Psychonomic Bulletin & Review最新文献

(e.g., characters or fractals) and concrete stimuli (e.g., pictures of everyday objects) are used interchangeably in the reinforcement-learning literature. Yet, it is unclear whether the same learning processes underlie learning from these different stimulus types. In two preregistered experiments (N = 50 each), we assessed whether abstract and concrete stimuli yield different reinforcement-learning performance and whether this difference can be explained by verbalization. We argued that concrete stimuli are easier to verbalize than abstract ones, and that people therefore can appeal to the phonological loop, a subcomponent of the working-memory system responsible for storing and rehearsing verbal information, while learning. To test whether this verbalization aids reinforcement-learning performance, we administered a reinforcement-learning task in which participants learned either abstract or concrete stimuli while verbalization was hindered or not. In the first experiment, results showed a more pronounced detrimental effect of hindered verbalization for concrete than abstract stimuli on response times, but not on accuracy. In the second experiment, in which we reduced the response window, results showed the differential effect of hindered verbalization between stimulus types on accuracy, not on response times. These results imply that verbalization aids learning for concrete, but not abstract, stimuli and therefore that different processes underlie learning from these types of stimuli. This emphasizes the importance of carefully considering stimulus types. We discuss these findings in light of generalizability and validity of reinforcement-learning research.

Gaussian signal detection models with equal variance are commonly used in simple yes-no detection and discrimination tasks whereas more flexible models with unequal variance require additional information. Here, a hierarchical Bayesian model with equal variance is extended to an unequal-variance model by exploiting variability of hit and false-alarm rates in a random sample of participants. This hierarchical model is investigated analytically, in simulations and in applications to existing data sets. The results suggest that signal variance and other parameters can be accurately estimated if plausible assumptions are met. It is concluded that the model provides a promising alternative to the ubiquitous equal-variance model for binary data.

The Multilingual Eye-movement Corpus (MECO; Siegelman et al., 2022) contains data from unbalanced bilinguals reading in their first language (L1) for a variety of languages and in English as their second language (L2). We analyzed word skipping in L2 on the basis of five predictors consisting of the frequency and length of the word in L2 and three measures of individual differences. Besides the L2 proficiency of the participant, two novel measures were also constructed: the average amount of skipping in L1 across participants per language and whether an individual reader skips words often in their L1 compared with other L1 readers in the same language. Word skipping in L2 increased for short and high-frequency words, for participants with higher L2 proficiency, for readers whose L1 featured relatively high average skipping rates compared with the other languages, and especially for participants who skip more often in L1 than their peers. All three individual differences interacted with word length such that their influence was more pronounced for longer words. Our results show that readers prefer to maintain a certain level of word skipping resembling how they read in L1. Due to lower L2 than L1 proficiency in unbalanced bilinguals, word skipping in L2 would often be based on a comparatively less advanced stage in parafoveal word recognition.

Grounded cognition states that mental representations of concepts consist of experiential aspects. For example, the concept "cup" consists of the sensorimotor experiences from interactions with cups. Typical modalities in which concepts are grounded are: The sensorimotor system (including interoception), emotion, action, language, and social aspects. Here, we argue that this list should be expanded to include physical invariants (unchanging features of physical motion; e.g., gravity, momentum, friction). Research on physical reasoning consistently demonstrates that physical invariants are represented as fundamentally as other grounding substrates, and therefore should qualify. We assess several theories of concept representation (simulation, conceptual metaphor, conceptual spaces, predictive processing) and their positions on physical invariants. We find that the classic grounded cognition theories, simulation and conceptual metaphor theory, have not considered physical invariants, while conceptual spaces and predictive processing have. We conclude that physical invariants should be included into grounded cognition theories, and that the core mechanisms of simulation and conceptual metaphor theory are well suited to do this. Furthermore, conceptual spaces and predictive processing are very promising and should also be integrated with grounded cognition in the future.

We examine the underlying cognitive mechanisms that govern how competitions play out over time. We used cognitive modeling to examine the dynamic effects of time remaining and relative performance (whether the person is winning or losing) on effort and strategy. In this experiment, participants completed a competitive decision-making task with varying time limits and starting scores, in a repeated-measures design. Participants were tasked with scoring more points than their computerized opponent during a certain time frame, gaining and losing points for correct and incorrect decisions, respectively. The results showed that as the competition deadline approached and as participants drew ahead of their opponent within a competition, they increased effort and became more cautious. Furthermore, the effect of relative score on effort and caution changed over the course of a competition as the deadline approached. These results highlight the importance of considering dynamics when working to understand how competitions unfold as well as the underlying cognitive mechanisms that give rise to the dynamic behavior.

When a stimulus is paired with a response, a stimulus-response (SR) binding (or event file) is formed. Subsequent stimulus repetition retrieves the SR binding from memory, which facilitates (impedes) performance when the same (a different) response is required. We aimed to explore whether indirect retrieval of SR bindings by a newly learnt associated stimulus is possible. Participants first went through a learning task to acquire novel stimulus-stimulus associations. The same stimulus pairs were then presented in a prime-probe task to assess direct and indirect retrieval effects. Participants responded by classifying word color in prime and probe trials. Probe words were either identical to prime words (test for direct retrieval) or corresponded to the associated stimulus (test for indirect retrieval) or were unrelated words (baseline). Independently of word relation, response relation (repetition vs. change) across prime and probe trials was manipulated. In two highly powered preregistered studies (total N = 260) using different types of stimulus associations, we obtained evidence for direct retrieval due to identical word repetition in the probe. Crucially, evidence for indirect retrieval upon presentation of an associated probe word was absent. Controlling for memory of each stimulus-stimulus association did not alter the findings. Our results show that indirect retrieval through newly acquired associations does not occur at the level of SR bindings, at least not for recently acquired stimulus-stimulus associations. Our study illustrates the scope of binding principles and highlights boundary conditions for the stimulus properties that can elicit automatic response retrieval.

As social entities, individuals' perception and behaviors are susceptible to the influence of their social groups. Previous research has consistently shown that the group context in which individuals are situated significantly influences their perceptual processing. We aim to investigate whether the group context in which another individual is situated alters our understanding of their visual perception, which holds profound implications for interpersonal interactions. To address this inquiry, we conducted three experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with a visual scene depicting multiple avatars seated around a table, all facing an arrow positioned at the center of the table. They were instructed to adopt the visual perspective of a specific avatar within the group to perceive the arrow's orientation, and then reproduce its orientation from their own perspectives. We found that participants exhibited a bias towards the group's average perspective when reproducing the arrow's orientation. Experiment 2 further demonstrated that reinforced group processing could elicit an earlier appearance of this bias. In Experiment 3, we investigated an alternative explanation positing that the aforementioned bias originated from visual ensemble perception rather than group influence by instructing participants to reproduce the target avatar's position relative to the arrow's orientation. If the bias indeed originated from ensemble perception, it should also manifest in this task. However, the absence of any reproduction bias refuted this possibility. Through these experiments, we demonstrate that our understanding of an individual's perceptual experiences is influenced by the social context in which they are situated, which manifests as a convergence phenomenon.

The diversity of contexts in which a word occurs, operationalized as CD, is strongly correlated with response times in visual word recognition, with higher CD words being recognized faster. CD and token word frequency (WF) are highly correlated but in behavioral studies when other variables that affect word visual recognition are controlled for, the WF effect is eliminated when contextual diversity (CD) is controlled. In contrast, the only event-related potential (ERP) study to examine CD and WF Vergara-Martínez et al., Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 17, 461-474, (2017) found effects of both WF and CD with different distributions in the 225- to 325-ms time window. We conducted an ERP study with Chinese characters to explore the neurocognitive dynamics of WF and CD. We compared three groups of characters: (1) characters high in frequency and low in CD; (2) characters low in frequency and low in CD; and (3) characters high in frequency and high in CD. Behavioral data showed significant effects of CD but not WF. Character CD, but not character frequency, modulated the late positive component (LPC): high-CD characters elicited a larger LPC, widely distributed, with largest amplitude at the posterior sites compared to low-CD characters in the 400-to 600-ms time window, consistent with earlier ERP studies of WF in Chinese, and with the hypothesis that CD affects semantic and context-based processes. No WF effect on any ERP components was observed when CD was controlled. The results are consistent with behavioral results showing CD but not WF effects, and in particular with a "context constructionist" framework.

The AHA experience, a moment of deep understanding during insightful problem-solving involving feelings of certainty, pleasure, and surprise, has captivated psychologists for more than a century. Recently, a new theoretical framework has proposed a link between the AHA experience and prediction error (PE), a popular concept in decision-making and reinforcement learning. This framework suggests that participants maintain a meta-cognitive prediction about the time it takes to solve a problem and the AHA experience arises when the problem is solved earlier than expected, resulting in a meta-cognitive PE. In our preregistered online study, we delved deeper into this idea, investigating whether prediction errors also pertain to participants' predictions regarding the solvability of the problem itself, and which dimension of the AHA experience aligns with the meta-cognitive PE. Utilizing verbal insight problems, we found a positive association between the AHA experience and the meta-cognitive PE, specifically in regards to problem solvability. Specifically, the element of surprise, a critical AHA dimension, emerged as a key indicator of the meta-cognitive PE, while other dimensions-such as pleasure, certainty, and suddenness-showed no signs for similar relationships, with suddenness exhibiting a negative correlation with meta-cognitive PE. This new finding provides further evidence that aspects of the AHA experience, surprise in particular, correspond to a meta-cognitive PE. The finding also underscores the multifaceted nature of this phenomenon, linking insights with learning theories and enhancing our understanding of this intriguing phenomenon.

In this paper, we investigate, by means of a computational model, how individuals map quantifiers onto numbers and how they order quantifiers on a mental line. We selected five English quantifiers (few, fewer than half, many, more than half, and most) which differ in truth conditions and vagueness. We collected binary truth value judgment data in an online quantifier verification experiment. Using a Bayesian three-parameter logistic regression model, we separated three sources of individual differences: truth condition, vagueness, and response error. Clustering on one of the model's parameter that corresponds to truth conditions revealed four subgroups of participants with different quantifier-to-number mappings and different ranges of the mental line of quantifiers. Our findings suggest multiple sources of individual differences in semantic representations of quantifiers and support a conceptual distinction between different types of imprecision in quantifier meanings. We discuss the consequence of our findings for the main theoretical approaches to quantifiers: the bivalent truth-conditional approach and the fuzzy logic approach. We argue that the former approach neither can explain inter-individual differences nor intra-individual differences in truth conditions of vague quantifiers. The latter approach requires further specification to fully account for individual differences demonstrated in this study.