Experiment Instruction

This study is about social cognition. You will be provided with simple prompts that contain minimal information about a person and a situation.

We have conducted three studies with participants in the United States, in which we showed these participants the same prompts as you will see and asked them to spontaneously form vivid mental images of the person in the situation. These participants then described their mental images in detail in written language like writing a story.

You will repeat what they have done here, but instead of writing your own mental images about the prompt, your task is to guess what the majority of those prior participants have written about the person in the situation.

Experiment Instruction (continued)

Specifically, our prior participants were instructed that their stories should be based on real life, present time settings. That is, their stories did not contain any elements of fairy tales, scientific fiction, etc. Instead, their stories about the person in the situation should be something that is likely to happen in everyday life.

Participants were also instructed that they could write about what the person in the situation is doing, feeling, thinking, and looks like. And they should not mention anything about themselves.

You will guess what spontaneous mental images our prior participants thought of given the prompts, and describe these mental images in writing. You will receive a $0.87 bonus if what you write is close to what the majority of our prior participants have mentioned.

Experiment Instruction (continued)

You will have 1 minute and 30 seconds to write for each prompt. Shortly after the prompt appears on the screen, you will hear a beep tone. This beep tone signals that the time has started and you should start writing the story.

Once you are done, click "Next" to submit and proceed to the next page; or if you use up the time, the experiment will automatically move to the next page.

Experiment Instruction (continued)

There will be quality checks that automatically examine whether you understand our instructions above (e.g., write enough content, write about the person in the prompt, not yourself).

There is no right or wrong answer. Please be open to describe whatever mental images you think most likely came to prior participants' mind, such as what the person in the given situation is doing, feeling, thinking, and looks like. Please write as much as possible within the given time.

Your input will be disassociated from your CloudResearch ID and no identifiable information will be collected from you.