{"title":"The mnemonic potency of functional facts.","authors":"Stuart Wilson","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02617-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02617-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Learning and remembering what things are used for is a capacity that is central to successfully living in any human culture. The current paper investigates whether functional facts (information about what an object is used for) are remembered more efficiently compared with nonfunctional facts. Experiment 1 presented participants with images of functionally ambiguous objects associated with a (made-up) name and a (made-up) fact that could relate either to the object's function or to something nonfunctional. Results show that recall of object names did not depend on whether they were associated with a functional or nonfunctional fact, while recall of the functional facts was significantly better than the nonfunctional facts. The second experiment replicated this main effect and further found that functional facts are remembered more efficiently after they have been associated with confirmatory (as opposed to disconfirmatory) feedback. It is suggested that semantic information is not unitary, and that one way of categorising semantic information is in terms of its adaptive relevance. Potential mechanisms are proposed and discussed, along with suggestions for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142872641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexander P Burgoyne, David J Frank, Brooke N Macnamara
{"title":"Which \"working memory\" are we talking about? Complex span tasks versus N-back.","authors":"Alexander P Burgoyne, David J Frank, Brooke N Macnamara","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02622-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02622-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Psychologists and neuroscientists often use complex span tasks or the n-back to measure working memory capacity. At first glance, both tasks require many cognitive processes attributed to the construct, including the maintenance of information amidst interference. Nevertheless, evidence for their convergent validity is mixed. This poses consequences for the interpretation of working memory performance in cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, applied psychology, and executive functioning research. We recruited a large and diverse sample using a multisite approach (N = 1,272; community and university participants) and had them complete multiple working memory capacity, updating, and fluid intelligence tests. We found strong evidence for a dissociation between complex span and n-back tests, and more broadly, between working memory capacity and updating factors. Observed correlations between complex span and n-back performance were modest (r̄ = .25), and at the latent level, the two factors only shared 20% of their variance. Each explained unique variance in fluid intelligence, and each was more strongly related to fluid intelligence than to each other, with updating measures demonstrating stronger relations to fluid intelligence. These results were interpreted via the disengagement hypothesis. What distinguishes updating measures from working memory capacity measures is their relative emphasis on disengagement from outdated information; disengagement drives their strong relation with fluid intelligence because problem-solving requires generating hypotheses but also discarding those discovered to be false. We suggest that researchers who want to measure and draw conclusions about working memory capacity or updating should not use complex span tasks and the n-back interchangeably.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142780558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tianying Qing, Christoph Strauch, Leendert Van Maanen, Stefan Van der Stigchel
{"title":"Shifting reliance between the internal and external world: A meta-analysis on visual-working memory use.","authors":"Tianying Qing, Christoph Strauch, Leendert Van Maanen, Stefan Van der Stigchel","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02623-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02623-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Visual working memory (VWM) is a fundamental cognitive capacity that allows us to temporarily hold visual information, but storage is effortful and content-fragile. Rather than loading VWM to the maximum, individuals usually rely on the external world and access information just in time. However, participants do rely on VWM more as access costs to external information increase. This phenomenon is commonly investigated with so-called copy tasks, which differ across paradigms, manipulations, and dependent variables. We here present findings of a meta-analysis into the reliability and consistency of shifts in the assumed trade-off between storing and sampling across manipulations and dependent variables, using data from 28 experiments. We found that all cost manipulations led to substantial shifts from external sampling to storage in VWM. Cost manipulations did not differ in their effect across studies even though such differences are reported within studies. All dependent variables were associated with clear but different strong effects. We argue that the differences observed between indicators are not only due to sensitivity differences but also due to differential aspects of behavior that are measured. New variables and techniques might now pave the way to understanding the trade-off between storing and sampling more in-depth. Collectively, our findings suggest that the reliance on VWM or the external world shifts consistently as access cost is increased, is largely irrespective of cost manipulations, and expresses itself reliably across dependent variables. With this work, we seek to help establish standards and comparability across this growing body of work.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142780473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The influence of shifts in visual perspective on emotion in event memories: A meta-analytical review.","authors":"Selen Küçüktaş, Peggy L St Jacques","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02611-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02611-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Memories for events can be remembered from an own-eyes perspective, which mimics the original experience by visualizing the event through our own eyes, or from an observer-like perspective, such that we can visualize ourselves and our surroundings in the memory. Shifting across these two visual perspectives during retrieval influences how the emotional aspects of the events are recalled, although the effect differs based on the direction of shifting. While shifting from an own-eyes to an observer-like perspective reduces emotion, shifting from an observer-like to an own-eyes perspective does not. The current meta-analysis aimed to quantify this asymmetrical pattern of shifting perspectives on emotion in event memories. A multilevel model of 12 publications with 49 individual effects revealed a small effect (Hedges's g = -.255, 95% CI [-.359, -.151]), reflecting a reduction in emotion when shifting to a novel visual perspective compared with the initial viewpoint adopted. Moderator analyses revealed that this effect was significant when shifting from an own-eyes to an observer-like perspective but not when shifting in the reverse direction. This asymmetrical pattern was associated with differences in the subjective vividness between initial and shifted conditions. Together, these results reveal that shifting perspective is a powerful way to reduce the emotions elicited in event memories by reshaping event characteristics. However, there are also limits in the effectiveness of this strategy in regulating emotional experiences.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142771667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
W Miro Ebert, Leonardo Jost, Petra Jansen, Biljana Stevanovski, Daniel Voyer
{"title":"Visual working memory as the substrate for mental rotation: A replication.","authors":"W Miro Ebert, Leonardo Jost, Petra Jansen, Biljana Stevanovski, Daniel Voyer","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02602-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02602-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>An experimental study by Hyun and Luck suggests that object working memory, but not spatial working memory, is employed during mental rotation. In contrast, correlational research points to the relevance of spatial working memory in mental rotation. Considering these somewhat conflicting results and the fact that a small sample was acquired in the study of Hyun and Luck, a replication of their study was conducted. Additionally, potential sex effects were explored. We collected (usable) data from 213 individuals across two experiments. All participants performed a mental-rotation task alone, a working-memory task alone, and both tasks concurrently. We expected greater rotation-dependent interference between tasks when the working memory task concerned object features (Experiment 1) than when it concerned spatial locations (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, dual-task interference was observed in working-memory accuracy. In Experiment 2, there were interference effects in both mental rotation accuracy and working-memory accuracy. However, interference did not differ between experiments. Moreover, interference was not rotation dependent in either of the experiments. Thus, we could not replicate the findings of Hyun and Luck. No sex differences were found in exploratory analyses. The general interference effects found in this study may reflect the involvement of visual working memory in the processing and decision-making stages of the mental rotation of letters. This study underscores the need for further research to fully understand the role of visual working memory in mental rotation, especially with more complex stimuli.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142771681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Priming the distractor can eliminate the Stroop interference effect.","authors":"Samantha Curtis, Bianca De Wit, Sachiko Kinoshita","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02610-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02610-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Stroop interference effect-the slower response to color in an incongruent Stroop stimulus (e.g., ) relative to a neutral Stroop stimulus (e.g., ) is usually highly robust. The present study investigated the role of selective attention in the Stroop task by priming the distractor word. Replicating previous studies using the verbal (color-naming) task, priming the distractor word produced a substantial speedup of response to the color in a Stroop stimulus in our manual Stroop task. Importantly, priming the distractor completely eliminated the Stroop interference effect (Incongruent = Neutral, e.g., ), and brought about a sizable facilitation effect (Congruent < Neutral, e.g., ) that was absent in the standard (control-primed) Stroop trials. RT distribution analysis showed that the pattern of facilitation and interference effects was changed radically by priming the distractor: In the standard Stroop task, the Stroop interference effect increased across quantiles, and the facilitation effect was absent throughout the quantiles; in contrast, in the distractor-primed Stroop task, the interference effect was eliminated, and the large facilitation effect that emerged remained constant across the quantiles. We interpret these results in terms of a \"Trojan horse\" account that suggests that in a Stroop stimulus, color and word form are integrated into an object; hence, when object-based attention is deployed to attend to the color, the word form \"sneaks in.\" Priming the distractor breaks this integration, allowing attention to disengage from the irrelevant word dimension and eliminating Stroop interference.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142740220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karl Christoph Klauer, Constantin G Meyer-Grant, David Kellen
{"title":"On Bayes factors for hypothesis tests.","authors":"Karl Christoph Klauer, Constantin G Meyer-Grant, David Kellen","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02612-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02612-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We develop alternative families of Bayes factors for use in hypothesis tests as alternatives to the popular default Bayes factors. The alternative Bayes factors are derived for the statistical analyses most commonly used in psychological research - one-sample and two-sample t tests, regression, and ANOVA analyses. They possess the same desirable theoretical and practical properties as the default Bayes factors and satisfy additional theoretical desiderata while mitigating against two features of the default priors that we consider implausible. They can be conveniently computed via an R package that we provide. Furthermore, hypothesis tests based on Bayes factors and those based on significance tests are juxtaposed. This discussion leads to the insight that default Bayes factors as well as the alternative Bayes factors are equivalent to test-statistic-based Bayes factors as proposed by Johnson. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology, 67, 689-701. (2005). We highlight test-statistic-based Bayes factors as a general approach to Bayes-factor computation that is applicable to many hypothesis-testing problems for which an effect-size measure has been proposed and for which test power can be computed.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142716979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Similarity in feature space dictates the efficiency of attentional selection during ensemble processing.","authors":"Kevin Ortego, Viola S Störmer","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02607-z","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02607-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Humans can rapidly and accurately extract statistical information about features of the visual environment, an ability referred to as ensemble perception. However, little is known about how ensemble estimates are affected when task-irrelevant and distracting feature information is present. Here, we tested how effectively feature-based attention-when tuned to a specific color-can select a single item set out of two intermixed ensembles of colored lines. Participants were instructed to report the average orientation of a target-colored item set, while ignoring a second differently colored set. To assess how representational overlap between the two sets impacts color-based selection, we systematically varied the orientation similarity between the relevant and irrelevant items. Our results showed that participants' orientation reports were reliably biased towards the irrelevant items, but interestingly, these biases were only observed when the item sets overlapped in orientation space. In a second experiment, using a visual mask to disrupt access to color information at different time points, we found that these biases were stronger when less time was available to process the stimuli. Together, these results suggest that ensemble representations are rapidly formed based on all available information in the relevant feature dimension, regardless of task relevance, and that selective attention weights and separates these ensemble representations at a relatively later processing stage. This selection appears highly effective when the underlying population activity generated by the two sets is separable along the to-be-estimated feature dimension, but is dampened when relevant and irrelevant ensemble representations overlap in feature space.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142669036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Readers may not integrate words strictly in the order in which they appear in Chinese reading.","authors":"Hui Zhao, Linjieqiong Huang, Xingshan Li","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02614-0","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02614-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The current study investigated whether word integration follows a strictly sequential order during natural Chinese reading. Chinese readers' eye movements were recorded when they read sentences containing a three-character string (ABC), where BC was always a two-character word and AB was also a two-character word in the overlapping condition but not a word in the non-overlapping condition. We manipulated the extent to which word BC was plausible as an immediate continuation following prior context (cross-word plausibility); the string AB was always implausible given the prior context, and the sentence continued in a manner that was compatible with A-BC. The results showed that there were longer second-pass reading times on the string ABC region in the cross-word plausible condition than those in the cross-word implausible condition in both the overlapping condition and the non-overlapping condition. These results imply that readers do not always integrate words strictly in the order in which they appear in Chinese reading.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142669033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Optimal metacognitive decision strategies in signal detection theory.","authors":"Brian Maniscalco, Lucie Charles, Megan A K Peters","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02510-7","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02510-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Signal detection theory (SDT) has long provided the field of psychology with a simple but powerful model of how observers make decisions under uncertainty. SDT can distinguish sensitivity from response bias and characterize optimal decision strategies. Whereas classical SDT pertains to \"type 1\" judgments about the world, recent work has extended SDT to quantify sensitivity for metacognitive or \"type 2\" judgments about one's own type 1 processing, e.g. confidence ratings. Here we further advance the application of SDT to the study of metacognition by providing a formal account of normative metacognitive decision strategies - i.e., type 2 (confidence) criterion setting - for ideal observers. Optimality is always defined relative to a given objective. We use SDT to derive formulae for optimal type 2 criteria under four distinct objectives: maximizing type 2 accuracy, maximizing type 2 reward, calibrating confidence to accuracy, and maximizing the difference between type 2 hit rate and false alarm rate. Where applicable, we consider these optimization contexts alongside their type 1 counterparts (e.g. maximizing type 1 accuracy) to deepen understanding. We examine the different strategies implied by these formulae and further consider how optimal type 2 criterion setting differs when metacognitive sensitivity deviates from SDT expectation. The theoretical framework provided here can be used to better understand the metacognitive decision strategies of real observers. Possible applications include characterizing observers' spontaneously chosen metacognitive decision strategies, assessing their ability to fine-tune metacognitive decision strategies to optimize a given outcome when instructed, determining over- or under-confidence relative to an optimal standard, and more. This framework opens new avenues for enriching our understanding of metacognition.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142669030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}