Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology最新文献

Visual short-term memory (vSTM) refers to the subset of the cognitive system responsible for storing visual information over short periods of time. While much research has focused on its capacity limitations, less is known about how vSTM operates in dynamic environments where priorities shift across feature dimensions. In this study, we bridge research on vSTM and cognitive control by embedding change detection (Experiments 1 and 2) and delayed estimation (Experiment 3) paradigms within a task switching paradigm, where the relevant feature dimension (colour or orientation) either repeated or switched across trials. Across all experiments, we observed a cost to vSTM performance on switch relative to repetition trials. Mixture modelling of delayed estimation responses revealed that these switch costs were not due to reduced memory precision or memory failures, but rather to a selective increase in non-target responses reflecting feature-location binding errors. We propose that dimension switching selectively impairs the binding of feature values to locations and allows interference from irrelevant (but recently attended) feature dimensions. Our findings demonstrate that vSTM is sensitive to failures of attentional control, not just capacity limits.

Understanding how components of action tool knowledge are organized and interact is crucial for elucidating the cognitive and neural basis of tool use. In this study, we examined the relationship between two key dimensions: hand posture and manipulation. Forty-eight participants made similarity judgments based on these dimensions across pairs of familiar tools. Results revealed an asymmetrical interference pattern: judgments about manipulation were significantly influenced by hand posture, whereas the reverse effect was weaker. This asymmetry was modulated by perceptual similarity, particularly when participants attended to hand posture, suggesting a dynamic interaction between perceptual and conceptual features. Notably, perceptual similarity judgments were not solely explained by low-level visual features but were also influenced by stored action tool representations. This indicates that participants spontaneously activated integrated tool knowledge even during perceptual tasks. These findings support a model of action tool knowledge, with hand posture emerging as a primary dimension that influences and potentially precedes manipulation. Together, these results provide new insights into the cognitive architecture of tool knowledge and offer a foundation for future studies exploring the interaction between perceptual, motoric, and conceptual dimensions in action tool knowledge.

The current study investigates the influence of hierarchical metric structure on silent reading behavior during naturalistic reading, thus extending the scope of implicit prosody research beyond violation paradigms. By applying Fabb and Halle's prosodic framework to Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, we examined how a five-level metric hierarchy affects eye-tracking measures, independent of known factors such as word frequency, length, text emphasis, and syntactic structure. Thirty-two native English-speaking adults silently read the text presented without images, while their eye movements were recorded. Metric hierarchy explained overall variance above and beyond other linguistic factors in both early and late reading measures, consistent with patterns observed during oral reading of the same text. Moreover, the metric effect interacted with linguistic factors at lower levels of the hierarchy: closed-class words aligned with lower levels were read faster than open-class words. Exploratory analyses disentangling layout and end-of-page effects showed that while the addition of metric structure explains overall variance in all reading measures above and beyond other linguistic factors, only early reading measures are affected by lower levels of the metric hierarchy when analyzing the first stanza of two-stanza trials. These results demonstrate that the influence of metric structure during silent reading of naturalistic poetic text is qualitatively similar to its influence on spoken durations, providing further support for the role of implicit prosody in on-line sentence processing. These findings pave the way for further research into the role of prosody in reading comprehension, particularly in less metrically-regular texts and across developmental stages.

Previous research found that musicians often outperform non-musicians in speech perception. However, the exact mechanism underlying the musicians' advantage is equivocal. This study aimed to investigate the pathway(s) between musicianship and speech perception. Specifically, the study examined the mediating role of auditory sensitivity and executive function in the relation between musicianship and speech perception. A total of 136 Cantonese-speaking adults were recruited. Participants completed a series of tests assessing their musicianship, auditory sensitivity, executive function, and speech perception. The findings showed that auditory sensitivity mediates the effect of musicianship on speech perception, whereas executive function does not serve as a significant mediator.

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.