (expanded self- information). Based on initial evidence, these seemingly unrelated thoughts appear to share a unitary cognitive mechanism. For instance, previous research has shown that we often think about our own future self as another person and therefore make future decisions as if we would make decisions for other people. However, how this effect comes about is poorly understood; we do not know how thinking about oneself in relation to other people is different from thinking about oneself in continuous time or space. This project directly investigates this fundamental question at a basic information processing level and examines its relation to higher level decision making such as financial choices. We will utilize recently developed procedures to measure shared and unshared cognitive processes across multiple domains of self-expansion. For instance, we will examine whether objects related to self, now, and here are processed faster, more accurately, and preferred more compared to those related to other, later, and there. Next, we will assess how these basic mechanism in the processes of self-relevant information modulates higher decision making involving social contexts, time, space and probability. The proposed project takes a new approach to understanding the conceptual self in terms of its integrative structure and perceptual mechanisms, significantly extending previous work on self-representation.

Our latest research in psychology contributes to understanding how people decide what information matters most and how they understand themselves in different ways-socially, over time, and in physical space. These insights are valuable for businesses in marketing, technology, and communication, helping them connect better with their audiences. We found that people tend to focus more on information that is immediate and personally relevant, rather than things that feel distant or unrelated. Interestingly, offering rewards for performance didn't make them faster but did make them more accurate when prioritizing information. This suggests that incentives can shape how people pay attention, which can be useful for designing motivation strategies, improving user engagement, and making better decisions. Another study looked at how people mentally organize their sense of self in three ways: socially (me vs. others), over time (now vs. future), and in space (here vs. elsewhere). Our research showed that the way people think about physical space is the foundation for how they understand themselves over time and in relation to others. This finding is especially useful for fields like virtual reality, digital experiences, and identity research, helping create more intuitive and personalized interactions. We also re-examined a long-standing psychological theory, Construal Level Theory (CLT), which suggests that different types of psychological distance-time, space, social connections, and hypothetical situations-are processed in the same way. However, our refined experiments found that only time and space are closely linked in the brain, challenging previous assumptions. This has real-world applications for how people plan ahead, assess risks, and process abstract ideas. Overall, our studies help explain how people prioritize information, understand their own identity, and think about different kinds of distance. These insights can be applied to business strategies, marketing campaigns, digital product design, and communication efforts. By aligning messages and experiences with the way people naturally think, businesses and organizations can create stronger connections and better engagement.