How Intuitive is Risk Perception? : Comparing Implicit and Explicit Processing Modes via ERP

Abstract

How do we gauge the health risks we face? Recent risk conceptions stress the assumption that risk perceptionmay operate according to an intuitivemode. The present study aimed at testing a key feature of intuitive processing, i.e. its implicit nature. In two blocks, participants viewed pictures of unacquainted individuals while dense sensor ERPs were recorded. Participants were asked in the first block to detect stimulus repetitions in order to assess the implicit nature of risk perception. In the second condition, participants received the explicit instruction to estimate the HIVinfection risk for the presented person. Considering the implicit condition, high and low risk persons elicited a larger occipitotemporal negativity in an early time window from 240 – 300 ms and centro-parietal positivity in a time window from 430 – 530 ms. Furthermore, themain difference between explicit and implicit risk perceptions regarded differential brain potentials in later time windows. In the explicit condition, high-risk persons elicited a larger centro-parietal positivity between 530 and 800 ms, which was not observed during the implicit condition. Control analyses showed that the observed ERPs effects were not secondary to effects of attractiveness. Overall, these findings support the notion of implicit risk perception.