Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-02-12DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2026.113697
William Hart , Charlotte Kinrade , Braden T. Hall , Danielle E. Wahlers
Men and women differ in their willingness to engage in sexual activity outside of a committed or long-term romantic relationship (“sociosexuality”), though within-sex variance exceeds between-sex variance in sociosexuality. Some evolutionary and socio-cultural principles suggest within-sex variance in sociosexuality may differentially relate to core self-judgments and moral orientations. The present study (N = 295; Mage = 36.63) assessed sociosexuality, self-judgments (e.g., self-esteem, authenticity), moral orientations (e.g., integrity, helping), and immoral orientations (e.g., moral disengagement, lying). For men, sociosexuality was unrelated to self-judgments and moral orientations but weakly positively related to some immoral orientations. For women, sociosexuality related negatively to self-judgments and moral orientations and positively to immoral orientations. Sex differences in correlations were generally significant, and these differences could not be attributed to range restrictions, measurement reliability, or age.
{"title":"Sociosexuality in men and women: Considering core self-judgments and (im)moral orientations","authors":"William Hart , Charlotte Kinrade , Braden T. Hall , Danielle E. Wahlers","doi":"10.1016/j.paid.2026.113697","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.paid.2026.113697","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Men and women differ in their willingness to engage in sexual activity outside of a committed or long-term romantic relationship (“sociosexuality”), though within-sex variance exceeds between-sex variance in sociosexuality. Some evolutionary and socio-cultural principles suggest within-sex variance in sociosexuality may differentially relate to core self-judgments and moral orientations. The present study (<em>N</em> = 295; <em>M</em><sub><em>age</em></sub> = 36.63) assessed sociosexuality, self-judgments (e.g., self-esteem, authenticity), moral orientations (e.g., integrity, helping), and immoral orientations (e.g., moral disengagement, lying). For men, sociosexuality was unrelated to self-judgments and moral orientations but weakly positively related to some immoral orientations. For women, sociosexuality related negatively to self-judgments and moral orientations and positively to immoral orientations. Sex differences in correlations were generally significant, and these differences could not be attributed to range restrictions, measurement reliability, or age.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48467,"journal":{"name":"Personality and Individual Differences","volume":"255 ","pages":"Article 113697"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146189749","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}
Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106435
Solveig Tonn , Viola Mocke , Moritz Schaaf , Wilfried Kunde
Because prevention actions result in the non-occurrence of certain events, it is rather unclear how action-event linkages can emerge for these action types. Here, we investigated whether verbal instructions alone can establish such linkages and how they influence behavior. Therefore, participants had to memorize propositional knowledge about prevention actions, and we tested how actions in a subsequent, unrelated task were impacted by this knowledge. Our results demonstrate that actions were facilitated by the very event they are known to prevent, not by the absence of this event. Thus, these action-event linkages were both (a) ‘propositional’, as they were established by verbal instructions alone, and also (b) ‘associative’, as they impacted behavior akin to unqualified, bidirectional associations.
{"title":"Instructed prevention actions reveal the associative nature of propositional response-effect contingency knowledge","authors":"Solveig Tonn , Viola Mocke , Moritz Schaaf , Wilfried Kunde","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106435","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106435","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Because prevention actions result in the <em>non</em>-occurrence of certain events, it is rather unclear how action-event linkages can emerge for these action types. Here, we investigated whether verbal instructions alone can establish such linkages and how they influence behavior. Therefore, participants had to memorize propositional knowledge about prevention actions, and we tested how actions in a subsequent, unrelated task were impacted by this knowledge. Our results demonstrate that actions were facilitated by the very event they are known to prevent, not by the absence of this event. Thus, these action-event linkages were both (a) ‘propositional’, as they were established by verbal instructions alone, and also (b) ‘associative’, as they impacted behavior akin to unqualified, bidirectional associations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"271 ","pages":"Article 106435"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145928636","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}
Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-01-07DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106423
Nadine Lavan , Andrey Anikin
Listeners rapidly form trait impressions from voices, inferring multiple person characteristics within milliseconds. We employed a novel method, Self-Steered Sound Synthesis (S4), to identify and compare the acoustic signatures underlying these impressions. Participants interactively used S4 to synthesise voices expressing six person characteristics - age, masculinity, health, attractiveness, dominance, and trustworthiness - by manipulating four perceptually salient acoustic dimensions: mean pitch, pitch excursion, breathiness, and formant spacing. Masculinity, older age, and dominance were conveyed by lowering mean pitch and formant spacing, consistent with projecting the impression of a large person, and by flattening the intonation. Physical health, attractiveness, and trustworthiness were conveyed by choosing less extreme and more “typical” acoustic properties. A second perceptual experiment confirmed that the synthesised voices from Experiment 1 indeed conveyed the intended person characteristics to an independent sample of listeners, and that listeners relied on similar acoustic cues for their evaluations. From a methodological perspective, we demonstrate the robustness of S4 and present convergent evidence from two drastically different approaches, thus providing a comprehensive account of impression formation that bridges voice production (or synthesis) and perception. From a theoretical perspective, our findings agree with the hypothesis that trait impressions occur within a continuous “trait space”, highlighting the graded and intercorrelated nature of different person characteristics on a perceptual and conceptual level. We extend this framework by showing that not only perceptual judgements, but also the acoustic signatures of person characteristics show intercorrelations, thus integrating acoustic cues into perceptual models of voice perception.
{"title":"Making an impression: Participant-led voice synthesis reveals the acoustic signatures of trait impressions","authors":"Nadine Lavan , Andrey Anikin","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106423","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106423","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Listeners rapidly form trait impressions from voices, inferring multiple person characteristics within milliseconds. We employed a novel method, Self-Steered Sound Synthesis (S4), to identify and compare the acoustic signatures underlying these impressions. Participants interactively used S4 to synthesise voices expressing six person characteristics - age, masculinity, health, attractiveness, dominance, and trustworthiness - by manipulating four perceptually salient acoustic dimensions: mean pitch, pitch excursion, breathiness, and formant spacing. Masculinity, older age, and dominance were conveyed by lowering mean pitch and formant spacing, consistent with projecting the impression of a large person, and by flattening the intonation. Physical health, attractiveness, and trustworthiness were conveyed by choosing less extreme and more “typical” acoustic properties. A second perceptual experiment confirmed that the synthesised voices from Experiment 1 indeed conveyed the intended person characteristics to an independent sample of listeners, and that listeners relied on similar acoustic cues for their evaluations. From a methodological perspective, we demonstrate the robustness of S4 and present convergent evidence from two drastically different approaches, thus providing a comprehensive account of impression formation that bridges voice production (or synthesis) and perception. From a theoretical perspective, our findings agree with the hypothesis that trait impressions occur within a continuous “trait space”, highlighting the graded and intercorrelated nature of different person characteristics on a perceptual and conceptual level. We extend this framework by showing that not only perceptual judgements, but also the acoustic signatures of person characteristics show intercorrelations, thus integrating acoustic cues into perceptual models of voice perception.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"271 ","pages":"Article 106423"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145928641","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}
Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-01-27DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2026.108928
Jimoon Kang, Seongcheol Kim
Understanding how individuals develop collaborative competencies in digital environments has become critical as work, education, and recreation increasingly occur through screens. This mixed-methods study examines collaborative behaviors across competitive skill tiers in League of Legends, analyzing 560,000 matches and conducting expert interviews. Quantitative findings reveal that collaborative behaviors—vision control, strategic communication, and assists—differentiate tiers far more strongly than individual performance. Vision control increased over 200 %, strategic communication increased 169 % with forward-looking signals showing the largest effects, and disruptive behaviors declined five-fold across tiers, while individual combat effectiveness remained flat. Hierarchical regression demonstrated that these dimensions developed as integrated systems, together predicting 87.3 % of tier variance. Expert interviews identified bidirectional selection-socialization processes where collaborative predisposition facilitates advancement and higher-tier environments further reinforce capabilities through stricter norms, peer modeling, and reputational consequences, with threshold effects around mid-tiers indicating qualitative environmental shifts. These findings provide large-scale behavioral evidence supporting Social Identity Theory, team cognition theory, and status characteristics theory in naturalistic digital contexts, demonstrate that teamwork theories require adaptation for fluid-membership environments with standardized communication tools, and reveal collaborative competence as integrated systems requiring holistic development.
{"title":"From iron to diamond: Collaborative behavior development across competitive tiers in League of Legends","authors":"Jimoon Kang, Seongcheol Kim","doi":"10.1016/j.chb.2026.108928","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.chb.2026.108928","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding how individuals develop collaborative competencies in digital environments has become critical as work, education, and recreation increasingly occur through screens. This mixed-methods study examines collaborative behaviors across competitive skill tiers in <em>League of Legends,</em> analyzing 560,000 matches and conducting expert interviews. Quantitative findings reveal that collaborative behaviors—vision control, strategic communication, and assists—differentiate tiers far more strongly than individual performance. Vision control increased over 200 %, strategic communication increased 169 % with forward-looking signals showing the largest effects, and disruptive behaviors declined five-fold across tiers, while individual combat effectiveness remained flat. Hierarchical regression demonstrated that these dimensions developed as integrated systems, together predicting 87.3 % of tier variance. Expert interviews identified bidirectional selection-socialization processes where collaborative predisposition facilitates advancement and higher-tier environments further reinforce capabilities through stricter norms, peer modeling, and reputational consequences, with threshold effects around mid-tiers indicating qualitative environmental shifts. These findings provide large-scale behavioral evidence supporting Social Identity Theory, team cognition theory, and status characteristics theory in naturalistic digital contexts, demonstrate that teamwork theories require adaptation for fluid-membership environments with standardized communication tools, and reveal collaborative competence as integrated systems requiring holistic development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48471,"journal":{"name":"Computers in Human Behavior","volume":"179 ","pages":"Article 108928"},"PeriodicalIF":8.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146081671","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}
Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-02-11DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106482
Paula A. Maldonado Moscoso , Elisabeth Goettfried , Demis Basso , Margarete Delazer , Michael Knoflach , Laura Zamarian , Manuela Piazza
Learning is a multifaceted process that continues across the lifespan, with variation in how different types of knowledge are acquired and retained. One distinction exists between the cognitive skills learned through memory-based associations and those learned through rule-based (strategy) execution. While both forms are central to arithmetic acquisition, little is known about their dynamics in adulthood and their cognitive underpinnings. Addressing this gap is essential for developing effective re-education programs, especially in arithmetic, where learning difficulties can impact personal, academic, and socio-economic outcomes. Here, healthy adults with varying ages and cognitive profiles learned to solve a limited set of novel arithmetic problems using either associative (memory-based) or procedural (strategy-based) methods. Group-level analyses revealed that both learning conditions reached comparable performance. Individual learning trajectories, modeled using a composite efficiency index (inverse efficiency score), revealed similar efficiency gain but distinct dynamics: associative learning showed a steep, abrupt gain, whereas procedural learning progressed gradually along a smoother trajectory. Regression analyses indicated that verbal long-term memory predicted associative learning, while arithmetic abilities specifically predicted procedural learning. Notably, efficiency gains in one condition did not predict gains in the other, further supporting that, notwithstanding their similarities, the two learning trajectories are different in nature. Error analysis further revealed that performance in the procedural condition shifted from calculation-based to retrieval-based processes with practice. These findings demonstrate that associative and procedural arithmetic learning are initially supported by distinct cognitive mechanisms but converge over time, underscoring the importance of considering individual cognitive profiles when designing tailored educational/rehabilitation interventions.
{"title":"Pathways for learning arithmetic: Distinct dynamics for associative and procedural acquisition","authors":"Paula A. Maldonado Moscoso , Elisabeth Goettfried , Demis Basso , Margarete Delazer , Michael Knoflach , Laura Zamarian , Manuela Piazza","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106482","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106482","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Learning is a multifaceted process that continues across the lifespan, with variation in how different types of knowledge are acquired and retained. One distinction exists between the cognitive skills learned through memory-based associations and those learned through rule-based (strategy) execution. While both forms are central to arithmetic acquisition, little is known about their dynamics in adulthood and their cognitive underpinnings. Addressing this gap is essential for developing effective re-education programs, especially in arithmetic, where learning difficulties can impact personal, academic, and socio-economic outcomes. Here, healthy adults with varying ages and cognitive profiles learned to solve a limited set of novel arithmetic problems using either associative (memory-based) or procedural (strategy-based) methods. Group-level analyses revealed that both learning conditions reached comparable performance. Individual learning trajectories, modeled using a composite efficiency index (inverse efficiency score), revealed similar efficiency gain but distinct dynamics: associative learning showed a steep, abrupt gain, whereas procedural learning progressed gradually along a smoother trajectory. Regression analyses indicated that verbal long-term memory predicted associative learning, while arithmetic abilities specifically predicted procedural learning. Notably, efficiency gains in one condition did not predict gains in the other, further supporting that, notwithstanding their similarities, the two learning trajectories are different in nature. Error analysis further revealed that performance in the procedural condition shifted from calculation-based to retrieval-based processes with practice. These findings demonstrate that associative and procedural arithmetic learning are initially supported by distinct cognitive mechanisms but converge over time, underscoring the importance of considering individual cognitive profiles when designing tailored educational/rehabilitation interventions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"271 ","pages":"Article 106482"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146173529","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}
Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-02-11DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106451
Kara Kedrick , Kyana Burhite , Iris Vilares , Paul R. Schrater
The scope of knowledge is constantly evolving, due to such factors as environmental changes, cultural evolution, and scientific discovery. Consequently, we are frequently confronted with gaps in our knowledge, compelling us to seek information from available sources. Sometimes the information we seek is easy to find; other times it has yet to be established by others, requiring us to creatively come up with an original perspective. Yet, little is known about how our foraging strategies change depending on the ease with which the information we seek is readily available. We investigated how the need to generate new ideas influences the rate at which individuals explore or exploit existing information. Participants (N=138) answered questions either fully answerable (low-creativity condition) or not fully answerable (high-creativity condition) with information they foraged for on Wikipedia. We created knowledge networks from the foraged information, wherein Wikipedia pages were nodes. The edges linked pairs of Wikipedia pages when they were visited by the participant either sequentially or within the same condition, and were weighted based on the semantic similarity between the pair of pages. This approach allowed us to measure exploration (jumping between disparate pages) and exploitation (viewing closely related pages). In the high-creativity condition, participants were more likely to trade-off between exploration (lower average edge weights) and exploitation (higher average clustering coefficients). This trade-off was associated with responses that were more novel, diverging further from the Wikipedia text, compared to less novel responses. These findings reveal how foraging strategies differ in creative versus non-creative contexts, and provide insight into the processes that underlie learning and scientific discovery.
{"title":"Creative foraging and the explore–exploit trade-off in knowledge networks","authors":"Kara Kedrick , Kyana Burhite , Iris Vilares , Paul R. Schrater","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106451","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106451","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The scope of knowledge is constantly evolving, due to such factors as environmental changes, cultural evolution, and scientific discovery. Consequently, we are frequently confronted with gaps in our knowledge, compelling us to seek information from available sources. Sometimes the information we seek is easy to find; other times it has yet to be established by others, requiring us to creatively come up with an original perspective. Yet, little is known about how our foraging strategies change depending on the ease with which the information we seek is readily available. We investigated how the need to generate new ideas influences the rate at which individuals explore or exploit existing information. Participants (<em>N</em>=138) answered questions either fully answerable (low-creativity condition) or not fully answerable (high-creativity condition) with information they foraged for on Wikipedia. We created knowledge networks from the foraged information, wherein Wikipedia pages were nodes. The edges linked pairs of Wikipedia pages when they were visited by the participant either sequentially or within the same condition, and were weighted based on the semantic similarity between the pair of pages. This approach allowed us to measure exploration (jumping between disparate pages) and exploitation (viewing closely related pages). In the high-creativity condition, participants were more likely to trade-off between exploration (lower average edge weights) and exploitation (higher average clustering coefficients). This trade-off was associated with responses that were more novel, diverging further from the Wikipedia text, compared to less novel responses. These findings reveal how foraging strategies differ in creative versus non-creative contexts, and provide insight into the processes that underlie learning and scientific discovery.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"271 ","pages":"Article 106451"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146173530","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}
Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-01-14DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106413
Franziska Friemel , Tim Rohe
The causal inference problem in multisensory perception poses a fundamental challenge to our brains in a multisensory environment: how to decide whether sensory stimuli originate from a common source and should be integrated, or from distinct sources and should be segregated. The brain addresses this problem by inferring causal structure from the spatiotemporal disparity of multisensory stimuli. However, it remains unclear whether the brain handles causal inference implicitly, or whether it requires effortful and explicit cognitive processing. This study investigated how human observers (N = 47) implicitly infer causal structure when judging the auditory distance of two sequential audiovisual stimuli. In this distance task, we combined representational similarity analysis and multidimensional scaling to retrieve participants' auditory spatial representations. We then compared visual biases on auditory representations (i.e., the ventriloquist effect) to visual biases in three classical auditory localisation and causal judgment tasks. We found that visual biases in the distance task were less influenced by the spatial disparity of the audiovisual stimuli compared to the classical tasks. This pattern was best fitted by a computational stochastic-fusion model. Only in the joint localisation and causal task, small spatial disparity increased the visual bias as predicted by a computational Bayesian causal inference model. Our results suggest that causal inference requires explicit cognitive processing that observers only apply if the causal structure of stimuli is directly relevant to the task. Otherwise, the brain relies on simpler automatic decision strategies such as stochastic fusion.
{"title":"Implicit causal inference in audiovisual spatial representations","authors":"Franziska Friemel , Tim Rohe","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106413","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106413","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The causal inference problem in multisensory perception poses a fundamental challenge to our brains in a multisensory environment: how to decide whether sensory stimuli originate from a common source and should be integrated, or from distinct sources and should be segregated. The brain addresses this problem by inferring causal structure from the spatiotemporal disparity of multisensory stimuli. However, it remains unclear whether the brain handles causal inference implicitly, or whether it requires effortful and explicit cognitive processing. This study investigated how human observers (<em>N</em> = 47) implicitly infer causal structure when judging the auditory distance of two sequential audiovisual stimuli. In this distance task, we combined representational similarity analysis and multidimensional scaling to retrieve participants' auditory spatial representations. We then compared visual biases on auditory representations (i.e., the ventriloquist effect) to visual biases in three classical auditory localisation and causal judgment tasks. We found that visual biases in the distance task were less influenced by the spatial disparity of the audiovisual stimuli compared to the classical tasks. This pattern was best fitted by a computational stochastic-fusion model. Only in the joint localisation and causal task, small spatial disparity increased the visual bias as predicted by a computational Bayesian causal inference model. Our results suggest that causal inference requires explicit cognitive processing that observers only apply if the causal structure of stimuli is directly relevant to the task. Otherwise, the brain relies on simpler automatic decision strategies such as stochastic fusion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"271 ","pages":"Article 106413"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145979904","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}
Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-01-14DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106438
Christian Agrillo, Alessandra Pecunioso
Exploring cognitive fallacies is a key pursuit for neuroscientists as they offer a unique window into the foundations of how we think and make decisions. The Monty Hall dilemma (MHD) is a probability puzzle in which a person is offered a choice among three doors, behind one of which is a prize. After the person selects one door, the remaining door without the prize is revealed. The person is now given the option to either keep their original choice or switch to the other door. Most people stick with the initial choice, even though switching would offer a higher chance of winning. Here, we observed that a distantly related species, such as fish, shows a human-like behavior in the MHD, as they consistently maintained their first option. Our study suggests that the mechanisms behind misjudging two-stage decision-making involving conditioned probabilities may also be shared by smaller, non-cortical brains.
{"title":"A cognitive fallacy in a fish? Glass catfish, like humans, make sub-optimal choices in the Monty Hall dilemma","authors":"Christian Agrillo, Alessandra Pecunioso","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106438","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106438","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Exploring cognitive fallacies is a key pursuit for neuroscientists as they offer a unique window into the foundations of how we think and make decisions. The Monty Hall dilemma (MHD) is a probability puzzle in which a person is offered a choice among three doors, behind one of which is a prize. After the person selects one door, the remaining door without the prize is revealed. The person is now given the option to either keep their original choice or switch to the other door. Most people stick with the initial choice, even though switching would offer a higher chance of winning. Here, we observed that a distantly related species, such as fish, shows a human-like behavior in the MHD, as they consistently maintained their first option. Our study suggests that the mechanisms behind misjudging two-stage decision-making involving conditioned probabilities may also be shared by smaller, non-cortical brains.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"271 ","pages":"Article 106438"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145979901","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}
The Spatial-Numerical Association effects describe the spatial relationship between number magnitude and response side, with small numbers usually associated with left sided responses and large numbers with right sided responses. Typically, these effects are demonstrated using response time differences in simple key press tasks, where participants are required to process the magnitude (magnitude classification task) or parity (parity judgement task) of a number. The present study investigated whether similar spatial biases (left/right) also occur for decisions that involve more complex movements, namely walking. Using a free response task, presented in a virtual reality environment, participants were shown a number from 1 to 9, that was presented directly in front of them. At the beginning of each trial participants were required to process either the number's magnitude (Experiment 1) or parity (Experiment 2). They were then asked to walk freely in any direction towards a semi-circular target area, while continuing to process information in working memory. The results showed a higher frequency of leftward walking decisions for smaller numbers and rightward walking decisions for larger numbers in both experiments, as well as compatible deviations of walking trajectory. These findings are consistent with previous literature on SNAs. This study highlights that in a free response task both spatial decisions and spontaneous movements are influenced by number magnitude, both when magnitude is task-relevant and when it is task-irrelevant.
{"title":"Number magnitude affects spatial decisions: Evidence of spatial-numerical associations with complex movements","authors":"Mauro Murgia , Angelica Ielo , Stefano Pileggi , Valter Prpic , Cathy Craig , Tiziano Agostini , Fabrizio Sors","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106473","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106473","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Spatial-Numerical Association effects describe the spatial relationship between number magnitude and response side, with small numbers usually associated with left sided responses and large numbers with right sided responses. Typically, these effects are demonstrated using response time differences in simple key press tasks, where participants are required to process the magnitude (magnitude classification task) or parity (parity judgement task) of a number. The present study investigated whether similar spatial biases (left/right) also occur for decisions that involve more complex movements, namely walking. Using a free response task, presented in a virtual reality environment, participants were shown a number from 1 to 9, that was presented directly in front of them. At the beginning of each trial participants were required to process either the number's magnitude (Experiment 1) or parity (Experiment 2). They were then asked to walk freely in any direction towards a semi-circular target area, while continuing to process information in working memory. The results showed a higher frequency of leftward walking decisions for smaller numbers and rightward walking decisions for larger numbers in both experiments, as well as compatible deviations of walking trajectory. These findings are consistent with previous literature on SNAs. This study highlights that in a free response task both spatial decisions and spontaneous movements are influenced by number magnitude, both when magnitude is task-relevant and when it is task-irrelevant.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"271 ","pages":"Article 106473"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146120729","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}
Pub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-02-04DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106458
Jonathan Mendl , Daniel Bratzke , Gesine Dreisbach
People find it harder to switch from one task to another than to repeat a task. One common explanation is that lingering activation of the just-executed task facilitates repetitions and impairs switching. However, beyond specific task sets, it is also conceivable that switching a task increases more abstract switch readiness, whereas repeating a task reduces switch readiness. To investigate switch readiness independent of task-set activation, we used consecutive chunks, each consisting of two tasks, with self-paced breaks between chunks. This way, the salient task transition happens within a chunk, independent of the task transition between chunks. In four experiments, we applied a (hybrid) task-switching paradigm with a mixture of forced choice (only one task presented) and free choice (participants can decide which task to perform). We expected an increased ability and willingness to switch (i.e., switch readiness) in the current chunk when the previous chunk entailed a task switch rather than a repetition. In line with a switch-readiness account, Experiments 1 and 2 showed reduced switch costs and increased voluntary switch rates (VSR) after a switch within the previous chunk. Furthermore, this effect transferred to new task pairs (only descriptively in Experiment 3, significantly in Experiment 4). Taken together, the present study uncovered a novel property of sequential control during task switching.
{"title":"Task switching promotes switch readiness: Evidence from forced and voluntary task switching","authors":"Jonathan Mendl , Daniel Bratzke , Gesine Dreisbach","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106458","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106458","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>People find it harder to switch from one task to another than to repeat a task. One common explanation is that lingering activation of the just-executed task facilitates repetitions and impairs switching. However, beyond specific task sets, it is also conceivable that switching a task increases more abstract switch readiness, whereas repeating a task reduces switch readiness. To investigate switch readiness independent of task-set activation, we used consecutive chunks, each consisting of two tasks, with self-paced breaks between chunks. This way, the salient task transition happens within a chunk, independent of the task transition between chunks. In four experiments, we applied a (hybrid) task-switching paradigm with a mixture of forced choice (only one task presented) and free choice (participants can decide which task to perform). We expected an increased ability and willingness to switch (i.e., switch readiness) in the current chunk when the previous chunk entailed a task switch rather than a repetition. In line with a switch-readiness account, Experiments 1 and 2 showed reduced switch costs and increased voluntary switch rates (VSR) after a switch within the previous chunk. Furthermore, this effect transferred to new task pairs (only descriptively in Experiment 3, significantly in Experiment 4). Taken together, the present study uncovered a novel property of sequential control during task switching.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"271 ","pages":"Article 106458"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146127008","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}
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