CognitionPub Date : 2025-09-10DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106314
Martin Marko , Adam Kubinec , Veronika Zelenayová , Igor Riečanský
{"title":"The impact of distractor processing on semantic memory retrieval: The role of interference-by-process and inhibition","authors":"Martin Marko , Adam Kubinec , Veronika Zelenayová , Igor Riečanský","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106314","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106314","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The retrieval of concepts from semantic memory is fundamental to higher-order cognitive functions and complex behaviors. Despite its vulnerability to disruption—particularly from irrelevant auditory stimuli with semantic content—the mechanisms through which such distractors hinder coherent semantic processing and retrieval remain poorly understood. To address this issue, we conducted four experiments using a novel retrieval interference paradigm, manipulating both the demands on semantic search and retrieval (automatic–associative vs. controlled–dissociative) and the type of distractor (acoustic–meaningless vs. semantic–meaningful, prepotent or remote). Our results show that meaningful distractors significantly disrupt semantic memory retrieval, especially under controlled retrieval demands, while acoustic distractors have minimal impact. Through examining task difficulty, interference habituation, and working memory capacity, we provide converging evidence that the disruption was primarily driven by an interference-by-process mechanism, wherein incidental distractor processing evokes task-irrelevant activation within the semantic network. Moreover, interference was stronger when distractors were semantically close to the retrieval cue, indicating that difficulty in suppressing prepotent, cue-related activations contributes to retrieval disruption. Based on these findings, we propose an activation-suppression framework, whereby semantic interference arises from the interplay between automatic spreading activation and the need for inhibitory control to suppress task-incongruent conceptual activations. These results refine our understanding of the mechanisms underlying semantic retrieval and highlight the putative role of cognitive control in managing semantic distraction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 106314"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026959","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 : 2025-09-08DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106300
Scarlet Wan Yee Li , Margarethe McDonald , Tania S. Zamuner
{"title":"Combining and integrating multiple linguistic cues during spoken language comprehension: A focus on semantics and coarticulation","authors":"Scarlet Wan Yee Li , Margarethe McDonald , Tania S. Zamuner","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106300","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106300","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This research examines how adults process and integrate a combination of higher-level semantic cues (i.e., semantic context) which are followed by lower-level acoustic cues (i.e., coarticulatory cues) during online spoken comprehension. Previous studies investigating cue integration within Martin (2016)’s framework found that listeners can flexibly use and integrate a variety of available cues across linguistic representations. The current pre-registered study used an eye-tracking paradigm and tested how listeners process coarticulation (a lower-level cue) in the presence of preceding semantic information (a higher-level cue). Adult listeners were sensitive to both semantic and coarticulatory cues; moreover, in an exploratory analysis, adults' processing of later acoustic cues varied depending on the earlier semantic context. These results demonstrate that listeners can flexibly use and weigh cues across multiple levels of linguistic representations during language comprehension. Earlier semantic information may be maintained over time and can influence the processing of later lower-level acoustic cues.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 106300"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145019654","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 : 2025-09-05DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106313
Diego Guerrero, Jihyun Hwang, Brynn Boutin, Tom Roeper, Joonkoo Park
{"title":"Corrigendum to \"Is thirty-two three tens and two ones? The embedded structure of cardinal numbers\" [Cognition, 203 (2020) 104331].","authors":"Diego Guerrero, Jihyun Hwang, Brynn Boutin, Tom Roeper, Joonkoo Park","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106313","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"106313"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145008575","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 : 2025-09-05DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106266
Jiaqi Huang , Qizi Zhang , Xinjie Xie , Fritz Breithaupt , Jerome Busemeyer
{"title":"A quantum model for serial reproduction","authors":"Jiaqi Huang , Qizi Zhang , Xinjie Xie , Fritz Breithaupt , Jerome Busemeyer","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106266","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106266","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We propose a novel quantum walk framework for modeling serial reproduction, designed to effectively capture the transmission of inherently vague concepts, such as emotions and ideas, through quantum superpositions and controlled unitary operations. In a comprehensive comparison with Bayesian models using the largest dataset of reproduced narratives to date, our framework demonstrates superior predictive accuracy, surpassing Bayesian approaches in modeling non-linear relationships and multimodal distributions in emotion transmission. Furthermore, it successfully replicates recent key findings on emotion transmission in serial reproduction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 106266"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144993893","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 : 2025-09-05DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106298
Joseph Teal, Petko Kusev, Rose Martin
{"title":"The first attribute heuristic influences risky choice preferences","authors":"Joseph Teal, Petko Kusev, Rose Martin","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106298","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106298","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Behavioral science research indicates that people appear to construct their risk preferences ‘on the fly’, informed by decision making context and task (<span><span>Kusev et al., 2020</span></span>). However, very little research has explored people's psychological processing during decision-making ‘on the fly’. Accordingly, in this article we propose, explore, and establish the First Attribute Heuristic (FAH) in the domain of risky decision-making. FAH is a simple decision-making heuristic which is based on binary comparisons of values on the first contextually available attribute (e.g., probability or money). In three studies we found that the participants' preference and likelihood of selecting the option with the dominant value over the option with the inferior value increase, when these values are presented on the first contextually available attribute. Importantly, our experimental findings provide further evidence that participants' risk preferences are constructed ‘on the fly’. Specifically, decision-makers use FAH (a simple decision-making heuristic), which contributes to the lability of their preferences. Importantly, this heuristic and its influence on human risky decision-making are not anticipated by well-established behavioral theories such as Expected Utility Theory, Prospect Theory, and the Priority Heuristic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 106298"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144997180","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 : 2025-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106301
Andreas Baumann , Stefan Hartmann
{"title":"The chicken and the egg: unraveling aspects of semantic change and how they relate to lexical acquisition","authors":"Andreas Baumann , Stefan Hartmann","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106301","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106301","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Several recent studies have shown intricate correlations between semantic change and the age of acquisition (AoA) of words, thus reviving the long-standing debate about the relationship between language acquisition and language change, both of which can express weak cognitive biases. However, semantic change can occur in various ways. In this paper, we aim to disentangle different aspects of semantic change and test its relationship to AoA. Specifically, we operationalize semantic change using three different and complementary measures: wiggliness, i.e., a word's tendency to show short-term semantic fluctuation; displacement, i.e., the long-term shift that a word's meaning displays; and diversification, i.e., the degree of polysemy that a word assumes over time. A regression analysis, in which we control for frequency effects, reveals that the three measures of semantic change are associated with AoA, but in opposing ways. Early acquisition is associated with low wiggliness (in particular if frequency is high) and low displacement, but high diversification. Based on a pseudo-causal follow-up analysis involving Bayesian networks, we argue that while early acquisition unidirectionally demotes long-term semantic displacement, there must be a circular ‘chicken-and-egg’ relationship between lexical acquisition and semantic wiggliness and diversification. Differential cognitive mechanisms are necessary to account for these relationships.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 106301"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144926472","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 : 2025-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106303
Daniel Corral , Matt Jones
{"title":"Encouraging unitary and compositional representations for relational concept learning","authors":"Daniel Corral , Matt Jones","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106303","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106303","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Current theories of relational learning based on structure mapping emphasize the importance of compositional representations, based on the concept's interconnections among its elements. We consider the possibility that relational concepts can also be represented <em>unitarily</em>, whereby the concept is a property of the stimulus as a whole. The distinction between compositional and unitary representations of relational concepts is a natural consequence of structure-mapping theory, but its psychological implications have not been explored. We report three experiments in which we examine how encouraging subjects to represent relational concepts compositionally versus unitarily affects learning on classification- and inference-based category learning tasks. Our findings showed that encouraging unitary representations led to better learning than encouraging compositional representations, especially for inference-based learning. We conclude that unitary representations incur less cognitive load than structural alignment of compositional representations, and thus may be the default for everyday relational learning and reasoning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 106303"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144926474","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 : 2025-09-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106296
Jonathan Baron, Niels Skovgaard-Olsen
{"title":"Comment on: Rokosz et al. (2025). Yes, many heads really are more utilitarian than one.","authors":"Jonathan Baron, Niels Skovgaard-Olsen","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106296","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Rokosz et al. (2025) apply the CNI model of Gawronski et al. (2017) to analyze the apparent result that groups are more utilitarian than individuals in answering sacrificial moral dilemmas involving trade-offs of harm to a few against harm to many. They conclude that the difference is largely due to a change in attention to consequences, and no substantial effect on attention to deontological moral norms that (for example) prohibit harming a person even if many others would benefit. We show that their results can be explained by a second effect of groups. They reduce responses that appear nonsensical, e.g., when subjects in the group choose action even though both norms and consequences favor omission. When this effect is accounted for, the CNI model yields the conclusion that groups have both effects, increasing attention to consequences and reducing attention to deontological norms. Thus group discussion, after all, may well reduce the pull of deontological norms, which are the main impediment to utilitarian judgments.</p>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"106296"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144974573","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 : 2025-08-31DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106297
Dean A. Marshall , Elizabeth Meins
{"title":"Probability errors in adults' and children's decision-making","authors":"Dean A. Marshall , Elizabeth Meins","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106297","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106297","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Three studies evaluated <span><span>Tversky and Kahneman's (1983)</span></span> proposal that the conjunction fallacy (judging the probability of a conjunction of two events to be higher than that of its component events) arises due to the representativeness heuristic. Since such heuristic thinking is not innate and depends upon the individual learning the extent to which situations are likely to occur, our evaluation adopted a developmental approach. Study 1 (<em>N</em> = 82 adults; <em>N</em> = 71 4- to 5-year-olds), Study 2 (<em>N</em> = 130 adults; <em>N</em> = 148 4- to 11-year-olds), and Study 3 (<em>N</em> = 76 adults) assessed objective probability judgements by asking participants to determine whether a single player or a two-player team would win based on assigned poker chip (adults) or building block (children) distributions. Social judgements were based on descriptions of individuals. All three studies showed that adults' conjunction fallacies in objective probability judgements were (a) influenced by the likelihood of winning, and (b) positively correlated with conjunction fallacies in judging social characteristics. Children's conjunction fallacies in objective probability judgements were not influenced by manipulating the probabilities assigned to either team, and did not differ as a function of children's age. Fallacies on the objective and social judgement tasks were positively correlated in 10- and 11-year-olds, but not in younger children. Study 3 showed a “thinking aloud” procedure (to facilitate rational, non-heuristic decision-making) reduced adults' fallacies on the social judgement, but not the objective probability task. Findings are discussed in relation to developmental changes in decision-making, and common versus distinct cognitive processes associated with objective and social judgement errors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 106297"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144919664","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 : 2025-08-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106299
Ashley Symons , Kyle Jasmin , Adam Tierney
{"title":"Speech perception strategies shift instantly","authors":"Ashley Symons , Kyle Jasmin , Adam Tierney","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106299","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106299","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To perceive speech listeners must decide how to prioritize information from multiple acoustic dimensions. Over the course of language learning, individuals form stable perceptual strategies which reflect the strength of the statistical relationship between values along particular acoustic dimensions and linguistic categories. Despite this underlying stability, listeners will change their strategies in response to evidence about shifts in the reliability of acoustic dimensions as cues to categorization. Here we show that such changes are maximally efficient: listeners will make small adjustments to their strategies after hearing just a single stimulus in which the relationship between acoustic cues diverges from the expected pattern. Furthermore, these shifts in strategy vanish as quickly as they appear, lasting only a single trial before returning to baseline. Finally, we show that shifts in cue weighting are resistant to distraction, occurring equally when speech is presented in quiet versus in informational masking. Speech perception strategies, therefore, are characterized by short-term fluctuation and long-term stability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 106299"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144916889","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}