When curiosity kills no cat - but mediates the relation between distant future thoughts and global processing across sensory modalities

Four studies examined the effect of primed temporal distance on global versus local perception, using auditory, haptic, gustatory, and olfactory stimuli. The studies show that thinking of the more distant (versus proximal) future facilitated Gestalt perception and impaired perception of details across all four modalities: Participants thinking about the distant future listened more to the Gestalt than to the details of an artificial poem, they grasped more the overall shape than the single parts of a set of boxes, they tasted more the overall flavor than the ingredients of a müsli, and they smelled more the general aroma than the ingredients of everyday objects. The participants’ self-reported curiosity mediated our results, which is consistent with Novelty Categorization Theory.Moreover, the results are discussed within the framework of Construal Level Theory of psychological distance and GLOMOsys.