Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung最新文献

{"title":"Tapping force variability influences temporal precision in paced finger tapping.","authors":"Leonardo Versaci, Rodrigo Laje","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02380-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02380-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The ideas about the origins and role of motor variability have been revised in recent years after realizing that a strictly peripheral origin is not sufficient to explain many observed aspects of brain function. Among these, time processing is emerging as one of the least studied functions where motor variability might have a critical role. Time processing in the range of hundreds of milliseconds includes sensorimotor synchronization (SMS), where both sensory and motor timing processes play in parallel. Paced finger tapping, where a person taps in synchrony with a periodic sequence of brief stimuli as in keeping pace with music, is one of the most common tasks to study SMS. The main observable is the asynchrony, that is the time difference between every response and the corresponding stimulus along the sequence. Here we report that the variability of asynchronies in a paced finger-tapping experiment ([Formula: see text]) is correlated with the variability of the tapping force such that participants with smaller force variability have a better timing precision-but only in the absence of auditory feedback from the taps. We explain our observation by describing a potential mechanism based on empirical and theoretical results bridging the gap between timing variability and force variability. Our results suggest that tactile feedback in the presence of auditory feedback is mostly irrelevant in the perceptual determination of the occurrence time of the tap, and that the precision of a centrally organized rhythmic action depends on the reliability of sensory consequences generated by the action itself. PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Motor variability, that is the natural variation of a repeated action, is a fundamental part of many brain functions. Among these, time processing is being recognized as critical for a wide range of behaviors. In particular, the cognitive processes underlying sensorimotor synchronization remain among the least understood. In this work we show that participants with smaller motor variability also have a better timing precision, but the correlation disappears in the presence of auditory feedback.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149026463","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":"Pairwise Go/No-Go magnitude comparison with spatially arranged Arabic digits and Turkish number words.","authors":"Şimal Yenigüllü, Ezgi Gür, Merve Bulut, Hakan Çetinkaya, Seda Dural","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02386-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02386-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pairwise magnitude comparison requires participants to evaluate the relative magnitude of two simultaneously presented numerical stimuli, and performance is commonly indexed by the numerical distance effect. Whether this processing is affected by spatial-numerical congruency between relative numerical magnitude and relative stimulus position-specifically, an advantage for the conventional small-left/large-right arrangement-remains less clear, especially when left-right response selection is minimized. The present study examined numerical distance effects and spatial-numerical congruency in a pairwise go/no-go magnitude-comparison task. Across two experiments, participants viewed two numerical stimuli, one on the left and one on the right. They made a single central response only when the task-relevant number appeared in the instructed spatial position. Experiment 1 used Arabic digits, whereas Experiment 2 used Turkish number words. In both experiments, participants completed either a small-number or a large-number task. Robust numerical distance effects were observed in both experiments and task versions, indicating reliable access to relative numerical magnitude. In contrast, evidence for spatial-numerical congruency was limited and task-dependent. The conventional small-left/large-right arrangement did not produce a general response-time advantage, and any congruency-related patterns were limited to the small-number task. These findings suggest that pairwise go/no-go comparison reliably engages relative-magnitude processing without necessarily producing stable or general spatial-numerical congruency. The results support a distinction between access to relative magnitude and the behavioral expression of spatial-numerical congruency under specific task configurations.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149008948","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":"Investigating the effects of magnitude-space based numerical working memory loads on the SNARC effect under different number judgment tasks.","authors":"Ilgım Hepdarcan, Seda Can","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02384-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02384-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect refers to the phenomenon where smaller numbers are associated with faster left-side responses and larger numbers with faster right-side responses. Previous working memory (WM) research on the SNARC effect has examined cognitive load using visuo-spatial and phonological tasks, highlighting the effect's flexibility. This study investigated the effects of mental number line (MNL) compatibility (small-left/large-right vs. small-right/large-left) and magnitude-space-based cognitive loads (space, magnitude, and magnitude-space) on number judgments. Participants completed a numerical 1-back task involving three types of WM loads presented in either MNL compatible or incompatible formats. Responses to targets were made based on whether a number matched the spatial position (space load), magnitude category (magnitude load), or both (magnitude-space load) of the preceding number. After each 1-back evaluation, participants performed either a single parity judgment (odd/even) or magnitude comparison (smaller/larger than 5). The results showed that MNL compatible conditions produced a regular SNARC effect, while incompatible conditions led to a reverse SNARC. The effect was more pronounced under the space load than under the magnitude load. In parity judgment, compatible loads produced a regular SNARC effect, whereas incompatible loads showed no reverse SNARC. In contrast, the magnitude comparison task revealed a more pronounced reverse SNARC under incompatible loads. These results challenge the SNARC effect as purely automatic, emphasizing the coactivation of long-term numerical representations and WM in shaping spatial-numerical associations. Furthermore, the findings highlight the effect's sensitivity to task-specific demands, demonstrating that spatial-numerical associations can dynamically adapt to varying cognitive strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148991294","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":"Beware bisection: the direction of time-numerosity interactions depends on objective reference.","authors":"Tutku Öztel, Candice T Stanfield-Wiswell, Martin Wiener","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02383-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02383-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In time perception studies, one of the most commonly employed tasks across humans and animals is temporal bisection. In this task, subjects must classify intervals presented into \"short\" and \"long\" duration categories. Crucially, this classification can be done either in reference to explicitly learned \"anchors\", or in a \"reference-free\" mode in which no anchors are provided and the subject must use an implicit standard - the so-called \"partition variant\". Previous work has demonstrated identical performance and modeling between the anchored and partition variants leading to the conclusion that both variants use a common mechanism. Here we report on a series of findings that critically challenge this assumption in which we, quite accidentally, found that the partition variant produces opposite results on a common task - the time-numerosity interaction, in which more numerous dot arrays are associated with longer perceived durations. Instead, we find that the partition variant induces the opposite pattern, where larger numerosities are associated with a shorter reported duration. We suggest this change in direction is the result of the comparison being made, as we tested other tasks (discrimination, reproduction, anchor variant) and found the oft-reported finding of larger numerosities inducing longer reported durations. We further provide a model in which numerosity induces a lengthening of the criterion itself, which can explain the bidirectionality of the effect. We conclude that the partition variant of temporal bisection, while similar to the anchor variant, may provide substantially different results and caution researchers on drawing conclusions based on this task alone and without additional tasks for verification.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13582355/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148983912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effects of episodic simulation on the cognitive and emotional expectancies related to personal goals.","authors":"Rachel J Anderson, J Helgi Clayton McClure, Jennifer Shevchenko, Kevin J Riggs, Stephen A Dewhurst","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02369-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02369-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Episodic simulation influences future expectancies such as likelihood, controllability, and anticipated emotions of future events. We extended the use of episodic simulation to expectancies associated with personal goals. Participants listed personal goals and provided ratings of cognitive and emotional expectancies. They then completed one of four tasks (goal-related episodic simulation, goal-unrelated episodic simulation, neutral imagery, or letter-search) before providing two further sets of ratings. We also measured depressive symptoms. In line with hypotheses, results showed that ratings of controllability increased following both episodic simulation tasks for those experiencing high levels of depressive symptoms. This was maintained after a short 10-minute delay for those who had completed the goal-unrelated episodic simulation. These findings are in line with the notion that the effects of positive episodic simulation generalise to expectancies about future events beyond those that form part of the training itself, by fostering a more optimistic orientation. Findings for other expectancy ratings were not in line with hypotheses, with no beneficial changes in likelihood, importance, or anticipated disappointment. Potential reasons for the inconsistencies with previous literature are discussed, as are the implications for future work exploring the effects of episodic simulation on goal-oriented motivation and achievement.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13578074/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148978124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Interference control of emotional information: effect of relevance and valence.","authors":"Jülide Öztürk, Fanny Grisetto, Martina Traykova, Sarah Barriere, Franca Schmid, Arthur Kaladjian, Audrey Henry","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02377-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02377-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Facial emotions are regarded as 2010being automatically processed to the detriment of performance. While the existence of the emotional interference effect appears to support this view, previous studies have shown that this effect can be modulated by task demands. The aim of this study was to clarify the question of the automaticity of emotional information processing using an emotional Flanker task while manipulating task instructions to make the emotion either task-relevant or task-irrelevant. A total of 57 healthy volunteers performed the task following two different instructions: an emotion-discrimination task and a gender-discrimination task. Four performance metrics were used to compute the emotional interference effect (correct reaction times, accuracy, inverse efficiency score, rate correct score). Results showed that the emotional congruency effect was only observed in accuracy and inverse efficiency scores. However, the emotional interference effect did not interact with task demands, regardless of the performance metrics. Additional Bayesian analyses yielded inconclusive evidence for this interaction. Our findings provide tentative support for the idea that emotional information may be automatically processed even if it is task-irrelevant. Moreover, our study raises a methodological consideration regarding the choice of performance metrics, which could be one of the reasons for the divergent results of emotional interference studies found in the literature.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148978078","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":"Comparing perceptual segmentation in pulsed and unpulsed music with diverse event densities.","authors":"Roger T Dean, John R Taylor","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02371-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02371-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Segmentation is a fundamental process in music perception, enabling listeners to identify meaningful boundaries within a continuous auditory stream. This process is crucial for perceiving rhythm and pulse, but more broadly, shapes both cognitive and emotional responses. In pulsed music, a clear, regular beat organises the rhythmic structure (and beat subdivisions as pulses are also normally regular in duration), whereas unpulsed music removes this overt timing reference (e.g., music with expressive rubato; non-isochronous or non-metrical music, traditional or new). While prior research has explored music segmentation, it has usually focused on pulse-driven responses. In this study, we examined how participants segmented diverse pulsed and unpulsed music and assessed the influence of event density (excerpts were grouped into sparse vs. dense groups), onset event patterns, metricality, acoustic features, and personal factors. Sixty-five non-musician participants (defined by non-enrolment in music programmes) listened to 26 musical excerpts and tapped to indicate perceived segmentation points. Bayesian autoregressive time-series analysis of inter-onset intervals revealed that in unpulsed music, segmentation is driven primarily by event density. The acoustic features: spectral centroid, spectral flux, and spectral complexity predicted segmentation boundaries, and RMS (acoustic intensity) showed autoregressive influence up to two lags. We also observed distinct differences in predictive factors between excerpts with sparse and dense event onsets. Personal variables (liking, familiarity, and perceived difficulty of tapping) did not account for additional variance in segmentation. Overall, our findings suggest that listeners use different segmentation strategies for music with sparse versus dense events, opting for a form of structural simplification when confronted with passages characterised by high event density. These results underscore the central role of musical structure in guiding event segmentation, and have implications in both musical and non-musical auditory contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13569503/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148946114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When spacing meets color: how executive functions impact the use of perceptual cues during arithmetic problem solving.","authors":"Keira Reid, Sarah Olson, Zelda Ferris, Miles Mathieu, Vanessa Peloquin, Alena Egorova, Puyuan Zhang, Erin Ottmar","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02373-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02373-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mathematical reasoning is grounded in perceptual processing. The current study investigates whether manipulating the perceptual features of arithmetic expressions impacts order of operations problem solving performance, as well as how these effects are associated with individuals' working memory and inhibition skills. The proximity and color similarity within the arithmetic expressions were modified to generate spacing and color cues. Cue congruency was determined by whether the visual modification emphasized the high-order operation (e.g., congruent spacing: 6÷3 - 9; congruent color: 6 ÷ 3 - 9), low-order operation (e.g., incongruent spacing: 6 ÷ 3-9; incongruent color: 6 ÷ 3-9), or neither of them (e.g., neutral: 6 ÷ 3 - 9). Participants solved arithmetic problems online and completed game-like executive function assessments. Results demonstrated that undergraduate students (N = 171) solved problems more accurately and faster when perceptual cues were congruent but less accurately and slower when perceptual cues were incongruent. The effect of spacing cues on problem solving accuracy diminished when color cues were present. More importantly, working memory and inhibition were associated with the effect of perceptual cues on problem solving accuracy differently. Participants with higher working memory were more influenced by incongruent color cues and incongruent spacing cues. Nevertheless, inhibition skills only moderated the effect of color cues (congruent and incongruent) rather than spacing cues. Our findings suggest that advanced math learners' perceptual systems can respond to a broad range of perceptual features (e.g., congruent and incongruent, color and spatial proximity) while interacting with top-down control processes flexibly during arithmetic problem solving.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148946072","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":"Caloric content and industrial processing modulate the mental simulation of food concepts.","authors":"Sofia Gentili, Enrico Collantoni, Valentina Meregalli","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02379-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02379-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Grounded cognition theories propose that concepts, including food stimuli, are represented through the partial reactivation of sensory and motor experiences. Evidence suggests that foods subjectively perceived as unhealthy tend to elicit stronger sensorimotor simulations, which may, in turn, increase their perceived attractiveness and consumption. However, it remains unclear to what extent objectively defined food properties, specifically caloric content and degree of industrial processing, modulate this simulation.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In this study, 99 Italian-speaking participants rated 50 food words (25 highly processed; 25 minimally processed) across six sensory modalities (interoception, touch, hearing, olfaction, taste, vision), a motor dimension, and measures of wanting and liking. Food categories were matched for caloric content to isolate the effect of processing level.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Linear mixed-effects models revealed a significant and consistent interaction between caloric content and degree of processing in modulating mental simulation across all sensory modalities, the global perceptual index (Minkowski3), and motor simulation. Specifically, higher caloric content was associated with stronger sensorimotor simulation only for highly processed foods, whereas this relationship was not significant for minimally processed ones. Furthermore, higher levels of simulation, both perceptual and motor, predicted greater wanting and liking, independently of the objective properties of the foods.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These findings indicate that industrial processing constitutes a relevant variable, distinct from caloric content alone, in shaping sensorimotor food representations, and suggest a possible cognitive mechanism through which ultra-processed foods may acquire heightened motivational salience, with potential implications for understanding dysregulated eating behavior and designing interventions to promote healthier food choices.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13569607/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148946085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dynamic motor imagery, but not pre-execution movements, enhances serve tennis performance.","authors":"Nicolas Robin, Tom Bonnin, Franck Di Rienzo, Aymeric Guillot, Laurent Dominique","doi":"10.1007/s00426-026-02378-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00426-026-02378-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pre-serve preparatory movements including imagery and air movements are commonly observed in tennis players during both training and competition. The present study compared the effects of pre-performance explicit dynamic motor imagery (MI) and slight preparatory movements in young regional-level tennis players. Twenty players (M=12.94 years) with 4 to 6 years of regular practice completed four counterbalanced experimental conditions, namely Control (neutral counting task), Dynamic MI (external visual imagery combined with slight movements mimicking the serve), Slight movements and Slight movements plus countdown. Each session included a standardized warm-up followed by 10 second-ball serves performed in match-like conditions. Serve success percentage, serve speed, technical quality and efficiency were used as performance indicators. Results revealed significantly higher performance in the Dynamic MI condition compared with the Control and both Slight movement conditions. However, performing slight preparatory movements in isolation did not enhance serve performance compared to Dynamic MI. These findings suggest that combining imagery with congruent movements may facilitate motor preparation in young regional-level players, whereas movements performed without structured imagery may be insufficient to support performance gains. Overall, these results highlight the importance of explicitly guided dynamic MI when preparing the tennis serve in youth athletes.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"90 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148921448","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}