Humans are social animals and typically tend to seek social interactions. In our daily life we constantly move our gaze to collect visual information which often includes social information, such as others’ emotions and intentions. Recent studies began to explore how individuals vary in their gaze behavior. However, these studies focused on basic features of eye movements (such as the length of movements) and did not examine the observer predilection for specific social features such as faces. We preformed two test-retest experiments examining the amount of time individuals fixate directly on faces embedded in images of naturally occurring scenes. We report on stable and robust individual differences in visual predilection for faces across time and tasks. Individuals’ preference to fixate on faces could not be explained by a preference for fixating on low-level salient regions (e.g. color, intensity, orientation) nor by individual differences in the Big-Five personality traits. We conclude that during visual exploration individuals vary in the amount of time they direct their gaze towards faces. This tendency is a trait that not only reflects individuals’ preferences but also influences the amount of information gathered by each observer, therefore influencing the basis for later cognitive processing and decisions.

While the study of nationalism has received much attention throughout the social sciences and humanities, the experimental investigation of it lags behind. In this paper we review recent advances in the examination of implicit nationalism. In the first set of experiments we survey, the Palestinian, Israeli, Italian, and Russian flags were primed (or not, in the control conditions) and their effects on political thought and behavior were tested. In the second set the American or the Israeli flag was primed (or not) and prejudice toward African-Americans or Palestinians (respectively) was examined. The results of all experiments suggest that the implicit activation of national cues has far-reaching implications on political thought and behavior as well as on attitudes toward minorities. Under the assumption that the image of national flags is associated in memory with national ideologies, these results suggest that national ideologies can be implicitly pursued in a way that significantly affects our thoughts and behaviors.

Significance Our minds are tuned to the uncommon or unexpected in our environment. In most environments, members of minority groups are just that—uncommon. Therefore, the cognitive system is tuned to spotting their presence. Our results indicate that individuals from minority groups are salient in perception, memory, and visual awareness. As a result, we consistently overestimate their presence—leading to an illusion of diversity: the environment seems to be more diverse than it actually is, decreasing our support for diversity-promoting measures. As we try to make equitable decisions, it is important that private individuals and decision-makers alike become aware of this biased perception. While these sorts of biases can be counteracted, one must first be aware of the bias.

The minimalist approach that we develop here is a framework that allows to appreciate how non-conscious processing and conscious contents shape human cognition, broadly defined. It is composed of three simple principles. First, cognitive processes are inherently non-conscious, while their inputs and (interim) outputs may be consciously experienced. Second, non-conscious processes and elements of the cognitive architecture prioritize information for conscious experiences. Third, conscious events are composed of series of conscious contents and non-conscious processes, with increased duration leading to more opportunity for processing. The narrowness of conscious experiences is conceptualized here as a solution to the problem of channeling the plethora of non-conscious processes into action and communication processes that are largely serial. The framework highlights the importance of prioritization for consciousness, and we provide an illustrative review of three main factors that shape prioritization—stimulus strength, motivational relevance and mental accessibility. We further discuss when and how this framework (i) is compatible with previous theories, (ii) enables new understandings of established findings and models, and (iii) generates new predictions and understandings.

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