Rolando Bonandrini, Simona Amenta, Simone Sulpizio, Marco Tettamanti, Alessia Mazzucchelli, Marco Marelli
{"title":"Form to meaning mapping and the impact of explicit morpheme combination in novel word processing","authors":"Rolando Bonandrini, Simona Amenta, Simone Sulpizio, Marco Tettamanti, Alessia Mazzucchelli, Marco Marelli","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101594","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101594","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the present study, we leveraged computational methods to explore the extent to which, relative to direct access to semantics from orthographic cues, the additional appreciation of morphological cues is advantageous while inducing the meaning of affixed pseudo-words. We re-analyzed data from a study on a lexical decision task for affixed pseudo-words. We considered a parsimonious model only including semantic variables (namely, semantic neighborhood density, entropy, magnitude, stem proximity) derived through a word-form-to-meaning approach (<em>ngram</em>-based). We then explored the extent to which the addition of equivalent semantic variables derived by combining semantic information from morphemes (<em>combination</em>-based) improved the fit of the statistical model explaining human data. Results suggest that semantic information can be extracted from arbitrary clusters of letters, yet a computational model of semantic access also including a <em>combination</em>-based strategy based on explicit morphological information better captures the cognitive mechanisms underlying human performance. This is particularly evident when participants recognize affixed pseudo-words as meaningful stimuli.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 101594"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10212250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Serial attention to serial memory: The psychological refractory period in forward and backward cued recall","authors":"Gordon D. Logan, Simon D. Lilburn, Jana E. Ulrich","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101583","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101583","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Guided by the conjecture that memory retrieval is attention turned inward, we examined serial attention in serial memory, combining the psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure from attention research with cued recall of two items from brief six-item lists. We report six experiments showing robust PRP effects in cued recall from memory (1–4) and cued report from perceptual displays (5–6), which suggest that memory retrieval requires the same attentional bottleneck as “retrieval” from perception. There were strong direction effects in each memory experiment. Response time (RT) was shorter and accuracy was higher when the cues occurred in the forward direction (left-to-right, top-to-bottom, first-to-last), replicating differences between forward and backward serial recall. Cue positions had strong effects on RT and accuracy in the memory experiments (1–4). The pattern suggested that subjects find cued items in memory by stepping through the list from the beginning or the end, with a preference for starting at the beginning. The perceptual experiments (5–6) showed weak effects of position that were more consistent with direct access. In all experiments, the distance between the cues in the list (lag) had weak effects, suggesting that subjects searched for each cue from the beginning or end of the list more often than they moved through the list from the first cue to the second. Direction, distance, and lag effects on RT and inter-response interval changed with SOA in a manner that suggested they affect bottleneck or pre-bottleneck processes that create and execute a plan for successive retrievals. We conclude that sequential retrieval from memory and sequential attention to perception engage the same computations and we show how computational models of memory can be interpreted as models of attention focused on memory.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"145 ","pages":"Article 101583"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10574688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A spatially continuous diffusion model of visual working memory","authors":"Alex Fennell, R. Ratcliff","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.4352541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4352541","url":null,"abstract":"We present results from five visual working memory (VWM) experiments in which participants were briefly shown between 2 and 6 colored squares. They were then cued to recall the color of one of the squares and they responded by choosing the color on a continuous color wheel. The experiments provided response proportions and response time (RT) measures as a function of angle for the choices. Current VWM models for this task include discrete models that assume an item is either within working memory or not and resource models that assume that memory strength varies as a function of the number of items. Because these models do not include processes that allow them to account for RT data, we implemented them within the spatially continuous diffusion model (SCDM, Ratcliff, 2018) and use the experimental data to evaluate these combined models. In the SCDM, evidence retrieved from memory is represented as a spatially continuous normal distribution and this drives the decision process until a criterion (represented as a 1-D line) is reached, which produces a decision. Noise in the accumulation process is represented by continuous Gaussian process noise over spatial position. The models that fit best from the discrete and resource-based classes converged on a common model that had a guessing component and that allowed the height of the normal memory-strength distribution to vary with number of items. The guessing component was implemented as a regular decision process driven by a flat evidence distribution, a zero-drift process. The combination of choice and RT data allows models that were not identifiable based on choice data alone to be discriminated.","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48812020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Keeping quantifier meaning in mind: Connecting semantics, cognition, and pragmatics","authors":"Tyler Knowlton , John Trueswell , Anna Papafragou","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101584","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101584","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A complete theory of the meaning of linguistic expressions needs to explain their semantic properties, their links to non-linguistic cognition, and their use in communication. Even though in principle interconnected, these areas are generally not pursued in tandem. We present a novel take on the semantics-cognition-pragmatics interface. We propose that formal semantic differences in expressions’ meanings lead those meanings to activate distinct cognitive systems, which in turn have downstream effects on when speakers prefer to use those expressions. As a case study, we focus on the quantifiers “each” and “every”, which can be used to talk about the same state of the world, but have been argued to differ in meaning. In particular, we adopt a mentalistic proposal about these quantifiers on which “each” has a purely individualistic meaning that interfaces with the psychological system for representing object-files, whereas “every” has a meaning that implicates a group and interfaces with the psychological system for representing ensembles. In seven experiments, we demonstrate that this account correctly predicts both known and newly-observed constraints on how “each” and “every” are pragmatically used. More generally, this integrated approach to semantics, cognition, and pragmatics suggests that canonical patterns of language use can be affected in predictable ways by fine-grained differences in semantic meanings and the cognitive systems to which those meanings connect.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"144 ","pages":"Article 101584"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9858810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What’s so hard about hierarchical control? Pinpointing processing constraints within cue-based and serial-order control structures","authors":"Melissa E. Moss , Ulrich Mayr","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101582","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101582","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Most task spaces require a hierarchical structure, where decisions on one level are contingent on previous decisions made on one or more higher levels. While it is a truism that increasing the number of hierarchical levels makes it harder to solve a given task, the exact nature of this “number-of-levels” effect is not clear. On the one hand, processing costs might be strictly “local,” incurred only when higher-level settings need to be updated, while otherwise lower-level decisions are insulated from the presence of higher-level settings (local updating costs with ballistic control). On the other hand, maintaining and integrating more complex hierarchical structures could require overall greater representational resources, negatively affecting each individual decision within the represented task space (global integration/maintenance costs). Further, navigation through hierarchical structures can be guided either through prompts in the environment (cue-based), or through sequential plans (serial-order based), with potentially distinct maintenance and updating demands. In two experiments, we assessed performance as a function of hierarchical level and format (serial-order vs. cue-based). Model comparisons showed that the pattern of costs in the serial-order format was consistent with a global maintenance/integration account. In contrast, in the cue-based format, costs arose at updating points and when one additional relevant level beyond the current decision was relevant, while additional levels produced no further costs. This overall constellation of costs can be explained by assuming that each decision requires checking the immediately relevant higher-level context for that decision. For cue-based control, this context involves the “next-level-up” rule, whereas in the serial-order format, each trial requires updating of the current position within the sequence, which in turn requires integration across all relevant hierarchical levels.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"144 ","pages":"Article 101582"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10044804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Events and objects are similar cognitive entities","authors":"Anna Papafragou , Yue Ji","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101573","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101573","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Logico-semantic theories have long noted parallels between the linguistic representation of temporal entities (events) and spatial entities (objects): bounded (or telic) predicates such as <em>fix a car</em> resemble count nouns such as <em>sandcastle</em> because they are “atoms” that have well-defined boundaries, contain discrete minimal parts and cannot be divided arbitrarily. By contrast, unbounded (or atelic) phrases such as <em>drive a car</em> resemble mass nouns such as <em>sand</em> in that they are unspecified for atomic features. Here, we demonstrate for the first time the parallels in the <em>perceptual-cognitive</em> representation of events and objects even in entirely non-linguistic tasks. Specifically, after viewers form categories of bounded or unbounded events, they can extend the category to objects or substances respectively (Experiments 1 and 2). Furthermore, in a training study, people successfully learn event-to-object mappings that respect atomicity (i.e., grouping bounded events with objects and unbounded events with substances) but fail to acquire the opposite, atomicity-violating mappings (Experiment 3). Finally, viewers can spontaneously draw connections between events and objects without any prior training (Experiment 4). These striking similarities between the mental representation of events and objects have implications for current theories of event cognition, as well as the relationship between language and thought.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 101573"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9604614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The role of rehearsal and reminding in the recall of categorized word lists","authors":"Geoff Ward , Lydia Tan","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101563","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101563","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Most theories of free recall emphasize the importance of retrieval in explaining temporal and semantic regularities in recall; rehearsal mechanisms are often absent or limit rehearsal to a subset of what was last rehearsed. However, in three experiments using the overt rehearsal method, we show clear evidence that just-presented items act as retrieval cues during encoding (study-phase retrieval) with prior related items rehearsed despite well over a dozen intervening items. Experiment 1 examined free recall of categorized and uncategorized lists of 32 words. In Experiments 2 and 3, we presented categorized lists of 24, 48, and 64 words for free recall or cued recall, with the category exemplars blocked in successive list positions (Experiment 2) or randomized throughout the list (Experiment 3). The probability of rehearsing a prior word was affected by its semantic similarity to the just-presented item, and the frequency and recency of its prior rehearsals. These rehearsal data suggest alternative interpretations to well-known recall phenomena. With randomized designs, the serial position curves were reinterpreted by when words were last rehearsed (which contributed to the list length effects), and semantic clustering and temporal contiguity effects at output were reinterpreted by whether words were co-rehearsed during study. The contrast with the blocked designs suggests that recall is sensitive to the relative (not absolute) recency of targeted list items. We discuss the benefits of incorporating rehearsal machinery into computational models of episodic memory, and suggest that the same retrieval processes that generate the recalls are used to generate the rehearsals.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 101563"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9978563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Roberto A. Abreu-Mendoza , Arthur B. Powell , K. Ann Renninger , Luis M. Rivera , John Vulic , Steve Weimar , Miriam Rosenberg-Lee
{"title":"Middle-schoolers' misconceptions in discretized nonsymbolic proportional reasoning explain fraction biases better than their continuous reasoning: Evidence from correlation and cluster analyses","authors":"Roberto A. Abreu-Mendoza , Arthur B. Powell , K. Ann Renninger , Luis M. Rivera , John Vulic , Steve Weimar , Miriam Rosenberg-Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101575","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101575","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Early emerging nonsymbolic proportional skills have been posited as a foundational ability for later fraction learning. A positive relation between nonsymbolic and symbolic proportional reasoning has been reported, as well as successful nonsymbolic training and intervention programs enhancing fraction magnitude skills. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Of particular interest are nonsymbolic representations, which can be in continuous formats that may emphasize proportional relations and in discretized formats that may prompt erroneous whole-number strategies and hamper access to fraction magnitudes. We assessed the proportional comparison skills of 159 middle-school students (mean age = 12.54 years, 43% females, 55% males, 2% other or prefer not to say) across three types of representations: (a) continuous, unsegmented bars, (b) discretized, segmented bars that allowed counting strategies, and (c) symbolic fractions. Using both correlational and cluster approaches, we also examined their relations to symbolic fraction comparison ability. Within each stimulus type, we varied proportional distance, and in the discretized and symbolic stimuli, we also manipulated whole-number congruency. We found that fraction distance across all formats modulated middle-schoolers' performance; however, whole-number information affected discretized and symbolic comparison performance. Further, continuous and discretized nonsymbolic performance was related to fraction comparison ability; however, discretized skills explained variance above and beyond the contributions of continuous skills. Finally, our cluster analyses revealed three nonsymbolic comparison profiles: students who chose the bars with the largest number of segments (whole-number bias), chance-level performers, and high performers. Crucially, students with a whole-number bias profile showed this bias in their fraction skills and failed to show any symbolic distance modulation. Together, our results indicate that the relation between nonsymbolic and symbolic proportional skills may be determined by the (mis)conceptions based on discretized representations, rather than understandings of proportional magnitudes, suggesting that interventions focusing on competence with discretized representations may show dividends for fraction understanding.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 101575"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9605134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Promoting climate actions: A cognitive-constraints approach","authors":"Junho Lee , Emily F. Wong , Patricia W. Cheng","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101565","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101565","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The present paper reports an experiment with a two-year-delayed (<em>M =</em> 695 days) follow-up that tests an approach to raising willingness to take political and personal climate actions. Many Americans still do not view climate change as a threat requiring urgent action. Moreover, among American conservatives, higher science literacy is paradoxically associated with higher anthropogenic climate-change skepticism. Our experimental materials were designed to harness the power of two central cognitive constraints — coherence and causal invariance, which map onto two narrative proclivities that anthropologists have identified as universal — to promote climate action across the political spectrum. Towards that goal, the essential role of these constraints in the causal-belief-formation process predicts that climate-change information would be more persuasive when it is embedded in a personal climate-action narrative, the evocation of which can benefit from exposure to parsimonious scientific explanations of indisputable everyday observations, juxtaposed with reasoners’ own, typically less coherent explanations, occurring in a context that engages their moral stance. Our brief one-time intervention, conducted in ten U.S. states with the highest level of climate skepticism, showed that across the political spectrum, our materials raised appreciation of science, openness to alternative views, and willingness to take climate actions in the immediate assessment. It also raised how likely were reports two years later of having taken those actions or would have taken them had the opportunity existed, suggesting a long-lasting effect. Our approach adopts the framework that conceptions of reality are representations, and adaptive solutions in that infinite space of representations require cognitive constraints to narrow the search.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 101565"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9597771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heterogeneity of rules in Bayesian reasoning: A toolbox analysis","authors":"Jan K. Woike , Ralph Hertwig , Gerd Gigerenzer","doi":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101564","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101564","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>How do people infer the Bayesian posterior probability from stated base rate, hit rate, and false alarm rate? This question is not only of theoretical relevance but also of practical relevance in medical and legal settings. We test two competing theoretical views: single-process theories versus toolbox theories. Single-process theories assume that a single process explains people’s inferences and have indeed been observed to fit people’s inferences well. Examples are Bayes’s rule, the representativeness heuristic, and a weighing-and-adding model. Their assumed process homogeneity implies unimodal response distributions. Toolbox theories, in contrast, assume process heterogeneity, implying multimodal response distributions. After analyzing response distributions in studies with laypeople and professionals, we find little support for the single-process theories tested. Using simulations, we find that a single process, the weighing-and-adding model, nevertheless can best fit the aggregate data and, surprisingly, also achieve the best out-of-sample prediction even though it fails to predict any single respondent’s inferences. To identify the potential toolbox of rules, we test how well candidate rules predict a set of over 10,000 inferences (culled from the literature) from 4,188 participants and 106 different Bayesian tasks. A toolbox of five non-Bayesian rules plus Bayes’s rule captures 64% of inferences. Finally, we validate the Five-Plus toolbox in three experiments that measure response times, self-reports, and strategy use. The most important conclusion from these analyses is that the fitting of single-process theories to aggregate data risks misidentifying the cognitive process. Antidotes to that risk are careful analyses of process and rule heterogeneity across people.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50669,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Psychology","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 101564"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9604616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}