Experimental psychology最新文献

Musical notes separated by exactly one or more octaves share similarities and, in some respects, might be treated as interchangeable. This octave equivalence is sometimes evident, but in many contexts, is very hard to hear. In two large experiments, participants were asked to judge the similarity of tone pairs, presented sequentially, before and after octave equivalence training. Contrary to some prior research on the topic, it was clearly explained what sort of "similarity" they should rate tone pairs on (i.e., octave equivalence). Each pair consisted of either two tones of the same pitch class but separated by one or more octaves, or two tones of adjacent pitch classes also separated by one or more octaves (±1 semitone). Coherent with past work, this task was difficult. However, both musician and nonmusician samples scored above chance in this task at pretest. Also interestingly, performance improved after training. During the training task, participants also heard pairs of tones but were given the correct response to facilitate learning. Pretest performance and improvements for both groups were not substantial, however, again illustrating the difficulty of hearing octave equivalence, depending on the exact context. Potential relationships to relative and absolute pitch are also briefly discussed.

In our everyday life, we are constantly exposed to multiple pieces of information from different sources with varying degrees of relevance. It is therefore important to understand whether exposure to information from sources we know to be irrelevant can nevertheless influence us. This study examines this question through the lens of the anchoring effect (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) by analyzing how numbers provided by sources of varying relevance might influence numerical estimates. In this study, participants answered general knowledge questions after being exposed to either a relevant anchor (from an adult expert), an irrelevant anchor (from a preschooler), or both anchors in succession. The results show that the presence of two opposite anchors, in size and relevance, can reduce the anchoring effect when they are presented consecutively. We discuss the psychological processes underlying this phenomenon.

In a recent article, Ellen Bialystok argued that bilingual experience enhances nonverbal cognition, that its effects are continuous rather than categorical, and that selective attention is the key mechanism underlying cognitive changes in bilinguals. In another recent article, Bialystok argued that bilingual experience modifies cognition by adapting an underlying attention system-one that is limited in resources but becomes more efficient through this adaptation. These claims are critically evaluated drawing on meta-analyses and new empirical tests. These analyses show that any observed advantages are small, inconsistent, and often disappear when accounting for publication bias. A final section describes three key factors that likely explain why bilingualism does not reliably enhance EF. First, dilution and ceiling effects suggest that bilingualism is one of many potential cognitive enhancers (e.g., education, music, mindfulness), making its unique contribution difficult to detect. Second, heritability studies indicate that EF is overwhelmingly genetic in origin, leaving little room for environmental factors such as bilingualism to drive meaningful improvements. Third, automaticity in bilingual language control suggests that proficient bilinguals rely on specialized, task-specific mechanisms rather than domain-general EF, reducing the likelihood of cognitive transfer. Together, these findings challenge the view that bilingualism provides broad cognitive benefits. While bilingualism offers numerous social and linguistic benefits, its impact on nonverbal cognition remains unsubstantiated.

Previous task-switching research typically assumed that event-related potentials related to task switching, such as the target-locked switch positivity difference wave (SPDW), were indicators of cognitive control during task-set control. This study challenges that assumption. In two conventional numeric task-switching experiments (odd-even and low-high tasks), unknown symbols represented common Arabic numerals. Participants in the compound retrieval groups were unaware of the symbols' semantic meanings and relied solely on associative learning-based retrieval strategies, whereas those in the task rule groups understood the symbols and used standard task rules requiring cognitive control. Experiment 1 revealed that behavioral task-switching costs were significant only in the task rule group and completely disappeared in the compound retrieval group. However, both groups exhibited reliable SPDW without any between-group differences. Experiment 2 employed a dual-cue design to distinguish between cue-switching and task-switching. The results showed reliable cue-switch-related SPDW, while task-switch-related SPDW was not significant and showed no differences between the compound retrieval and task rule groups. Overall, there was no evidence to suggest that SPDW is a reliable marker of cognitive control. The study concluded that even if cognitive control can induce SPDW, using SPDW to represent cognitive control might not be the most appropriate approach.

In the present study, we investigated transposed-word (TW) effects in the grammatical decision task with auditory stimuli presented at a slow speech rate. We hypothesized that slowing the rate of presentation of speech stimuli should diminish TW effects under the assumption that the encoding of word-order information should be more precise in these conditions. Evidence that this might indeed be the case had already been seen in the visual modality with the serial presentation of word sequences yielding less pronounced TW effects. In these visual studies, the effects were mainly significant in error rates and not in response times (RTs) possibly because serial presentation enhances the precision of word-order encoding. Here, we observed significant TW effects in both RTs and error rates. The present results therefore demonstrate that a slower speech rate does not eliminate TW effects in RTs. These results contradict the hypothesis that a slower speech rate might enhance word-order encoding and further suggest that it is not the serial presentation of stimuli per se that is the only reason for why TW effects are typically not found in RTs in studies that have used serial presentation procedures in the visual modality.

Risky behaviors and decision making are often experienced in social and group contexts. Understanding how social influence impacts risk preferences is needed to predict how decisions will be made differently in private versus social situations. In this pre-registered study, participants completed three blocks of monetary risky choices in a laboratory setting. In the pre- and postexposure blocks, participants made their choices without receiving any social information. During the intervening exposure block, participants were randomly assigned to observe the choices of either a risk-seeking or risk-avoidant other. Social influence was observed on the choice preferences of individuals, with participants in the risk-seeking condition making significantly riskier decisions during the postexposure block than participants in the risk-avoidant condition. Post hoc analyses revealed that this difference was driven by participants in the risk-seeking other condition significantly increasing their preferences for risky rewards from pre- to postexposure. Exposure to risk-avoidant social information did not significantly reduce preferences for risky rewards. Behavioral social influence was not related to a general social comparison orientation, but those who expressed higher decisional conflict during the pre-exposure block were more likely to adjust their choice preferences following the social exposure. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

The idea that self-control (or executive) functions depend on limited "mental resources" that can be depleted (aka ego-depletion) has generated a lot of interest, but both the empirical status of the phenomenon and its theoretical explanation remain controversial. Here, we tested a widely neglected but straightforward prediction of ego-depletion theory: The longer people work on a control-demanding task, the more should their ego deplete. If so, ego-depletion effects should become more pronounced as time on (control) task increases. To test that prediction, we carried out an online experiment, in which participants switched between blocks of a numerical Stroop task (NST) with either 50% or 10% incongruent trials, which served to induce different degrees of ego depletion, and a Global-Local Task (GLT), which served to measure the impact of ego depletion. We predicted that participants would perform more poorly on the GLT if it is combined with the more demanding NST and that this performance cost would systematically increase over time on task. Although the classical Stroop and global-local effects were replicated, we found no evidence that our experimental manipulation successfully induced an outcome that can be considered as evidence for ego depletion. We conclude that our findings contribute to the growing literature questioning the robustness of ego-depletion effects under certain task conditions.

People tend to predict better memory for identical word pairs (e.g., DOG-DOG) than related ones (e.g., DOG-CAT), despite remembering related pairs more accurately-a phenomenon known as the identical effect. Across three experiments, we examined whether this illusion extends to pictorial materials and investigated the roles of processing fluency and a priori beliefs. Participants studied image pairs that were identical, exemplars, related, unrelated, or rotated (in Experiment 3). After each pair, they made judgments of learning (JOLs), and memory was later tested by a cued four-alternative forced-choice (4-AFC) recognition test. Consistently, identical image pairs received higher JOLs than related ones, despite equivalent or poorer recall. Identical pairs were also identified more quickly, reflecting greater processing fluency. However, identification speed did not consistently predict JOLs, suggesting that processing fluency alone cannot explain the illusion. These findings indicate that both processing fluency and beliefs influence JOLs, with beliefs about the pair types playing a central role.

An epistemic relative necessity account is proposed to treat nonmodal deductive reasoning as modal reasoning. It assumes that an epistemically valid conclusion from the factual premises is pragmatically necessary relative to the premises. Three studies on modal Modus Ponens problems (with the form: given the premises of p and if p then q, individuals were asked to judge whether the conclusion is "necessarily q," "q," or "possibly q") revealed (1) Participants generally defaulted to interpreting arbitrary conditionals "if p then q" as "if p then must q." (2) Modal MP problems without retrievable counterexamples to conditionals tended to elicit inferences "necessarily q" rather than "q." (3) The influence of level of relevance in conditionals (arbitrary vs. causal conditionals) on modal inferences was modulated by whether causal conditionals had retrievable counterexamples: Causal conditionals with retrievable counterexamples elicited more "possibly q" inferences (belief bias responses) and fewer "necessarily q" inferences than arbitrary and causal conditionals without retrievable counterexamples. The overall response pattern favors only the epistemic relative necessity account, indicating that a mentally valid nonmodal deductive inference can be transformed into a modal inference including the modal word "necessary" in the conclusion. Our research bridges linguistic and psychological research on epistemic necessity.