Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology最新文献

Accurate inference of the mental states of others is essential for successful social interaction. Concerningly, previous work shows that humans are less accurate when inferring the views of out-group members relative to in-group members, but are unaware of this difference in accuracy. Across two studies (Experiment 1: n = 142; Experiment 2: n = 90), we asked whether feedback on the accuracy of mental state inferences could increase the accuracy of, and/or recalibrate participants' confidence in the accuracy of, mental state inferences for outgroup members. Feedback specific to individual targets significantly improved the accuracy of inferences when inferring those targets' views for both in-group and out-group members but did not generalise to other group members. Furthermore, participants were able to use feedback to calibrate their confidence in the accuracy of their out-group inferences. These results demonstrate that, with targeted feedback, people are more able to understand the minds of both in-group and out-group members and become more aware of their ability to do so.

Visual search can be facilitated by learning the spatial layouts of search items in repeatedly encountered displays (contextual cuing), thereby improving attentional guidance to the target. The current study investigated whether contextual cuing not only benefits attentional guidance but may also facilitate the identification of the target item (i.e., its comparison with a target template stored in memory) once attention is located on the to-be-detected target. To test this idea, our study systematically varied the difficulty of target template matching by presenting targets with different orientations such that they are more difficult versus easier to match with a template. The results from Experiment 1 revealed a reliable contextual cuing effect, but no evidence for a difference in cuing across the easy and difficult matching conditions. However, this lack of a difference may have resulted from opposing tendencies between search efficiency and template matching difficulty, which were evident in additional pretests. These opposing patterns may thus preclude a potential difference in the cuing effects. Experiment 2 then changed the search displays to remedy these opposing tendencies. While search and template matching now indeed revealed consistent effects, contextual cuing was again reliable but still not different across the matching conditions. Our results thus show that target template matching is not facilitated by statistical learning of contextual regularities. Instead, contextual cuing seems to primarily benefit the initial guidance of attention, but it does not reveal an effect upon post-selective processing.

False predictions during sentence comprehension are a frequent phenomenon. Recent research has shown that in highly constrained sentences, inhibitory mechanisms are engaged to suppress false predictions. However, little is known about what specifically leads to this inhibition. Sixty-eight monolingual English-speaking adults participated in the current study to examine what triggers the inhibition of predicted words. We utilized the cross-modal lexical priming paradigm. Participants performed a visual lexical decision task (LDT) immediately after listening to incomplete sentences and sentences containing violations that did not match their prediction. In Experiment 1, violation sentences ended in pseudowords that contained a phonological mismatch, while in Experiment 2, violation sentences ended in environmental sounds that contained a semantic mismatch. To examine whether the predicted word was inhibited in each case, we compared LDT reaction times (RTs) to predicted words across sentence conditions. Results showed that LDT RTs to the predicted word were significantly slower after pseudowords, but not environment sounds. Taken together with previous work, this suggests that lexico-semantic information may not be required to trigger inhibition. While pseudoword violations-stimuli that resemble real words but lack meaning-inhibit false predictions, semantic mismatch alone may be insufficient to elicit inhibition.

The role of attention in three distinct forms of numerical processing (i.e., subitizing, estimation, and counting) has been extensively studied. However, the similarities and differences in the impacts of top-down and bottom-up attention on these three processes remain poorly understood. This gap raises key theoretical questions: Do individuals adopt a uniform cognitive strategy (i.e., a static strategy) across forms of numerical processing and types of attentional modulation? Do they dynamically adjust accuracy and/or precision for varying forms of numerical processing and/or different types of attentional modulation (i.e., a dynamic strategy)? Or do they exhibit greater flexibility by combining these two strategies, depending on specific effects of attentional modulation on numerical processing? Using a novel paradigm that incorporates counting with continuous attentional consumption, we identified a combination of static and dynamic strategies: A greater reliance on attention for processing precision of small numerosities is ubiquitous across numerical processing forms and attentional modulation types. However, an attention-driven transition effect occurs exclusively across forms of numerical processing, not types of attentional modulation. Additionally, attention modulation on central tendency effect differs across numerical processing forms and attentional modulation types. These results highlight the dynamic nature and flexibility of attentional modulation on numerical processing.

Perceptual averaging, a fundamental mechanism of visual short-term memory (VSTM), enables automatic extraction of the ensemble mean from similar visual stimuli. While concurrent physical exertion is known to impair VSTM, its impact on this ensemble-coding ability remains unclear. To address this gap, the current study employed a dual-task paradigm combining facial expression recognition with concurrent isometric handgrip contractions. Participants memorized four facial expressions and then classified a face probe as a set member or not while maintaining either 5% or 40% of their maximum force (low vs. high physical load). Results revealed that high physical load reduced hit rate and discriminability (d') while increasing false alarm rate, indicating impaired memory performance. However, recognition accuracy for probes that were the mean of the set and the fitted Gaussian parameter σ (reflecting the precision of mean representation) remained unchanged across load conditions, suggesting that mean representation was unaffected by concurrent physical exertion. These findings indicate that while concurrent physical exertion disrupts item-specific memory-that is, individual representation in VSTM-primarily due to shared attentional resource competition between physical action and cognitive processing, perceptual averaging-that is, mean representation in VSTM-remains resilient to dual-task interference, underscoring its stability and robustness in VSTM functioning.

Concurrent execution of response inhibition and timing tasks can lead to bidirectional interference. However, it remains unclear how response inhibition toward specific stimuli influences subsequent time perception. To investigate this, we employed emotionally evocative facial stimuli (fearful faces) and manipulated the difficulty of response inhibition using reaction time deadlines (RTDs). In Experiment 1, participants performed a go/no-go task in which fearful faces were associated with go or no-go responses, followed by a temporal bisection task using the same faces. In Experiment 2, task difficulty was manipulated across two sessions, 1 week apart, by setting RTDs at 1,000 ms (Easy) and 500 ms (Hard). The association between fearful faces and response type was counterbalanced across participants. Results showed that fearful faces previously associated with no-go signals were judged to last for a shorter duration than those associated with go signals. In addition, during the second week, participants who completed the easy task first exhibited greater temporal underestimation compared to those who completed the difficult task first, while no significant difference was found during the first session. These findings are consistent with the idea that associative learning of response inhibition toward fearful faces can induce automatic inhibition, which, in turn, influences subsequent time perception. A stepwise reduction in response inhibition difficulty may serve as an effective strategy for modulating the subjective duration of negative emotional experiences.

Many studies have shown that it is possible to recognise an artefact type and subsequently form an impression by observing only its shape. However, it is unclear whether the likeability of an artefact is due to its creatureliness, association with the object it imitates, or the likeability of the imitated object. Additional research is required to clarify whether the likeability of an object originates from its association with motion, perception of animacy, or the motion factor itself. Therefore, this study video-recorded the movement of plant-like artefacts to examine and determine the factors that significantly influence their likeability. This study considered the degree of animacy of the artefacts, their degree of association with the imitated plants, and the degree of likeability of the imitated plants as factors. Fifty-five participants with different sexual orientations completed an online questionnaire regarding their impressions of the artefacts in the recordings they watched. The responses were subjected to multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the degree of animacy and association with the imitated plants had the greatest influence on the likeability of the artefacts.

Perceived contingency of a single cue and outcome is based on the relative exposure to four types of events: Cue-outcome pairings (A events), cue-alone presentations (B events), outcome-alone presentations (C events), and events in which neither the cue nor the outcome is presented (D events). Previous experiments found increases in the frequency of event-affected ratings of the perceived contingency between the cue and outcome, even compared to conditions with proportional decreases in the duration of trials (i.e., adjusted frequency conditions). The present experiments tested the generality and boundaries of this adjusted frequency effect by examining whether it generalizes to ratings of multiple cue-outcome dyads, to a cued-recall test, and to both sequential and simultaneous cue-outcome presentations. Experiment 1 revealed a strong effect of frequency but no effect of duration after training with a single cue-outcome dyad; however, a duration effect emerged when training consisted of five cue-outcome dyads. Experiment 2 showed an effect of duration as well as an adjusted frequency effect in contingency ratings after training with five dyads. Experiment 3 extended these observations to a cued-recall test after training with 10 cue-outcome dyads. Experiment 4 used five dyads and found a within-experiment effect of duration on both contingency ratings and cued-recall scores. Whereas Experiments 1 to 4 varied the A events, Experiment 5 varied frequency and duration of the D events with 10 cue-outcome dyads and revealed effects of duration as well as frequency on both cued-recall and cue-outcome contingency ratings. In summary, these experiments detected an increase in the importance of event duration with increases in the number of dyads. Moreover, subject ratings of contingency closely tracked results in a cued-recall test, suggesting that a common mechanism underlies these two measures.

People often hesitate to rely on algorithmic advice, even when it is objectively more accurate than human input-a phenomenon known as algorithm aversion. In two experiments, we investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying this effect in a clinical decision-making context. Participants evaluated X-rays for bone fractures, with each image accompanied by advice purportedly from either an algorithm or a human source. Across experiments, we observed longer response times for algorithmic advice, indicating increased deliberation. Evidence accumulation modeling revealed that participants set higher decision thresholds when evaluating algorithmic advice, reflecting a more cautious decision strategy. This hesitancy, observed when the human advice was attributed to lay participants (Experiment 1), persisted when the human advice was attributed to expert radiologists (Experiment 2). Accumulation rates and prior preferences did not differ across advisor types, suggesting that algorithm aversion stems specifically from increased caution rather than reduced perceived reliability. These findings demonstrate that algorithm aversion manifests as a strategic shift in decision-making and highlight the value of formal cognitive models for understanding trust in artificial intelligence. Our findings advance the theoretical understanding of algorithm aversion by identifying response caution as a core mechanism. More broadly, the results demonstrate how formal models of decision-making can clarify the cognitive architecture of trust in automated systems, offering a foundation for future work on optimizing human-algorithm collaboration.

Whenever we work towards completing a task, such as learning some information, we are susceptible to attentional lapses where our thoughts stray from the demands of the current task to something unrelated (i.e., mind-wandering). Although prior work indicates that the presence of mind-wandering probes (used to measure task-unrelated thoughts) in a cognitive task may not impact the measurement of abilities like processing speed, there could be reactive effects involving memory. We examined whether mind-wandering probes can impact memory by having participants study lists of words to remember for later tests; at pseudo-random intervals during encoding, participants either responded to mind-wandering probes, answered math problems, had unfilled interstimulus intervals, or studied the lists without any interruptions. Results revealed that mind-wandering probes (or other interruptions) do not significantly impact overall memory performance (though there may be some impact on items immediately preceding or following a probe) or the temporal dynamics of episodic memory. Thus, the present study suggests that using mind-wandering probes introduces minimal unexpected bias into research designs such that these interruptions do not adversely affect or benefit memory performance, consistent with prior research focused primarily on other cognitive domains.