Chih-Chung Ting, Stefano Palminteri, Maël Lebreton, Jan B Engelmann
{"title":"The elusive effects of incidental anxiety on reinforcement-learning.","authors":"Chih-Chung Ting, Stefano Palminteri, Maël Lebreton, Jan B Engelmann","doi":"10.1037/xlm0001033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001033","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Anxiety is a common affective state, characterized by the subjectively unpleasant feelings of dread over an anticipated event. Anxiety is suspected to have important negative consequences on cognition, decision-making, and learning. Yet, despite a recent surge in studies investigating the specific effects of anxiety on reinforcement-learning, no coherent picture has emerged. Here, we investigated the effects of incidental anxiety on instrumental reinforcement-learning, while addressing several issues and defaults identified in a focused literature review. We used a rich experimental design, featuring both a learning and a transfer phase, and a manipulation of outcomes valence (gains vs losses). In two variants (N = 2 × 50) of this experimental paradigm, incidental anxiety was induced with an established threat-of-shock paradigm. Model-free results show that incidental anxiety effects seem limited to a small, but specific increase in postlearning performance measured by a transfer task. A comprehensive modeling effort revealed that, irrespective of the effects of anxiety, individuals give more weight to positive than negative outcomes, and tend to experience the omission of a loss as a gain (and vice versa). However, in line with results from our targeted literature survey, isolating specific computational effects of anxiety on learning per se proved to be challenging. Overall, our results suggest that learning mechanisms are more complex than traditionally presumed, and raise important concerns about the robustness of the effects of anxiety previously identified in simple reinforcement-learning studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"619-642"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39411923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Antilocality effect without head-final dependencies.","authors":"Juliane Schwab, Ming Xiang, Mingya Liu","doi":"10.1037/xlm0001079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001079","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Antilocality effects provide strong evidence for expectation-based sentence parsing models. Previous discussion of the antilocality effect, however, largely focused on the argument-verb dependencies in verb-final constructions, for which a memory retrieval-based account has been argued to be equally adequate. To test whether the principles of expectation/memory-based accounts hold for a wider range of dependencies, we report on two self-paced reading experiments that compared two different determiners in German: the morphologically complex determiner <i>derjenige</i> 'the-jenig,' which obligatorily requires a relative clause, and the bare determiner <i>der</i> 'the,' which does not trigger such expectations. The first experiment did not show the expected antilocality effect, but the reliability of our results was restricted by the experiment's low statistical power. In a large-scale second experiment we addressed confounds in the design of Experiment 1 and found evidence for an antilocality effect with the complex determiner. As the antilocality effect found in our study does not involve argument-verb dependencies, the memory-based account cannot be extended to the current case. Thus, our findings provide novel empirical support for the expectation-based antilocality effect. At the same time, the experiment attests to a processing cost in later sentence regions, hinting that memory- and expectation-based effects can co-occur within the same structure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"446-463"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39740974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sound symbolic potential of Russian onomatopoeias: Evidence from eye-tracking.","authors":"Oksana Kanerva, Tuomo Häikiö","doi":"10.1037/xlm0001114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001114","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We investigated whether native Finnish speakers can grasp the meaning of Russian onomatopoeic words without any prior knowledge of the Russian language. In Experiment 1, elicitation test, naïve listeners generated associations for the acoustic events depicted by onomatopoeic words they heard. A cluster analysis suggested presence of different types of cues that affect the elicitation of associations. In the Facilitating cluster, associations were mostly correct; in the Counteracting cluster, they were predominantly incorrect. Worthy of note, many of the incorrect associations were systematic. In the Mixed cluster, there was a combination of cues; and in the Undefined cluster, no discrete cues affecting the formation of common associations were found. In Experiment 2, the same stimulus words were used in an eye-tracking experiment using visual world paradigm. It was shown that the participants have even better chances to map the onomatopoeic words to the correct semantic domain when extralinguistic information is available, in this case target images presented on the experimental display. The availability of both audio and visual inputs substantially boosted this process in all four clusters. Our findings support the view that imitative sound symbolism offers a scaffolding material for connecting onomatopoeias to their referents when words are pronounced in isolation. Cross-linguistic sound symbolism offers a good explanation to the presence of different cues that affect semantic recognition of unknown onomatopoeic words. On a larger scale, cross-linguistic similarities in onomatopoeias may be part of a broader phenomenon, universal sound symbolism, form-meaning mapping shared by a wide array of languages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"432-445"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39854627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does source memory exist for unrecognized items?","authors":"Julian Fox, Adam F Osth","doi":"10.1037/xlm0001111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001111","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In episodic memory research, there is a debate concerning whether decision-making in item recognition and source memory is better explained by models that assume all-or-none retrieval processes or continuous underlying strengths. One aspect in which these classes of models tend to differ is their predictions regarding the ability to retrieve contextual details (or <i>source</i> details) of an experienced event, given that the event itself is not recognized. All-or-none or high-threshold models predict that when items are unrecognized, source retrieval is not possible and only guess responses can be elicited. In contrast, models assuming continuous strengths predict that it is possible to retrieve the source of unrecognized items, albeit with low accuracy. Empirically, there have been numerous studies reporting either chance accuracy or above-chance accuracy for source memory in the absence of recognition. Crucially, studies presenting recognition and source judgements for the same item in immediate succession (<i>simultaneous design</i>) have revealed chance-level accuracy, while studies presenting a block of recognition judgements followed by a block of source judgements (<i>blocked design</i>) have revealed slightly above-chance accuracy. Across three sets of experiments involving multiple design manipulations, the present investigation demonstrated: (a) that source memory for unrecognized items is indeed higher in blocked designs; (b) that evidence for the effect in blocked designs is likely artifactual due to item memory changing between blocks; and (c) that the effect does exist in simultaneous designs, but is highly subtle and is more easily detected when uncertainty in the participant-level data is low or is accounted for in a hierarchical Bayesian model. It is suggested that findings of a null effect in the prior literature may be attributable to design elements that hinder source memory as a whole, and to high degrees of uncertainty in the participant-level source data when conditioned on unrecognized items. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"242-271"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39964099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Morgan E McIntyre, Dragan Rangelov, Jason B Mattingley
{"title":"Biased weighting of temporally discrete visual stimuli in a continuous report decision-making task: A combined behavioral and electrophysiological study.","authors":"Morgan E McIntyre, Dragan Rangelov, Jason B Mattingley","doi":"10.1037/xlm0000914","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000914","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Integrating evidence from multiple sources to guide decisions is something humans do on a daily basis. Existing research suggests that not all sources of information are weighted equally in decision-making tasks, and that observers are subject to biases in the face of internal and external noise. Here we describe two experiments that measured observers' ability to integrate successive visual signals. Participants viewed pairs of gratings presented sequentially and reproduced their average orientation. Experiment 1 revealed a recency bias in evidence integration, such that observers' average judgments were closer to the orientation of the second grating than the first. Mixture distribution modeling revealed that this was caused by a recency bias in averaging, as well as a tendency to disregard the first stimulus altogether in some trials. In Experiment 2 we replicated these findings, and quantified orientation-specific patterns of neural activity recorded during the task using population-tuning curve modeling of electroencephalography data. This analysis yielded robust orientation tuning to both the presented gratings and observers' decisions, and suggested that observers were storing both grating stimuli for subsequent averaging rather than computing a running average. The neural representation of the second grating was not reliably stronger than that of the first, suggesting that the recency bias is not due to a difference in the strength of encoding of the second stimulus, and instead may arise at a later decision stage where information is retrieved or integrated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"173-186"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39583223","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reactivation of learned reward association reduces retroactive interference from new reward learning.","authors":"Zhibang Huang, Sheng Li","doi":"10.1037/xlm0000987","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000987","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Learning to associate specific objects with value contributes to the human's adaptive behavior. However, the intrinsic nature of associative memory posits a challenge that newly learned associations may interfere with the old ones if they share common features (e.g., a reward). In the present study, we conducted a set of behavioral experiments and demonstrated that retroactive interference in reward learning can be reduced by reactivating originally learned reward associations before the new learning. We used the well-known effect, attentional capture driven by reward-associated feature, as the index of reward learning (Experiments 1A and 1B) and showed that learning a new reward-color association impaired the old learning as indicated by the reduced capture effect of the old reward-color associations (Experiment 2). Interestingly, the retroactive interference was significantly reduced if a brief reactivation of the old reward-color associations was introduced immediately before the new reward learning (Experiment 3). However, the retroactive interference reemerged if the new learning was conducted outside a reconsolidation window, indicating the critical period during which reactivation protects learned reward salience from the interference of new reward learning (Experiment 4). These findings suggest that reactivation could serve as an effective procedure to reduce mutual interference between multiple learnings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"213-225"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38804348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Roland H Grabner, Clemens Brunner, Valerie Lorenz, Stephan E Vogel, Bert De Smedt
{"title":"Fact retrieval or compacted counting in arithmetic-A neurophysiological investigation of two hypotheses.","authors":"Roland H Grabner, Clemens Brunner, Valerie Lorenz, Stephan E Vogel, Bert De Smedt","doi":"10.1037/xlm0000982","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000982","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is broad consensus on the assumption that adults solve single-digit multiplication problems almost exclusively by fact retrieval from memory. In contrast, there has been a long-standing debate on the cognitive processes involved in solving single-digit addition problems. This debate has evolved around two theoretical accounts. Proponents of a fact-retrieval account postulate that these are also solved through fact retrieval, whereas proponents of a compacted-counting account propose that solving very small additions (with operands between 1 and 4) involves highly automatized and unconscious compacted counting. In the present electroencephalography (EEG) study, we put these two accounts to the test by comparing neurophysiological correlates of solving very small additions and multiplications. Forty adults worked on an arithmetic production task involving all (nontie) single-digit additions and multiplications. Afterward, participants completed trial-by-trial strategy self-reports. In our EEG analyses, we focused on induced activity (event-related synchronization/desynchronization, ERS/ERD) in three frequency bands (theta, lower alpha, upper alpha). Across all frequency bands, we found higher evidential strength for similar rather than different neurophysiological processes accompanying the solution of very small addition and multiplication problems. In the alpha bands, evidence for similarity was even stronger when operand-1-problems were excluded. In two additional analyses, we showed that ERS/ERD can differentiate between self-reported problem-solving strategies (retrieval vs. procedure) and between very small <i>n</i> × 1 and <i>n</i> + 1 problems, demonstrating its high sensitivity to cognitive processes in arithmetic. The present findings support a fact-retrieval account, suggesting that both very small additions and multiplications are solved through fact retrieval. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"199-212"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25331849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ostensive gaze shifting changes referential intention in word meanings: An examination of children's learning of part names.","authors":"Tetsuya Yasuda, Harumi Kobayashi","doi":"10.1037/xlm0000859","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000859","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Learning part names, such as hands of a clock, can be a challenge for children because of the whole object assumption; that is, a child will assume that a given label refers to the whole object (e.g., a clock) rather than the object part (e.g., hands of a clock). We examined the effect of gaze shifting and deliberate pointing on learning part names. The experiment consisted of 2 conditions: (a) no-shifting and (b) shifting-to-object. No-shifting was when the experimenter continuously looked at the participant's face after establishing mutual gaze even while pointing at an object part to teach the part name. The shifting-to-object condition was the same as the no-shifting condition, except for the experimenter's gaze shifting to the object when teaching part names. The results showed that 4-and-a-half-year-olds and adults correctly inferred a part name only during gaze shifting. Two-and-a-half-year-olds were not yet sensitive to this ostensive flow. Especially while learning part names, a continuous gaze at the face may violate the quantity maxim-that is, the criterion that the speaker must provide the appropriate amount of information-in Grice's cooperative principle. To utilize ostensive signals in learning part names, children need to notice the combination of gaze direction and ostensive signals, such as a pointing gesture. In 4-and-a-half-year-olds, the use of social-pragmatic information is more advanced, allowing them to understand an adult's pointing gesture when gaze shifting occurs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"272-283"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39964097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Camille L Grasso, Johannes C Ziegler, Jonathan Mirault, Jennifer T Coull, Marie Montant
{"title":"As time goes by: Space-time compatibility effects in word recognition.","authors":"Camille L Grasso, Johannes C Ziegler, Jonathan Mirault, Jennifer T Coull, Marie Montant","doi":"10.1037/xlm0001007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001007","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The processing of time activates a spatial left-to-right mental timeline, where past events are \"located\" to the left and future events to the right. If past and future words activate this mental timeline, then the processing of such words should interfere with hand movements that go in the opposite direction. To test this hypothesis, we conducted 3 visual lexical decision tasks with conjugated (past/future) verbs and pseudoverbs. In Experiment 1, participants moved a pen to the right or left of a trackpad to indicate whether a visual stimulus was a real word or not. Grammatical time and hand movements for yes responses went in the same direction in the congruent condition (e.g., past tense/leftward movement) but in opposite directions in the incongruent condition. Analyses showed that space-time incongruency significantly increased reaction times. In Experiment 2, we investigated the role of movement in this effect. Participants performed the same task by responding with a trackpad or a mouse, both of which required lateral movement through space, or a static keypress. We again obtained the space-time congruency effect, but only when the decision required movement through space. In Experiments 1 and 2, stimuli were preceded by a temporal prime. In Experiment 3, participants performed the same task without any prime. Results replicated the congruency effect, demonstrating that it does not depend upon temporal word priming. Altogether, results suggest automatic activation of a left-right mental timeline during word recognition, reinforcing the claim that the concept of Time is grounded in movement through space. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"304-319"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25580940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Simon Fischer-Baum, Jill A Warker, Charli Holloway
{"title":"Learning phonotactic-like regularities in immediate serial recall.","authors":"Simon Fischer-Baum, Jill A Warker, Charli Holloway","doi":"10.1037/xlm0000815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000815","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Learning a spoken language requires learning a phonological inventory and phonotactics, or the sequences of phonemes possible in the language. Laboratory investigations of phonotactic learning include tongue-twister studies that show that speech errors respect artificial phonotactic constraints, for example that /k/ never appears as a syllable onset. The current research investigates whether errors can reveal similar learning in nonlinguistic domains, specifically in immediate serial recall studies. In Experiments 1-3 participants recalled sequences of 6 items, grouped into two 3-item subsequences, in verbal immediate serial recall experiments. Some items were restricted to appear in specific sequence positions while others were unrestricted, as a parallel to the artificial phonotactics learning experiments. As with speech errors, recall errors with restricted items showed sensitivity to the statistical regularities built into the experiment. Similar results are shown for both absolute and probabilistic constraints. However, learning effects were weaker than in the phonological domain, and were less influenced by hierarchical structure than what is observed in phonotactic learning (Experiment 4). Taken together, these results suggest that there are both domain-general and language-specific constraints on phonotactic learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":504300,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition","volume":" ","pages":"129-146"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37534080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}