Motion fluency effects on object preference is limited to learned context

Jonathan Charles Flavell; Bryony McKean

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244110

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 24, 2020
21 Oct 2020 Decision Letter - Deborah Apthorp, Editor PONE-D-20-19462 Motion fluency effects on object preference is limited to learned context PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Flavell, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 05 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Deborah Apthorp, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: Both reviewers have commented that the manuscript lacks novelty, but since this is not a criterion for publication in PLoS One, I do not require the authors to respond to that concern. Data availability is a pre-requisite for publication in PLoS One - see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability. While I note that the dataset is available as a .csv on the OSF, along with a document called "models" - which is great! - there is no code for reproducing the analyses. I note that all the models refer to a dataset called "prefDataSUBSET". Is this the same as the data called "data" on the OSF? If not, how were the data subsetted? It would be great if R code could be provided, as I note the analysis was performed in R - this would enhance replicability. In addition to this, both reviewers note some important points that need to be addressed, which are detailed below. Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified (1) whether consent was informed and (2) what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This paper reports an experiment to examine the effect of motion fluency on preference judgement, by using a (relatively) ecological-valid images of insects. The results showed that repeated presentation of fluent or disfluent motion affected later preference judgement only when the test stimuli were also moving. The authors claim that the results replicated their earlier findings. The major problem is that the messages from the current study is limited to partial replication of their own paper. I do not mean that replication is trivial, but that its own message may not be sufficient. Also, I mean 'partial' because the results did not show the effect of preference by fluency, but it rather seems to show decrease of liking by disfluency (even though it could be referred to as the effect of fluency anyway). This point is not fully discussed, just implied by 'the lack of first/final rating effects' (L296). The effect was significant only as a form of interaction, and the disfluency effect may not be significant, but it seems to be a crucial point if the authors suggest applications of this effect (L16-17) and should therefore be discussed more thoroughly with statistical supports. Minor comments The abstract should represent the current study properly on its own. Now most of the abstract describe the previous results. Many readers will not continue to the main part, as they simply take it as a pure replication of their previous study, but actually there are some novel points in the methods that supplement, not just replicate, their earlier findings. The introduction should also begin as independent of the abstract. As the authors are aware, insects are quite aversive for quite some people, and therefore may not be appropriate for the current purpose. A ladybird or a bee of 13 cm wide could be quite disturbing even for those who do not have insect phobia. So I wonder if there might have been difference in the results for expanding and contracting stimuli. Also, the number of participants who exceeded +95% and -95% should be separately noted. L183: It is not very clear, but if the response line was continuous and had no ticks, we do not call it a Lickert scale. Maybe better referred to as a visual analogue scale. (Please check.) Reviewer #2: This is a study about visual perception and preference. There is a theory that perceptual fluency affects how much people like after a brief presentation. The starting point is a previous work by the same authors. In that study, it was the smooth and fluent motion of the object that affected preference. The main novelty in this study is the use of stimuli which are not abstract but rather are images of winged insects. Observers (N=60) reported levels of linking before and after seeing the motion for each stimulus. The results were consistent with the previous findings, in that fluency effects on preference were evoked only when objects were rated following a moving presentation. The paper is well written. The figures are nice and clear. The study has enough power to allow an interpretation also of a null finding. On the other hand, this is still a single study with fundamentally one change compared to previous studies. It is in this sense incremental and perhaps more manipulations could have been tested. Although the insects look realistic, their motion is not very ecological. That is it is far from the actual motion of a bee or butterfly. The most likely interpretation in my view is that the liking effect is directly a response to the motion, irrespective and therefore unrelated to the object. Despite these limitations, and considering how difficult it is to test additional participants during a pandemic, my overall assessment of the study is positive. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes:** Marco Bertamini [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. 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Revision 1
12 Nov 2020 Author Response Dear Professor Apthorp, We would like to thank you and the reviewers for the time and effort put into the reviews. We have made a number of changes, in line with the reviewer’s comments. Reviewer comments are presented below in black and our responses in blue. Revisions to the manuscript text are made with track changes. Yours sincerely, Jonathan Flavell and Bryony McKean Response to Editor comments While I note that the dataset is available as a .csv on the OSF, along with a document called "models" - which is great! - there is no code for reproducing the analyses. I note that all the models refer to a dataset called "prefDataSUBSET". Is this the same as the data called "data" on the OSF? If not, how were the data subsetted? It would be great if R code could be provided, as I note the analysis was performed in R - this would enhance replicability. The R code (JF_code.R) used for our analysis is now added to OSF folder (osf.io/htqrm). That code reads the file (JF_data.csv, also now on OSF) as prefData which contains the moving and static data. The subset is whether motion or static data are to be analysed in the subsequent models. The file JF_data.csv is the same as the existing data.csv but with different column headers and column order. I listed data.csv originally because the column headers were clearer and in a more sensible order than the source JF_data.csv. For completeness I have left both files on the OSF along with a note explaining the above. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. We have check the manuscript for discrepancies: - Figure 1 was moved earlier by several paragraphs to appear directly after its first citation. - Author addresses have been corrected - Figures have been reformatted as TIF 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified (1) whether consent was informed and (2) what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information. In Participants we know state that written informed consent was given prior to participation and that verbal debrief was given after participation. No minors were tested. We have added the word “adult” to the number of participants tested to make this clear. Response to Reviewer #1 The major problem is that the messages from the current study is limited to partial replication of their own paper. I do not mean that replication is trivial, but that its own message may not be sufficient. Also, I mean 'partial' because the results did not show the effect of preference by fluency, but it rather seems to show decrease of liking by disfluency (even though it could be referred to as the effect of fluency anyway). This point is not fully discussed, just implied by 'the lack of first/final rating effects' (L296). The effect was significant only as a form of interaction, and the disfluency effect may not be significant, but it seems to be a crucial point if the authors suggest applications of this effect (L16-17) and should therefore be discussed more thoroughly with statistical supports. Regarding “The effect was significant only as a form of interaction, and the disfluency effect may not be significant”. This is not the case. Though Figure 2 shows an apparently smaller fluent\|disfluent object liking difference at the first rating than at the final rating, modelling indicated that was no interaction. As such we state “motion fluency manipulation (for moving targets) was sufficiently powerful to evoke a similar effect following a single presentation as it did following repeated presentations” in Discussion. We did cautiously suggest that there might be learning based on the finding of apparently larger mean differences in disfluent ratings following repeated motion exposure (end of paragraph 4 in Discussion). We are reluctant to add to that discussion because we present only a single motion exposure experiment and the greater difference may arise from noise. However, if a series of experiments presented similar data patterns using similar motions and stimuli then further investigation of this potential difference between fluency\|disfluency would be warranted. The abstract should represent the current study properly on its own. Now most of the abstract describe the previous results. Many readers will not continue to the main part, as they simply take it as a pure replication of their previous study, but actually there are some novel points in the methods that supplement, not just replicate, their earlier findings. The introduction should also begin as independent of the abstract. Thank you for pointing this out. We have made substantial changes to the abstract to better represent the current study and standalone from the Introduction. As the authors are aware, insects are quite aversive for quite some people, and therefore may not be appropriate for the current purpose. A ladybird or a bee of 13 cm wide could be quite disturbing even for those who do not have insect phobia. So I wonder if there might have been difference in the results for expanding and contracting stimuli. The motion of fluent and disfluent objects on ratings trials was always expanding and clockwise. Full counterbalancing of this aspect was not possible with the current design which was already 2 x 2 x 2 (motion/stationary × first/final × fluent/disfluent). This has now been made clear in the Object fluency assignment. Also, the number of participants who exceeded +95% and -95% should be separately noted. This was reported in Participants but is now also noted in Data exclusion, design and analysis where the exclusion is first mentioned. L183: It is not very clear, but if the response line was continuous and had no ticks, we do not call it a Lickert scale. Maybe better referred to as a visual analogue scale. (Please check.) The response line was continuous and had no ticks. This has been made clearer in the text. The word “Likert…” has been replaced with “Visual analogue…”. Both changes are in the final paragraph of Procedure and task. Response to Reviewer #2 Although the insects look realistic, their motion is not very ecological. That is it is far from the actual motion of a bee or butterfly. The most likely interpretation in my view is that the liking effect is directly a response to the motion, irrespective and therefore unrelated to the object. Despite these limitations, and considering how difficult it is to test additional participants during a pandemic, my overall assessment of the study is positive. The presented motions were taken from our previous work which demonstrated the efficacy of those motions for producing preference effects. The same motions with difference stimuli were an incremental attempt to overcome the failure the associative learning that we found earlier rather than to present a true representation of insect motion. The reviewer suggests that preference is expressed for the motion irrespective of the object. This is an interesting idea but would require several dedicated experiments to properly explore. We would like to thank the reviewer for their consideration of limitations of current testing circumstances. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244110.r002
30 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Deborah Apthorp, Editor PONE-D-20-19462R1 Motion fluency effects on object preference is limited to learned context PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Flavell, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. There are just a couple of minor points raised by Reviewer 1 - in particular, the wording of the Abstract - that need to be addressed before the manuscript can be accepted. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 14 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Deborah Apthorp, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Both reviewers are happy with your revisions, but Reviewer 1 still has a couple of minor points which should be straightforward to address. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: In this revision, problems that I found in the original manuscript have been mostly corrected, and given the editor’s comment that novelty is not a criterion, now I have no objection in publication of this paper. I would just note relatively minor points. 1. Abstract: Much improved now, but there is just one concern. “We propose that this apparent failure of associative learning / evaluative conditioning was due to stimulus choice.” Quick readers could take this as the take-home message of this paper, which is obviously wrong as clearly stated in Discussion (L294-295). Isn’t there better wording? (such as “We tested the possibility that…”) 2. L205. N.B. While the N.B. says ‘as described earlier in Stimuli and motion fluency’, I cannot find such a description there. Actually this section does not tell anything about the rating trial, which the section should do rather than noted later. Reviewer #2: I thank the authors for the changes in the revised manuscript. Some limitations remain and are acknowledged, but the comments have been addressed. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes:** Marco Bertamini [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244110.r003
Revision 2
30 Nov 2020 Author Response Dear Professor Apthorp, We would like to thank you and the reviewers for a second round of review. We have made changes, in line with the Reviewer #1’s comments. Reviewer comments are presented below in black and our responses in blue. Revisions to the manuscript text are made with track changes from the original document. Yours sincerely, Jonathan Flavell and Bryony McKean Response to Editor comments [no Editor comments] Response to Reviewer #1 Abstract: Much improved now, but there is just one concern. “We propose that this apparent failure of associative learning / evaluative conditioning was due to stimulus choice.” Quick readers could take this as the take-home message of this paper, which is obviously wrong as clearly stated in Discussion (L294-295). Isn’t there better wording? (such as “We tested the possibility that…”) Thankyou for pointing this out. We agree that this may have led some readers to incorrect assumptions about the paper. We have made changes to third and fourth sentences of the abstract in line with your suggestion. L205. N.B. While the N.B. says ‘as described earlier in Stimuli and motion fluency’, I cannot find such a description there. Actually this section does not tell anything about the rating trial, which the section should do rather than noted later. Re. ‘as described in Stimuli and motion fluency’. You are correct that we do not describe the rating trial motions specifically. We were referring to the description of object motion but this was not clear so we have changed the N.B. to ‘On rating trials, the moving fluent and disfluent objects always expanded and rotated clockwise in the way described earlier in Stimuli and motion fluency.’ Re. ‘…does not tell anything about the rating trial…’. Stimuli and motion fluency is intended to describe the fluent and disfluent motions as clearly as possible. Object-fluency assignment is intended to describe the counterbalancing and presentation format (moving or static) of objects in task and rating trials. We described the static rating trial in the final paragraph Procedure and task because this seemed the most appropriate place for that information. We are reluctant to move that description because it would muddy the other dedicated sections. Response to Reviewer #2 [no Review #2 comments] Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244110.r004
3 Dec 2020 Decision Letter - Deborah Apthorp, Editor Motion fluency effects on object preference is limited to learned context PONE-D-20-19462R2 Dear Dr. Flavell, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Deborah Apthorp, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244110.r005
Formally Accepted
7 Dec 2020 Acceptance Letter - Deborah Apthorp, Editor PONE-D-20-19462R2 Motion fluency effects on object preferenceis limited to learned context Dear Dr. Flavell: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Deborah Apthorp Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244110.r006

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