Journal of Cognition最新文献

We examined long-term contingency learning (CL) in a color classification task with two separate sets of non-overlapping color-word contingencies that were employed in alternating blocks of the task ("alternating blocks paradigm"). Analyzing only the first occurrences of the word distractors in each block provides a pure indicator of long-term CL that is free from recency-based episodic retrieval processes. A high-powered (n = 110), pre-registered study revealed evidence for reliable long-term color-word CL. This long-term CL effect depended on contingency awareness, indicating that genuine long-term CL is influenced by propositional knowledge.

Action control theories assume that stimulus and response features are integrated or bound into short term episodic traces. A repetition of any of these features results in a retrieval of the entire episodic trace, and can thus facilitate or interfere with future actions. Along with stimuli features, features of the response and any other irrelevant stimuli that are present, are also integrated into such traces and can influence future actions. Using word stimuli, Singh et al. (2018) observed that such so-called binding effects are larger for attended features relative to unattended features. This was the case even for features generally believed to be automatically processed, like valence. Since previous research has shown differences in the processing of word and picture stimuli, it is questionable whether the attentional modulations in the above study would extend to picture stimuli. In order to examine this question, Experiment 1 replicated the design of Singh et al. (2018) but used picture instead of word stimuli. In order to directly compare word and picture stimuli, the data of Singh et al (2018) were re-analysed together with the data of the present study. In Experiment 2, the alternative hypothesis, that the effects were driven by the encoding of stimulus contingencies, was tested. Taken together, the findings of the present study replicate those of Singh et al. (2018), indicating that even with picture stimuli, valence related binding effects are modulated by attention allocation.

Associative learning can occur implicitly for stimuli that occur together probabilistically. It is debated whether probabilistic, implicit learning occurs not only at the item level, but also at the category level. Here, we investigated whether associative learning would occur between color and numerical categories, while participants performed a color task. In category-level experiments for each parity and magnitude, high-probability pairings of four numbers with one color were categorically consistent (e.g., the Arabic numerals 2,4,6, and 8 appeared in blue with a high probability, p = .9). Associative learning was measured as higher performance for high-probability vs. low-probability color/number pairings. For both parity and magnitude, performance was significantly better for high- vs. low-probability trials (parity: 3.1% more accurate; magnitude: 1.3% more accurate; 9 ms faster). Category-level learning was also evident in a subsequent color association report task with novel double-digit numbers (parity: 63% accuracy; magnitude: 55%). In control, item-level experiments, in which high-probability pairings were not categorically consistent (e.g., 2,3,6, and 7 appeared in blue with a high probability, p = .9), no significant differences between high- vs. low-probability trials were present. These results are in line with associative learning occurring at the category level, and, further, suggest automatic semantic processing of symbolic numerals in terms of parity and magnitude.

Human survival requires prompt perception and action to address relevant events in the environment. For this, the brain has evolved a system that uses warning stimuli to elicit phasic alertness, a state readying the brain for upcoming perception and action. Although a wealth of empirical evidence revealed how phasic alertness improves a wide range of perceptual and cognitive processing, it is still unclear by what cognitive mechanisms this is achieved. Here, we identify key problems that have to be solved for this to be possible and delineate concrete ways to achieve this. Specifically, we discover I) how to establish phasic alertness as a cognitive state of readiness for perception and action, II) how it can affect cognition online or offline, III) how it could be triggered internally without a warning, and IV) to what degrees it relied on bottom-up processing, or top-down temporal or stimulus expectations and the current task. As a result, the discussion provides us with a research program yielding the theoretical and empirical basis for mechanistic and computational models of phasic alertness and its neurophysiological underpinnings.

Individuals who possess a Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) can remember their own lives in exceptional detail, retrieving specific autobiographical events in response to dates (e.g., 15^th April 1995). The phenomenon remains extremely rare, and little is known about why these individuals can remember substantially more than the general population, without being continually flooded by past memories. According to the cognitive inhibition dependency hypothesis, inhibitory processes modulate general autobiographical memory by determining which memories will (and will not) enter one's consciousness. We hypothesised that these control processes are amplified in HSAM, protecting them from being overwhelmed by their abundance of memories. To explore if cognitive inhibition is exceptional in HSAM, a single case with HSAM (DT) and 20 matched controls completed a battery of 6 tasks assessing various aspects of inhibition (e.g., memory, prepotent motor responses). Participants also completed a screening for obsessive compulsive disorder and autism. Results indicate that DT's inhibitory functioning is comparable to that of the typical population, and thus not exceptional. We conclude that inhibition is unlikely to be the best explanation for extraordinary remembering and add to the growing body of literature that HSAM can occur in the absence of clinical symptomatology. Results are discussed in relation to future directions of HSAM research.

Observations from multisensory body illusions indicate that the body representation can be adapted to changing task demands, e.g., it can be expanded to integrate external objects based on current sensorimotor experience (embodiment). While the mechanisms that promote embodiment have been studied extensively in earlier work, the opposite phenomenon of, removing an embodied entity from the body representation (i.e., disembodiment) has received little attention yet. The current study addressed this phenomenon and drew inspiration from the partial reinforcement extinction effect in instrumental learning which suggests that behavior is more resistant to extinction when reinforcement is delivered irregularly. In analogy to this, we investigated whether experiencing occasional visuo-motor mismatches during the induction phase of the moving rubber hand illusion (intermittent condition) would result in slower disembodiment as compared to a regular induction phase where motor and visual signals always match (continuous condition). However, we did not find an effect of reinforcement schedule on disembodiment. Keeping a recently embodied entity in the body schema, therefore, requires constant updating through correlated perceptual and motor signals.

Rapidly learning new tasks, such as using new technology or playing a new game, is ubiquitous in our daily lives. Previous studies suggest that our brain relies on different networks for rapid task learning versus retrieving known tasks from memory, and behavioral studies have shown that novel versus practiced tasks may rely on different task configuration processes. Here, we investigated whether explicitly informing about the novelty of an incoming task would help participants prepare for different task configuration processes, such as pre-adjusting working memory gating functions. We hypothesized that if different task configuration processes can be prepared for, a pre-cue informing about the novelty of the upcoming task should lead to better task performance. Across four experiments, participants were first trained on a subset of tasks, followed by a test session in which pre-cues were provided in some blocks but not others. After comparing task performance between cued and uncued blocks, our results provided no evidence supporting the benefit of cueing for both practiced and novel tasks, suggesting that people cannot prepare for different task configuration processes in the absence of concrete task information.

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to a location repetition cost typically observed when signaling the detection of or localizing sequentially presented stimuli repeating or changing their location. In discrimination tasks, however, IOR is often reduced or even absent; here, effects of binding and retrieval are thought to take place. Information is bound into an event file, which upon feature repetition causes retrieval, leading to partial repetition costs. It is assumed that the presence of retrieval-based effects masks the observation of IOR. Yet, some evidence suggests that long intervals between stimuli can lead to IOR in tasks in which usually mostly binding effects are observed. We hypothesized that with an increasing interval between prime response and probe onset (response stimulus interval, RSI), event files will decay and decreasingly mask IOR. In turn, IOR should be strongest at longest intervals. In the current study, participants discriminated the color of stimuli repeating or changing their location. Crucially, we varied the RSI from 500 ms to 3000 ms, trial-wise (Experiment 1) and block-wise (Experiment 2). We observed overall binding effects that were reduced with increasing RSI; these effects were slightly stronger when presented block-wise. IOR was overall absent (Experiment 1) or weak (Experiment 2) and did not emerge with increasing RSI. While event file decay took place, it did not unleash IOR. Rather, these results suggest that retrieval-based effects do not simply mask but overwrite IOR when manually responding. The observations of IOR with long intervals are discussed in the context of overall fast responding.

This editorial presents a special collection on working memory and executive functions. Six articles are presented and their contributions to current theoretical debates are briefly discussed.

The productive use of morphological information is considered one of the possible ways in which speakers of a language understand and learn unknown words. In the present study we investigate if, and how, also adult L2 learners exploit morphological information to process unknown words by analyzing the impact of language proficiency in the processing of novel derivations. Italian L2 learners, divided into three proficiency groups, participated in a lexical decision where pseudo-words could embed existing stems (e.g., sockle), suffixes (e.g., hettable), or both (novel derivations, e.g., quickify). Participants with low proficiency exhibited reduced accuracy and longer reaction times when presented with pseudo-words embedding a stem compared to those embedding a suffix. Conversely, participants with high proficiency demonstrated comparable accuracy in rejecting pseudo-words with real stems or real suffixes but required more time to reject pseudo-words embedding a suffix. In the case of novel derivations, accuracy (i.e., correct rejection) decreased and reaction time increased for all proficiency groups. Our results show that L2 learners exploit morphological information to process novel words. Most importantly, the ability to extract and exploit morphological information is linked to language proficiency.