The 27th Attention & Performance meeting:

The power of instructions


Unlike other animals, humans have the unique ability to share and use verbal instructions to prepare for upcoming tasks. For example, using language we can learn without trial and error the route to a new city, how to build a cabinet, or how to prepare a meal. Furthermore, instructions also indirectly influence our behaviour. For example, knowledge about the efficiency of a medical treatment can change the effects of this treatment. Although verbal instructions are omnipresent in daily life and psychological research, the mechanisms via which they influence behaviour are still poorly understood. In this meeting, we bring together different experts from a variety of disciplines, from fear conditioning to cognitive control, using different manipulations, from stimulus-response instructions to hypnotic suggestions, to study the omnipresent effect of verbal instructions on brain and behaviour.


This meeting is part of the Attention & Performance meetings that started in 1966. It is generously sponsored by the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (Belgium) by means of the FWO Research Network "Changing automatic processes in psychopathology and health related behavior", by Methusalem Grant BOF09/01M00209 of Ghent University, by the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Program initiated by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO - IUAPVII/33), and by the European Research Council by means of the Advanced grant PLACEBO (ERC-2010-AdG_20100407).