CognitionPub Date : 2024-11-06DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106006
Qi Sun , Xiu-Mei Gong , Qian Sun
{"title":"Impact of conflicts between long- and short-term priors on the weighted prior integration in visual perception","authors":"Qi Sun , Xiu-Mei Gong , Qian Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The prior distribution of values for a specific feature can be categorized as long- or short-term priors based on their respective learning durations. Studies have demonstrated that the visual system can integrate both priors through weighted averaging and then utilize the integrated prior to efficiently encode stimuli. It is unclear what determines the two priors' relative weights. To address this question, we arranged the orientations according to three distributions: natural, anti-natural, and natural with increased-amplitude distributions. The natural distribution mirrors the distribution of orientations in the natural world, so it does not conflict with the long-term prior; according to the Kullback-Leibler divergence analysis, the natural distribution had a higher conflict with the anti-natural distribution than with the natural distribution with increased amplitude. It was found that the cardinal bias — the orientation estimates are biased away from the cardinal orientations — was strongest in the natural distribution with increased amplitude but weakest in the anti-natural distribution. These results were accurately predicted by an efficient Bayesian observer model in which the prior is the weighted integration of the long- and short-term priors. Importantly, the weight of the short-term prior in the new prior decreased as the level of the conflict between the long- and short-term priors increased. Therefore, this study reveals that the visual system integrates the long- and short-term priors through weighted averaging, with the conflicting level between the two priors determining their relative weights in the integration prior. The integrated prior was used by visual systems to efficiently encode stimuli.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 106006"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142592147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CognitionPub Date : 2024-11-05DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105982
Daria Lasc, Stephanie Grinshpun, Michael T. Bixter, Yingying Yang
{"title":"Predicting large-scale spatial ability from small-scale spatial abilities in children: An application of the double-dimension framework","authors":"Daria Lasc, Stephanie Grinshpun, Michael T. Bixter, Yingying Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105982","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105982","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Wayfinding, a large-scale spatial ability, involves the navigation of one's environment and can be classified into three types of knowledge: route, landmark, and survey. <span><span>Newcombe and Shipley (2015)</span></span> proposed a double-dimension spatial framework that classifies spatial abilities into four categories: intrinsic-static, intrinsic-dynamic, extrinsic-static, and extrinsic-dynamic. These abilities are usually assessed in small-scale environments, such as in desktop settings. Examining the relationship between wayfinding knowledge and small-scale spatial abilities has important theoretical implications for understanding spatial cognition at different environmental scales. It also has practical implications for designing more effective training programs to improve wayfinding skills. However, the existing literature linking the two is limited and mixed, especially in children. The current study utilized the double-dimension framework to examine the relationship between small-scale and large-scale spatial abilities in children. We hypothesized that intrinsic abilities should be associated with landmark knowledge while dynamic abilities should be related to route knowledge. Eight small-scale spatial tasks measuring four spatial categories and one wayfinding task measuring route and landmark knowledge were administered to 171 typically developing children between the ages of four and nine. Dynamic spatial abilities significantly predicted route knowledge and mediated the effects of age and sex on route knowledge. In addition, dynamic and intrinsic-static abilities predicted landmark knowledge and also mediated the effects of age on landmark knowledge. These results showed the associations between small-scale spatial abilities and large-scale spatial abilities were selective and specific yet strong, providing insights into further theoretical advancements in spatial cognition. Practical implications were also discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105982"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142586517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CognitionPub Date : 2024-11-04DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105995
Felix A. Sosa , Samuel J. Gershman , Tomer D. Ullman
{"title":"Blending simulation and abstraction for physical reasoning","authors":"Felix A. Sosa , Samuel J. Gershman , Tomer D. Ullman","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105995","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105995","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How are people able to understand everyday physical events with such ease? One hypothesis suggests people use an approximate probabilistic simulation of the world. A contrasting hypothesis is that people use a collection of abstractions or features. While it has been noted that the two hypotheses explain complementary aspects of physical reasoning, there has yet to be a model of how these two modes of reasoning can be used together. We develop a “blended model” that synthesizes the two hypotheses: under certain conditions, simulation is replaced by a visuo-spatial abstraction (linear path projection). This abstraction purchases efficiency at the cost of fidelity, and the blended model predicts that people will make systematic errors whenever the conditions for applying the abstraction are met. We tested this prediction in two experiments where participants made judgments about whether a falling ball will contact a target. First, we show that response times are longer when straight-line paths are unavailable, even when simulation time is held fixed, arguing against a pure-simulation model (Experiment 1). Second, we show that people incorrectly judge the trajectory of the ball in a manner consistent with linear path projection (Experiment 2). We conclude that people have access to a flexible mental physics engine, but adaptively invoke more efficient abstractions when they are useful.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105995"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142578046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Motor inhibition prevents motor execution during typing imagery: Evidence from an action-mode switching paradigm","authors":"Ladislas Nalborczyk , F.-Xavier Alario , Marieke Longcamp","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105997","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105997","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Motor imagery is accompanied by a subjective multisensory experience. This sensory experience is thought to result from the deployment of internal models developed for the execution and monitoring of overt actions. If so, how is it that motor imagery does not lead to overt execution? It has been proposed that inhibitory mechanisms may prevent execution during imagined actions such as imagined typing. To test this hypothesis, we combined an experimental with a modelling approach. We conducted an experiment in which participants (N = 49) were asked to alternate between overt (executed) and covert (imagined) typing. We predicted that motor inhibition should lead to longer reaction and movement times when the current trial is preceded by an imagined vs. an executed trial. This prediction was borne out by movement times, but not by reaction times. We introduced and fitted an algorithmic model of motor imagery to disentangle potentially distinct inhibitory mechanisms underlying these effects. Results from this analysis suggest that motor inhibition may affect different aspects of the latent activation function (e.g., the shape of the activation function or the motor execution threshold) with distinct consequences on reaction times and movement times. Overall, these results suggest that typing imagery involves the inhibition of motor commands related to typing acts. Preregistration, complete source code, and reproducible analyses are available at <span><span>https://osf.io/y9a3k/</span><svg><path></path></svg></span>.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105997"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142578044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CognitionPub Date : 2024-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105989
Michael Nicholas Stagnaro , Gordon Pennycook
{"title":"On the role of analytic thinking in religious belief change: Evidence from over 50,000 participants in 16 countries","authors":"Michael Nicholas Stagnaro , Gordon Pennycook","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105989","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105989","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Religious beliefs are among the most ubiquitous ideological beliefs in the world and often critical to people's worldview. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of variability in the strength and persistence of such beliefs, both across and within cultures. Here, we are interested in what underlying cognitive processes are associated with the phenomena of religious belief change. Although previous research has linked the tendency to engage in analytic thinking with religious dis-belief, this work has missed the potentially larger relationship between analytic thinking and belief change more broadly – that is change in any/either direction over time. Using a cross-sectional correlational study across two large datasets, including 16 countries and 50,827 individuals, we found that roughly 25 % of individuals indicated having substantively changing their beliefs at least once. Further, the relationship between analytic thinking and belief change appears independent from the association between analytic thinking and reported <em>level</em> of belief. Therefore, although analytic thinking is generally associated with a <em>decrease</em> in religious belief, we find some evidence that it may also support an increase in belief among those indicating past change. In total, this work provides evidence for a robust link between analytic thinking and religious belief change over time.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105989"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142564626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CognitionPub Date : 2024-10-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105988
Emma Megla , Samuel R. Rosenthal , Wilma A. Bainbridge
{"title":"Drawings reveal changes in object memory, but not spatial memory, across time","authors":"Emma Megla , Samuel R. Rosenthal , Wilma A. Bainbridge","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105988","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105988","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Time has an immense influence on our memory. Truncated encoding leads to memory for only the ‘gist’ of an image, and long delays before recall result in generalized memories with few details. Here, we used crowdsourced scoring of hundreds of drawings made from memory after variable encoding (Experiment 1) and retentions of that memory (Experiment 2) to quantify what features of memory content change across time. We found that whereas some features of memory are highly dependent on time, such as the proportion of objects recalled from a scene and false recall for objects not in the original image, spatial memory was highly accurate and relatively independent of time. We also found that we could predict which objects were recalled across time based on the location, meaning, and saliency of the objects. The differential impact of time on object and spatial memory supports a separation of these memory systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105988"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142548394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CognitionPub Date : 2024-10-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105998
Denise Cadete, Vincenzo P. Marino, Elisa R. Ferrè, Matthew R. Longo
{"title":"Perceived hand size and perceived hand weight","authors":"Denise Cadete, Vincenzo P. Marino, Elisa R. Ferrè, Matthew R. Longo","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105998","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105998","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The dimensions of objects and our body parts influence our perception of the weight of objects in our surroundings. It has been recently described a dramatic underestimation of the perceived weight of the hand. However, little is known on how perceived size informs the perceived weight of our own body parts. Here we investigated the effects of embodying an enlarged and a shrunken hand on perceived hand weight. We manipulated hand size using a visual-tactile illusion with magnifying and minifying mirrors. We then measured perceived hand weight using a psychophysical matching task in which participants estimate if a weight hanged on their wrist feels heavier or lighter than the experienced weight of their hand. Our results indicated that participants tended to underestimate the weight of their hand more when embodying a smaller hand, and less so when embodying a larger hand. That is, the perceived size of the hand plays a role in shaping its perceived weight. Importantly, our results revealed that the perception of the weight of body parts is processed differently from the perception of object weight, demonstrating resistance to the size-weight illusion. We suggest a model based on constant density to elucidate the influence of hand size in determining hand weight.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105998"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142548395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CognitionPub Date : 2024-10-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105976
Elena C. Altmann , Marina Bazhydai , Gert Westermann
{"title":"Curious Choices: Infants' moment-to-moment information sampling is driven by their exploration history","authors":"Elena C. Altmann , Marina Bazhydai , Gert Westermann","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105976","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105976","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Infants explore the world around them based on their intrinsically motivated curiosity. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying such curiosity-driven exploratory behaviour remain largely unknown. Here, infants could freely explore two novel categories, triggering a new exemplar from a category by fixating on either of the two associated areas on a computer screen. This gaze-contingent design enabled us to distinguish between exploration – switching from one category to another – and exploitation – consecutively triggering exemplars from the same category. Data from 10 to 12-month-old infants (<em>N</em> = 68) indicated that moment-to-moment sampling choices were non-random but guided by the infants' exploration history. Self-generated sequences grouped into three clusters of brief yet explorative, longer exploitative, and overall more balanced sampling patterns. Bayesian hierarchical binomial regression models indicated that across sequence patterns, infants' longer trigger time, shorter looking time, and more gaze-shifting were associated with trial-by-trial decisions to disengage from exploiting one category and making an exploratory switch, especially after consecutively viewed stimuli of high similarity. These findings offer novel insights into infants' curiosity-driven exploration and pave the way for future investigations, also regarding individual differences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105976"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142548393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CognitionPub Date : 2024-10-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105999
Constantijn L. van der Burght , Antje S. Meyer
{"title":"Semantic interference across word classes during lexical selection in Dutch","authors":"Constantijn L. van der Burght , Antje S. Meyer","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105999","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105999","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When producing a sentence, speakers must rapidly select appropriate words in the correct order. Models of lexical access often assume that this lexical selection process is competitive and that each word is chosen from a set of competing candidates. Therefore, an important theoretical issue is which factors constrain this choice. Speech error evidence suggests that word class plays a decisive role here and that lexical access is, at any point in time, restricted to words that fit the part of the grammatical structure of the sentence that is being constructed. Using a novel version of the picture-word interference paradigm, <span><span>Momma, Buffinton, Slevc, and Phillips (2020, Cognition)</span></span> showed experimentally that word class indeed constrains lexical selection. Specifically, in speakers of American English, action verbs (as in <em>she's singing</em>) competed with semantically related action verbs (as in <em>she's whistling</em>), but not with semantically related action nouns (as in <em>her whistling</em>). Similarly, action nouns only competed with semantically related action nouns, but not with action verbs. As this pattern has important implications for models of lexical access and sentence generation, we conducted a conceptual replication of the study in Dutch. In two experiments, we found a semantic interference effect, but, contrary to the original study, no evidence for a word class constraint. In accounting for these results, we propose that word class constraints on lexical selection are graded rather than categorical, and that, at least for verbs and action nouns, the marking for word class is clearer in English than in Dutch.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105999"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142548396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
CognitionPub Date : 2024-10-26DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105987
Chris Hawkins , Jon Venezia , Edward Jenkins , Sharon Li , Andrew Yonelinas
{"title":"Recollection and familiarity support auditory working memory in a manner analogous to visual working memory","authors":"Chris Hawkins , Jon Venezia , Edward Jenkins , Sharon Li , Andrew Yonelinas","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105987","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105987","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Prior work has suggested that visual working memory as measured in change detection tasks can be based on <em>recollection</em>, whereby participants consciously identify a specific feature of a stimulus that has changed, or on <em>familiarity</em>, whereby participants sense that a change has occurred but are unable to consciously access what has changed. Whether recollection and familiarity also contribute to auditory working memory is unclear. The present study aims to address that gap in knowledge by having participants make confidence judgments in change detection tests for speech sounds and pure tones. The results indicated that both recollection and familiarity contribute to auditory working memory across a variety of conditions, and showed that these two processes are functionally dissociable. With speech sounds, subjects were better able to detect syllable changes compared to tone or location changes, and this benefit reflected a selective increase in recollection rather than familiarity. Moreover, for pure tones, both recollection and familiarity also contributed to performance, but recollection was found to be selectively eliminated under stimulus-limited test conditions (i.e., noise-masked, brief dichotic presentations). The results indicate that recollection and familiarity contribute to auditory working memory in a manner that is functionally similar to that observed in visual working memory.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105987"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142531148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}