Psychonomic Bulletin & Review最新文献

Cross-linguistic reading research often focuses on the effect of orthographic depth-the closeness of the relationship between print and speech. To understand its effect on reading, we need to be able to objectively quantify the level of orthographic depth of a given orthography. Previous work has suggested that different dimensions underlie orthographic depth, and it is not always clear if and how existing quantifications map onto these underlying dimensions. Here, we first examine how different measures relate conceptually to underlying theoretical dimensions. Then, we quantify the relative depth of eight European orthographies. We use existing methods and new approaches which have not been previously used to quantify orthographic depth: Distance-based measures relying on the closeness of the phonology of orthographically similar words, and mutual information, as a theory-neutral approach. The relationship between the different measures suggests that they map on two separate dimensions: the size of the orthographic units that map onto phonology and the systematicity of the mapping, in line with previous theoretical work which drew a distinction between complexity and unpredictability. The measures derived based on different theoretical assumptions largely show agreement. From a theoretical perspective, this prevents us from making differential predictions based on different approaches. From a practical perspective, this suggests that different measures may yield comparable results, as long as they tap into the same underlying dimension of orthographic depth.

Learning how actions change the environment is crucial for goal-directed actions and skill acquisition. Here, we applied a process dissociation approach to investigate the contribution of explicit and implicit memory to the learning of action-effect relations across four experiments. Participants produced object images by pressing one of two keys, with each action-effect episode experienced three times. Learning was either incidental (Experiments 1-2) or intentional (Experiments 2-4) and occurred under full (Experiments 1-4) or divided (Experiments 3-4) attention. In a test phase, participants were re-presented the effect images and asked to either reproduce or alternate the action that had produced them. Results obtained through cognitive modeling revealed that action-effect relations are primarily represented in explicit memory, with minimal contributions of implicit memory. Intentional learning enhanced memory compared to incidental learning, while divided attention during encoding reduced it, with these factors mainly affecting explicit memory. These findings elucidate the mechanisms underlying skill acquisition and provide insights into the representational nature of action-effect relations.

Predicting one's own future memory during learning (immediate judgments of learning, JOLs) can reactively alter memory performance. Recent evidence shows that making JOLs is associated with changes in the spontaneous use of learning strategies and that these changes mediate negative effects of immediate JOLs on cued recall of unrelated word pairs. This study tests whether a learning strategy instruction targeted at JOL-induced changes in spontaneous learning strategy use reduces negative JOL reactivity. Two experiments (Experiment 1: N = 193, Experiment 2: N = 200) compared cued recall of related and unrelated word pairs between groups of participants who (a) provided JOLs during study, (b) provided JOLs during study and were instructed to study unrelated pairs using mental imagery (Experiment 1) or any learning strategy (Experiment 2), or (c) did not provide JOLs and did not receive a learning strategy instruction. In both experiments, making JOLs without learning strategy instructions impaired memory performance for unrelated word pairs compared to not making JOLs (negative JOL reactivity). Importantly, learning strategy instructions eliminated negative JOL reactivity. Together with findings on spontaneous learning strategy use, these results indicate that negative JOL reactivity may be due to changes in learning strategy use, aligning with theoretical accounts that attribute negative JOL reactivity to dual-task costs or changes in goals pursued during learning.

After information has either been perceived or brought into working memory from long-term memory, it may remain active for hours or days. There is extensive evidence that sleep can consolidate newly learned material into long-term memory, and some recent work shows that sleep may also help clear out either unneeded or already established information. We examine the effect of sleep on a third type of information: adjustments to established speech categories caused by repeated exposure to a speech sound-selective adaptation. We find that sleep does not consolidate selective adaptation per se. Instead, sleep implements a change in phoneme category frequency to reflect the properties of the input-the many instances of the adapting sound that had been presented repeatedly. While adaptation temporarily reduces the perception of tokens similar to the repeating sound, sleep increases their perception, producing a "reverse adaptation" pattern. The results constrain models of phoneme category adjustment, favoring those that have separate mechanisms for assimilative versus contrastive effects over those with a single mechanism for both types of effects.

Listeners use multiple acoustic features, to different extents in different circumstances, in perceiving variable speech signals as streams of phonemes. One class of models conceptualizes this phonetic cue weighting as allocating different amounts of attention to different acoustic features (i.e., attentional theories). These theories posit or assume that similar neural mechanisms underlie phonetic cue weighting and a more general form of auditory feature-based selective attention. We describe multiple attentional theories, consider their relationship to other models of phoneme perception, and review related empirical evidence. In general, attentional theories are able to explain both training-induced and context-dependent cue reweighting. The neuroscientific literature on auditory feature-based selective attention suggests potential neural mechanisms of phonetic cue weighting, including at the single-neuron level. At least three challenges need to be met in order to ascribe all of cue weighting to auditory feature-based selective attention: (1) the complexity of continuous speech, (2) individual differences in cue weighting and selective attention abilities, and (3) any need for specialized neural systems in allocating attention to phonetic cues. To date, using attentional theories to understand speech perception has been fruitful, but more detailed and mechanistic models of feature-based selective attention are needed in order to define the extent to which the attention literature applies in full to cue weighting in speech perception.

The literature suggests that semantic relatedness such as semantic association has contrasting effects on working memory (WM): It enhances item memory while it impairs or does not affect order memory. The detrimental or null effect on order memory has been widely accepted and regarded as a benchmark finding. Therefore, it is theoretically important to test the opposite effect, that is, the possibility that semantic relatedness improves order memory. As a form of semantic relatedness, the present study focuses on the directionality of associations. For example, "stork" is associated with "baby" in a forward direction (stork -> baby), but not in a backward direction (stork <- baby). Critically, we hypothesized that associative directions, as a constraint on order, would improve short-term order information recall. Four experiments used six-word lists in which all words had forward associations such as "governance -> ruling -> judge -> robe -> shower -> hot" for immediate serial recall. All experiments converged to show that directional associations indeed improved order memory. Specifically, lists with forward associations led to better order memory, relative to those with non-associations (Experiments 1-3) and those with backward associations (Experiment 4). The results sharply contrast with a widely accepted view that semantic relatedness is neutral or detrimental for order memory. Our novel findings therefore challenge existing models based on the null or detrimental effect. We also discuss how models can potentially explain our findings by incorporating representations of associative directions and/or adopting the process of associative chaining.

Current theories about binding and learning claim that transient episodic bindings between stimulus and response features serve as the foundation for forming long-term stimulus-response (S-R) associations in memory. In two high-powered, pre-registered experiments (total N = 163), we observed that the stimulus-response binding and retrieval effect increased linearly with each additional episode contributing to the uninterrupted repetition of the same S-R combination. To examine whether this repeated exposure results in the formation of an abstract, stable, nonepisodic S-R association in long-term memory, we tested whether the influence of the uninterrupted series persists after a single intervening episode that contradicts the series. Our results show that the repetition effect does not modulate retrieval effects for S-R combinations that deviate from the series and thus does not survive a single mismatching episode, even after a large number (i.e., 10 or 11) of prior repetitions. Hence, the increased retrieval effect for long series of matching episodes does not reflect a transition from episodic retrieval to long-term learning but may instead reflect a higher probability of successfully retrieving a matching S-R episode from memory. In sum, we found no convincing evidence that pure S-R repetitions in and of themselves (independently of other processes like hypothesis testing or propositional reasoning) lead to the formation of a stable, abstract, nonepisodic representation (i.e., an association) that operates independently of binding and retrieval.

There is a growing realization that experimental tasks that produce reliable effects in group comparisons can simultaneously provide unreliable assessments of individual differences. Proposed solutions to this "reliability paradox" range from collecting more test trials to modifying the tasks and/or the way in which effects are measured from these tasks. Here, we systematically compare two proposed modeling solutions in a cognitive conflict task. Using the ratio of individual variability of the conflict effect (i.e., signal) and the trial-by-trial variation in the data (i.e., noise) obtained from Bayesian hierarchical modeling, we examine whether improving statistical modeling may improve the reliability of individual differences assessment in four Stroop datasets. The proposed improvements are (1) increasing the descriptive adequacy of the statistical models from which conflict effects are derived, and (2) using psychologically motivated measures from cognitive measurement models. Our results show that the type of model does not have a consistent effect on the signal-to-noise ratio: the proposed solutions improved reliability in only one of the four datasets. We provide analytical and simulation-based approaches to compute the signal-to-noise ratio for a range of models of varying sophistication and discuss their potential to aid in developing and comparing new measurement solutions to the reliability paradox.

Repetition increases the perceived truth of information. This illusory truth effect is a well-documented and robust phenomenon. Although research has primarily focused on trivia statements, the effects of repetition on belief have also been identified for consequential statements such as fake news headlines. Moreover, research reveals repetition increases accuracy ratings for conspiracy statements. However, in past work, the illusory truth effect was smaller for conspiracy statements than trivia statements. This result raises the intriguing possibility that there is something unique about conspiracy statements relative to trivia statements that makes them more resistant to the effects of repetition. However, this difference in the illusory truth effect between conspiracy and trivia statements may be due to differences in baseline plausibility rather than anything specific about conspiracy statements. Overall, the conspiracy statements were seen as less plausible than the trivia statements (both true and false trivia statements) in the prior experiment. In this registered report, we examined the illusory truth effect for conspiracy and trivia statements using the same procedure as in previous research, but we matched the statements on baseline plausibility. In line with our hypothesis, the effect of repetition on perceived truth was similar for conspiracy and trivia statements when they were equally implausible (or plausible). Results from this study replicate the generality of the illusory truth effect to statements that can cause harm and suggest that the psychological effect of repetition on truth ratings is equivalent for equally implausible (or plausible) conspiracy and trivia statements.

Working memory and attention play pivotal roles in navigating the external environment and constructing our understanding of the world. Extensive research has demonstrated that items stored in visual working memory (VWM) can capture attention during visual search tasks, a phenomenon known as VWM-guided attention. However, a debate remains regarding the number of items that can guide attention. While early findings support a single-template limitation, more recent studies suggest that multiple items may guide attention when perceptually grouped. Yet this work has largely focused on static stimuli. In contrast, dynamic, temporally unfolding interactions, which are more representative of real-world perception, remain underexplored. Although previous research has shown that a single motion cue can capture attention, it remains unclear whether two separate motions, when bound by a meaningful dynamic relation, can function as a unified attentional template. In this study, we examine whether causality, a spontaneously perceived and ecologically valid dynamic relation, can restructure memory representations to modulate attention. We manipulated the presence of phenomenal causality using variations in time intervals, motion paths, and motion order. The results revealed that when causality existed between two memory items, singleton distractors matching either of the memory items could guide attention in visual search tasks, whereas this effect disappeared in the absence of phenomenal causality. These findings suggest that causality can indeed modulate VWM-guided attention.