Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-05-26eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.503
Lionel Newman, Ming Cao, Susanne Tauber, Marieke van Vugt
{"title":"The Role of Different Thoughts in Tacit Coordination and Its Malleability by Interventions.","authors":"Lionel Newman, Ming Cao, Susanne Tauber, Marieke van Vugt","doi":"10.5334/joc.503","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.503","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Previous work has shown that successful tacit coordination depends on the availability of working memory resources. Much less is known about how thought processes, such as mind-wandering and self- vs. other-oriented attention, influence tacit coordination. In this experiment, we examined the effect of these thought processes on tacit coordination, and whether we could influence performance and thought processes through brief meditation interventions. While coordination and thought processes were not significantly affected by the interventions when compared to a control intervention, we found that thought processes, as measured by thought probes randomly interleaved between trials, significantly influenced coordination performance. Specifically, dyads performed significantly better when other-oriented than when self-oriented, showing greater convergence on shared decision rules over time. This study demonstrates the importance of orienting attention beyond self-generated responses in order to mutually adapt actions and mental states to achieve shared goals in iterated social coordination.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"30"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13220730/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148138873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-05-11eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.502
Anna Längle, Ulrich Ettinger, Stefan Duschek
{"title":"Proactive Control of Emotional Information in Adult ADHD.","authors":"Anna Längle, Ulrich Ettinger, Stefan Duschek","doi":"10.5334/joc.502","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.502","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Proactive control refers to the biasing of information processing toward a task goal during anticipation of a relevant event. This study investigated proactive control of emotional information in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using a manual face-word Stroop task. Individuals with ADHD and healthy controls (<i>n</i> = 51 per group) were selected from a large participant pool (<i>n</i> = 1,020) using the Adult ADHD Self-Report-Scale. Images of happy or anxious faces were presented, with the word HAPPY or ANXIOUS written across the faces, congruent or incongruent with facial expressions. Participants had to identify facial expressions while ignoring word meaning. To investigate contextual cue utilization, the proportion of incongruent trials was manipulated (75% vs. 25%) to generate mostly congruent (MC) and mostly incongruent (MI) contexts. Individuals with ADHD showed larger error rate and longer reaction time (RT) than controls. Context effects were reflected by a greater difference in error rate and RT between congruent and incongruent trials within the MC than the MI context. These effects were independent of the presence of ADHD. The findings suggest that the ability to use contextual cues to facilitate proactive cognitive control is preserved in adult ADHD, despite marked impairments in attention and processing speed.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"29"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13178611/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147964870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-05-07eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.501
Luisa Frede, Lisa Bardach, Younes Strittmatter, Eileen Richter, Marie Mueckstein, Markus W H Spitzer
{"title":"Knowledge Gap Illustrations Spark Curiosity.","authors":"Luisa Frede, Lisa Bardach, Younes Strittmatter, Eileen Richter, Marie Mueckstein, Markus W H Spitzer","doi":"10.5334/joc.501","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.501","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Knowledge gaps elicit curiosity and increase people's willingness to invest resources in seeking information to close them. While previous research used confidence ratings to implicitly infer knowledge gaps, the impact of making these gaps explicitly salient to people on their information-seeking behavior remains unclear. Here, we investigated this question across two preregistered experiments (Experiment 1: <i>n</i> = 501, Experiment 2: <i>n</i> = 511 participants). Participants first took a knowledge test on elephant conservation in Botswana. Subsequently, participants repeatedly decided to either read or skip a chapter of an article covering different subtopics on elephant conservation in Botswana, before they took the same test again. We manipulated the salience of knowledge gaps by illustrating pretest performance scores to the experimental group, while the control group received no such information. In Experiment 2, we instructed participants after the pretest that a posttest would follow at the end of the experiment and thereby intended to increase the utility of information seeking. Our results provide converging evidence that illustrating moderate knowledge gaps significantly increased participants' probability of seeking information by reading the chapters. In Experiment 2, illustrating moderate knowledge gaps was not only associated with increased information-seeking behavior, but also led to significantly greater gains in posttest performance compared to the control group. Altogether, our findings open new avenues for research on leveraging knowledge gap illustrations to deliberately stimulate curiosity, thereby increasing information-seeking behavior and knowledge acquisition.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"28"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13155094/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147869703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-04-30eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.499
Haniya Zaka, Samuel Evans, Pablo Ripollés, Saloni Krishnan
{"title":"Intrinsic Reward Modulates Word Learning in Both Oral and Written Contexts.","authors":"Haniya Zaka, Samuel Evans, Pablo Ripollés, Saloni Krishnan","doi":"10.5334/joc.499","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.499","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Previous studies show that word learning from context can be intrinsically rewarding, even in the absence of external feedback or incentives. Intrinsic reward activates the brain's reward-memory circuit, leading to enhanced memory for words people enjoyed learning. Existing studies have tested the link between contextual word learning and reward in the written domain (i.e., through reading). However, word learning from context often occurs in the oral domain, where conversations provide a rich source for acquiring vocabulary in both first and second language learning. In this online behavioral study, we investigate whether word learning triggers enjoyment across modalities, focusing on listening, reading, and listening and reading in combination. In all the modalities, we found that when words are successfully learned from context, people report greater levels of enjoyment. We also found that words that were associated with higher enjoyment during learning were recognised more accurately than those associated with lower enjoyment 24 hours later. Our results demonstrate the relevance of intrinsic reward for language learning and suggest that the link between contextual word learning and reward operates on higher-level word representations, rather than on modality-specific ones.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"28"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13131340/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147821689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-04-28eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.500
Gregory Davis
{"title":"Centre-of-Mass Confounds Contribute to Familiar Size Stroop Effects with Boger and Firestone's 'Visual Anagrams'.","authors":"Gregory Davis","doi":"10.5334/joc.500","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.500","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>'Visual Anagrams' are images that are recognised as one familiar object from one angle, but another object, when rotated (Geng et al., 2024). Boger and Firestone's (2025) ingenious application of them uses examples that appear to be a large object from one angle, a small object at another. They report Familiar-Size Stroop Effects using those stimuli, claiming they must have reflected high-level recognition processes, as each visual anagram comprised identical visual features, just rotated. However, rotating visual anagrams introduces a range of <i>subtle potential confounds</i>. For example, in B&F's stimuli, anagrams perceived as small objects had lower centres of mass (CoMs), those perceived as large objects, higher CoMs. CoM confounds might therefore account for those Stroop Effects. To assess this, a new experiment used stimuli with similar overall shapes (and CoM confounds) to B&F's stimuli but designed to be less recognisable. The new experiment revealed Stroop effects, smaller than those observed by B&F, but consistent with a partial contribution to B&F's findings. These results highlight important considerations when using visual anagrams in future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"27"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13131337/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147821657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-04-20eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.498
Andria Shimi, Christina Charalambidou
{"title":"When Attention Fails Memory: Voluntary Orienting Deficits and Visual Short-Term Memory in Intellectual Disability.","authors":"Andria Shimi, Christina Charalambidou","doi":"10.5334/joc.498","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.498","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) exhibit deficits in both selective attention and visual short-term memory (VSTM). However, whether attentional deficits directly constrain VSTM performance in ID remains unknown. Here, we examined the interplay between these two processes in ID and their correlates with fluid intelligence across individuals with varying levels of intellectual functioning. Nineteen adults with ID and twenty-two chronologically matched neurotypical adults (TDA) carried out the Attentional Orienting Task (AOT), in which they briefly viewed a memory array, followed by a probe and indicated whether the probe was previously presented in the memory array. Visuospatial attention cues were shown before (pre-cues) or after (retro-cues) the memory array to assess attentional orienting in service of VSTM encoding and maintenance, respectively, compared to neutral, baseline attention cues. Additionally, participants completed Raven's 2, a non-verbal reasoning test. TDA adults outperformed individuals with ID across all conditions. Importantly, while TDA demonstrated clear attentional orienting benefits in service of VSTM, individuals with ID showed no cueing benefits either before encoding into VSTM or during VSTM maintenance. Correlation and regression analyses showed that attentional orienting abilities predicted fluid intelligence beyond baseline VSTM performance. Current results show for the first time that attentional deficits constrain VSTM performance in ID, whereas individual differences in attentional orienting in service of VSTM predict non-verbal reasoning abilities. These findings speak to the overall functioning difficulties individuals with ID face and highlight the need to consider the dynamic relation between these cognitive processes when designing assessments and interventions for intellectual disabilities.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"26"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13109914/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147783355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-04-07eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.497
Hannah Dames, Vencislav Popov, Klaus Oberauer
{"title":"Forget For Now, but Remember Later: Can People Selectively Remove Information From Working Memory While Keeping it in Long-Term Memory?","authors":"Hannah Dames, Vencislav Popov, Klaus Oberauer","doi":"10.5334/joc.497","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.497","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When instructed to remove a just-encoded item from working memory, people can do that very effectively. Here we investigate the side effects for episodic long-term memory of removing an item from working memory. Participants encoded lists of words into working memory, and each word was followed by a cue to remember or to forget that word. In a subsequent test of long-term memory, words to be maintained in working memory were remembered better than words to be removed. This was the case regardless of whether participants expected the long-term-memory test. In the final experiment we cued participants after each word to either remove it from working memory while keeping it in long-term memory, or to maintain it in working memory but forget it for the upcoming long-term memory test. Participants could not selectively remember information for one kind of memory test but not the other. Instead, they compromised, removing words less effectively from working memory than in the preceding experiments, and yet failing to remember those words better in the long-term memory test than the words they were told to forget for the long term. People cannot remove information from working memory and maintain it in long-term memory, or vice versa.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"25"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13068088/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147676696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-03-31eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.496
Patrick P Weis, Wilfried Kunde, Robert Wirth
{"title":"Playing With Matches: Preparatory Cognitive Processing Shapes Affective Evaluation.","authors":"Patrick P Weis, Wilfried Kunde, Robert Wirth","doi":"10.5334/joc.496","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.496","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cognition and affect are closely intertwined: identifying a task-relevant object can elicit positive affect, and successfully solving the associated task can enhance it further. Beyond stimulus-driven processing, theories of proactive control and predictive coding suggest that task-related cognition already unfolds before stimulus onset. We propose that such preparatory processes shape affective responses to task completion. In preregistered Experiment 1, participants categorized digit pairs as either \"match\" (e.g., 3 and 3) or \"sequence\" (e.g., 3 and 4). Affective responses were assessed via affective priming. Surveys indicated that most participants prepared for matches (\"match seekers\"), thus implicitly recoding sequences to \"no match.\" As predicted, correct responses to matches were faster and more positively valenced than responses to sequences. This pattern reversed for the subsample that prepared for sequences (\"sequence seekers\"). When participants were asked to categorize digits by color-which rendered preparatory processing for matches or sequences task-irrelevant-no affective differences emerged. In Experiment 2, we manipulated preparatory processing via instructions and response categories. Again, match seekers showed an affective advantage for matches, sequence seekers for sequences. Taken together, our findings imply that to understand affective responses to task completions, it is imperative to understand the preparatory processes the performer engaged in.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"24"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13045795/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147623893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-03-31eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.495
Vanessa G Keller, Matthew H C Mak, Scott A Cairney, M Gareth Gaskell
{"title":"No Effects of Predictability on Word-Meaning Priming and Incidental Memory.","authors":"Vanessa G Keller, Matthew H C Mak, Scott A Cairney, M Gareth Gaskell","doi":"10.5334/joc.495","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.495","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Encountering a homonym in a sentential context that biases interpretation towards its subordinate meaning makes that meaning easier to access later. This word-meaning priming effect is not restricted to homonyms and may be supported by general episodic memory processes. Such an account predicts that word-meaning priming may be affected by factors that affect episodic learning (e.g., predictability). Specifically, the contextual predictability of an incoming stimulus has been shown to affect episodic memory in that both highly expected as well as highly unexpected input leads to better memory for that input, via two different underlying neurocognitive mechanisms. We hypothesised that if word-meaning priming is supported by episodic memory processes, both highly expected as well as highly unexpected target words should lead to stronger word-meaning priming effects than target words of intermediate predictability. Four pre-registered online experiments tested whether contextual predictability affects word-meaning priming and incidental memory for language. We exposed participants to sentences that emphasised a particular aspect of a sentence-final target word's meaning. Importantly, target words differed in how predictable they were based on the sentence context (e.g., \"You can get in a good workout by riding / lifting a bicycle\"). Associate production and semantic relatedness judgement assessed the strength of word-meaning priming. Contrary to our hypotheses, while there was evidence for priming across experiments, we found no significant effects of contextual predictability in any experiments. Our findings suggest that predictability-guided updating is rarely triggered during language comprehension, and we outline the theoretical implications of these results for the architecture of the language system.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"23"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13045792/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147623900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of CognitionPub Date : 2026-03-27eCollection Date: 2026-01-01DOI: 10.5334/joc.494
Kira Franke, Klaus Rothermund, Bernhard Hommel, Carina G Giesen
{"title":"Negative Feedback Does Not Reverse Observationally Acquired Binding and Retrieval Effects: A Failed Replication.","authors":"Kira Franke, Klaus Rothermund, Bernhard Hommel, Carina G Giesen","doi":"10.5334/joc.494","DOIUrl":"10.5334/joc.494","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the present study, we ran a replication of the experiment by Giesen et al. (2017) who found reversed observationally acquired stimulus-response binding and retrieval (oSRBR) effects after negative feedback and standard oSRBR effects after positive feedback. This suggests that feedback was used to infer action goals from observed actions, implying that oSRBR effects represent propositional information. However, their findings stand in contrast to recent studies on the influence of affective consequences like feedback on SR bindings stemming from self-performed actions. These studies consistently demonstrate that SR binding and retrieval effects emerge independently of feedback. This raises the question whether the findings by Giesen et al. (2017) reflect an alpha error. In our replication, we found no evidence for a modulatory influence of feedback on oSRBR effects. A meta-analysis with the data from Giesen et al. (2017) and our experiment revealed no significant modulatory effect of vicarious feedback on retrieval of observationally acquired SR bindings. In concert with recent literature, this implies that feedback information was not used to infer action goals, providing no evidence that oSRBR effects represent propositional information.</p>","PeriodicalId":32728,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition","volume":"9 1","pages":"22"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13025250/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147575631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}