Psychonomic Bulletin & Review最新文献

Recent studies have investigated resting-state, or baseline, pupil size as a general measure of cognitive abilities, based on the earlier finding that larger pupils might be predictive of higher general intelligence or working memory capacity. However, evidence for such relationships has been mixed, and all previous studies thus far have focused on adult samples. The present study adds to this debate by examining the correlation between fluid intelligence and baseline pupil size in a sample of both children (10 years old) and adults (their parents). Importantly, our sample is representative in terms of socioeconomic background, which was not the case in previous studies, thus addressing concerns about sample selection and variability. We did not find evidence for a relationship of fluid intelligence with baseline pupil size or with pupil-size variability for either children or adults. Therefore, our results do not replicate the relationship between cognitive abilities and baseline pupil size as reported in previous research.

Quantitative judgments have been suggested to result from a mixture of similarity- and rule-based processing. People can judge an object's criterion value based on the object's similarity to previously experienced exemplars and based on a rule that integrates the object's cues like a linear regression. In order to better understand these processes, the present work combines cognitive modeling and eye tracking and tests whether people who rely more on the similarity to exemplars also look more at the exemplar locations on the screen. In two eye-tracking studies, participants learned to assign each of four exemplars to a different screen corner and criterion value and then judged the criterion value of briefly presented test stimuli. Eye tracking measured participants' gazes to the now empty exemplar locations (a phenomenon called looking-at-nothing); cognitive modeling of the test phase judgments quantified participants' reliance on a similarity- over a rule-based process. Participants showed more similarity use and more looking-at-nothing in the study in which the cues were linked to the criterion by a multiplicative function than in the study with an additive cue-criterion link. Focusing on the study with a multiplicative environment, participants relying more on the similarity to exemplars also showed more looking-at-nothing ( $\tau$ = 0.25, p = .01). Within trials, looking-at-nothing was usually directed at the one exemplar that was most similar to the test stimulus. These results show that a multi-method approach combining process tracing and cognitive modeling can provide mutually supportive insights into the processes underlying higher-order cognition.

The inverse base-rate effect (IBRE) is an irrational phenomenon in predictive learning. It occurs when people try to generalize what they have experienced to novel and ambiguous events. This irrational generalization manifests as a preference for rare, unlikely outcomes in the face of ambiguity. At least two formal mathematical models of this irrational preference (EXIT, NNRAS) lead to a counter-intuitive prediction: the effect reduces under concurrent load. We tested this prediction across two experiments ( $N_1$ = 72, $M_{\mathrm{age}}$ = 20.12; $N_2$ = 160, $M_{\mathrm{age}}$ = 20.88). We confirm the prediction, but only when participants were under an obvious time constraint. This empirical confirmation is as surprising as the prediction itself-irrationality reduces under increased task demands. Further, our data are more consistent with the NNRAS model than with EXIT, the most prominent model of the IBRE to date.

Despite the apparent simplicity of the go/no-go (GNG) task, in which individuals selectively respond or withhold responses, there is strong evidence supporting its efficacy in terms of modulating food preferences. Herein, we manipulated sweet taste perception and investigated the no-go devaluation effect that is typically observed due to GNG training with respect to sweet and savory food items. Prior to engaging in a GNG task, one group of participants rinsed their mouths with a liquid solution containing gymnemic acid, thereby transiently and selectively inhibiting sweet taste perception, while another group used a placebo solution. The participants who rinsed their mouths with gymnemic acid exhibited a stronger overall decrease in food evaluations from pre to post training. Furthermore, a pronounced no-go devaluation effect was observed for sweet foods, irrespective of the rinsing solution. Overall, our results support the notion that training in the GNG task can induce changes in the valuation of food stimuli, particularly for sweet foods.

Disfluency can occur when a speaker faces difficulty in language production, but it is also as a strategy to stall for time and create an illusion of continuity in speech. To better understand the origin of disfluency, the current study used a drift diffusion model (DDM) in a context of semantic competition. We developed a speeded version of the picture-word interference paradigm, in which participants name pictures while ignoring distractor words. We applied the DDM approach to data from related vs. unrelated distractors but also from fluent versus disfluent answers in the related condition (e.g., "apple" vs. "hm... a-apple"). All differences between conditions were mapped onto the drift rate parameter. Unrelated distractor words resulted in a higher drift rate compared with semantic distractors, and correct fluent answers resulted in a higher drift rate compared with correct disfluent answers. Our findings suggest that semantic interference taps into the process of spreading activation through the lexical-semantic system. Most importantly, disfluency in the picture-naming task reflects competition between response options and is not a strategy from the speaker to stall for time to accurately name the picture.

Seminal event-related potential (ERP) studies of visual search reported that young adults serially inspect two singletons when searching for a target (serial search), but later results showed that the second singleton can be selected while the first singleton is still attended (partially parallel search). These contrasting results indicate that some yet-to-be identified factor can affect the speed of search. We hypothesized that single-target detection tasks promote serial inspection while dual-target comparison tasks promote parallel inspection. We recorded ERP activities associated with attentional selection (N2pc) and subsequent identification (SPCN) to track attentional processing of two singletons while healthy young adults participated in one of two detection tasks or a comparison task. One singleton was made to be more salient than the other to give it a "natural" selection advantage and thus promote some serial processing even in the comparison task. The timing of N2pc activities indicated that attention was deployed to the second singleton more quickly when participants compared the orientations of lines inside the two singletons than when they searched for one specific line that was more likely to be positioned inside one singleton or the other. Surprisingly, however, search was never fully serial, even in detection tasks that encouraged close inspection of individual items. Rather, in such detection tasks, items were selected serially but were processed for identification concurrently (as indexed by the SPCN). These findings are consistent with serial-parallel hybrid models of visual search.

The current locations of objects are informative about the temporal order of past events. For example, by simply examining the locations of objects underground, geologists and historians can determine their relative ages. In three experiments, we explored the development of this ability to infer time from structure in children 3-6-years of age (N = 317). In all experiments, children saw pictures of object arrays (e.g., a stack of blocks) and selected the item placed first or last. Children in the final experiment also made judgments about the future (e.g., "Which block will they pick up first?"). By age 5, children were mostly accurate at inferring the order of past events. Children were more accurate when inferring first than last, and when inferring the future than the past. The findings suggest that children infer history by simulating how past events unfolded, and that 3-4-year-olds may struggle to perform these simulations.

From infancy, humans use gaze cues from others to learn about their surrounding environment. It is known that gaze cues facilitate the cognitive processing of targets in both infants and adults, but what developmental changes occur during childhood? This study investigated the impact of gaze cueing on incidental learning in children aged 7-10 years (n = 80). Participants completed a cueing task where they were presented with gaze or arrow cues (valid or invalid) followed by a target stimulus. Then, participants conducted an incidental memory test including the target stimuli presented in the cueing task and novel stimuli. Results revealed that valid gaze cues significantly enhanced memory performance compared to arrow cues, while gaze cues and arrow cues had similar effects on attention orienting. This effect was consistent across age groups, suggesting that gaze cueing facilitates memory regardless of developmental stage. The findings support the socio-communicative aspect of gaze cues, which may influence cognitive facilitation in joint attentional situations in childhood. Joint attentional situations may be rewarding, influencing the motivation for implicit cognitive processing of objects that are the focus of attention. This study contributes to our understanding of spontaneous social cognition in children and underscores the importance of gaze cues in facilitating memory and learning in social contexts.

The watercolor illusion (WCI), a color-spreading illusion induced by contrasting outer and inner borders, results in a perception of a pale illusory diffusion of a hue similar to the lighter border. This illusion is a strong figural cue similar to, and often stronger than, other Gestalt cues for figure-ground organization. In our present study, we examined the effect of the WCI on figure-ground assignment for regions with matched and non-matched luminance contrast. The goal was to examine the ability of the WCI to bias figure-ground assignment when luminance varies between regions of an image. Images consisted of a square divided into two parts by a vertical wavy contour. Each of these images had no WCI, WCI left, and WCI right conditions. Participants reported whether a probed region (either left or right) appeared to be the figure. Results showed a strong effect of the WCI when luminance was matched as white (Experiment 1) or gray (Experiment 3), demonstrating the WCI acts as a strong figural cue and is able to bias reversible stimuli. However, the WCI failed to bias figure-ground with contrasting luminance regions (Experiment 2). This study is the first to demonstrate how the WCI interacts with contrasting luminance regions in reversible figure-ground stimuli. These results enhance our understanding of color-spreading mechanisms and how they interact with luminance, contrast, and perceptual organization.

Sustained attention fluctuates between periods of good and poor attentional performance. Two major methodologies exist to study these fluctuations: an objective approach that identifies "in-the-zone" states of consistent response times (RTs) and "out-of-the-zone" states of erratic RTs and a subjective approach that asks participants whether they are on-task or mind wandering. Although both approaches effectively predict attentional lapses, it remains unclear whether they capture the same or distinct attentional fluctuations. We combined both approaches within a single sustained attention task requiring frequent responses and response inhibition to rare targets to explore their consistency (N = 40). Behaviorally, both objective out-of-the-zone and subjective mind-wandering states were associated with more attentional lapses. However, the percentage of time spent out-of-the-zone did not differ between on-task and mind-wandering periods and both objective and subjective states independently predicted error-proneness, suggesting that the two methods do not capture the same type of attention fluctuations. Whereas attentional preparation before correct inhibitions was greater during out-of-the-zone compared with in-the-zone periods, preparation did not differ by subjective state. In contrast, posterror slowing differed by both objective and subjective states, but in opposite directions: slowing was observed when participants were objectively out-of-the-zone or subjectively on-task. Overall, our results provide evidence that objective and subjective approaches capture distinct attention fluctuations during sustained attention tasks. Integrating both objective and subjective measures is crucial for fully understanding the mechanisms underlying our ability to remain focused.