Pub Date : 2025-04-04DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106133
Shengyuan Wang, Xiaoying Min, Xiaowei Ding
Despite the adaptative nature of working memory (WM) refinement (e.g. repulsion), a fundamental question remains unaddressed: what constitutes the unit of WM refinement? Specifically, does the refinement process apply to the entire object (object-based), specific features (feature-based), or potentially involve other mechanisms? Utilizing dual-feature objects and the continuous memory task, we examined whether the repulsion distortion induced in one feature (the trigger feature) could be transmitted to other features (the dependent feature) of the same object. Across one preliminary experiment and five formal experiments, we supported that the WM refinement is neither strictly object-based nor feature-based, but occurs dynamically and sequentially across distinct features. Specifically, the repulsion induced by the trigger feature was transmitted to the dependent feature only during extended maintenance periods, not during short maintenance. Our findings supported the dynamic sequential refinement of WM: refinement induced by a trigger feature could extend to other features, but this transmission is time-consuming.
{"title":"The dominoes of features: Dynamic sequential refinement of working memory representations","authors":"Shengyuan Wang, Xiaoying Min, Xiaowei Ding","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106133","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106133","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite the adaptative nature of working memory (WM) refinement (e.g. repulsion), a fundamental question remains unaddressed: what constitutes the unit of WM refinement? Specifically, does the refinement process apply to the entire object (object-based), specific features (feature-based), or potentially involve other mechanisms? Utilizing dual-feature objects and the continuous memory task, we examined whether the repulsion distortion induced in one feature (the trigger feature) could be transmitted to other features (the dependent feature) of the same object. Across one preliminary experiment and five formal experiments, we supported that the WM refinement is neither strictly object-based nor feature-based, but occurs dynamically and sequentially across distinct features. Specifically, the repulsion induced by the trigger feature was transmitted to the dependent feature only during extended maintenance periods, not during short maintenance. Our findings supported the dynamic sequential refinement of WM: refinement induced by a trigger feature could extend to other features, but this transmission is time-consuming.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"260 ","pages":"Article 106133"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143767469","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-04DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106134
Chenyu Li, Gidon T. Frischkorn, Hannah Dames, Klaus Oberauer
Removing information from working memory is thought to free up capacity and improve the retention of other information. However, whether this benefit arises from reducing interference from the to-be-forgotten information or from freeing up cognitive resources remains unclear. We examined this by comparing removal immediately following encoding an item (immediate removal), or delayed until after other items have been encoded (delayed removal). Interference theories predict that both types of removal should reduce interference and improve memory performance. In contrast, if removal frees up cognitive resources, the beneficial effect on memory should be greater the earlier it occurs, as the resources can then be allocated to subsequently encoded items. Experiment 1 showed that both immediate and delayed removal failed to reduce interference from the to-be-forgotten items but improved memory for item-location bindings of other items still maintained in working memory. In Experiment 2, removal only facilitated item-location bindings for items encoded afterward. These results suggest that removal frees up working memory capacity by increasing available resources rather than by reducing interference.
{"title":"The benefit of removing information from working memory: Increasing available cognitive resources or reducing interference?","authors":"Chenyu Li, Gidon T. Frischkorn, Hannah Dames, Klaus Oberauer","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106134","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106134","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Removing information from working memory is thought to free up capacity and improve the retention of other information. However, whether this benefit arises from reducing interference from the to-be-forgotten information or from freeing up cognitive resources remains unclear. We examined this by comparing removal immediately following encoding an item (immediate removal), or delayed until after other items have been encoded (delayed removal). Interference theories predict that both types of removal should reduce interference and improve memory performance. In contrast, if removal frees up cognitive resources, the beneficial effect on memory should be greater the earlier it occurs, as the resources can then be allocated to subsequently encoded items. Experiment 1 showed that both immediate and delayed removal failed to reduce interference from the to-be-forgotten items but improved memory for item-location bindings of other items still maintained in working memory. In Experiment 2, removal only facilitated item-location bindings for items encoded afterward. These results suggest that removal frees up working memory capacity by increasing available resources rather than by reducing interference.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"260 ","pages":"Article 106134"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143767468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-04DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106132
Stefanie I. Becker, Zachary Hamblin-Frohman, Koralalage Don Raveen Amarasekera
The most prominent models of visual attention assume that we tune attention to the specific feature value of a sought-after object (e.g., a specific colour or orientation) to aid search. However, subsequent research has shown that attention is often tuned to the relative feature of the target, that the target has in relation to other items in the surround (e.g., redder/greener, darker/lighter, larger/smaller), in line with a Relational Account of Attention. Previous research is still limited though, as it used repeated-target designs and relatively sparse displays. With this, it is still unknown whether we can indeed tune attention to relative features prior to the first eye movement, or whether this requires context knowledge gained from experience. Moreover, it is unclear how search progresses from one item to the next. The present study tested these questions in a 36-item search display with multiple distractors and variable target and non-target colours. The first fixations on a trial showed that these displays still reliably evoked relational search, even when observers had no knowledge of the context. Moreover, the first five fixations within a trial showed that we tend to select the most extreme items first, followed by the next-extreme, until the target is found, in line with the relational account. These findings show that information about the relative target feature can be rapidly extracted and is used to guide attention in the first fixation(s) of search, whereby attention only hones in on the target colour after multiple fixations on relatively more extreme distractors.
{"title":"Visual search is relational without prior context learning","authors":"Stefanie I. Becker, Zachary Hamblin-Frohman, Koralalage Don Raveen Amarasekera","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106132","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106132","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The most prominent models of visual attention assume that we tune attention to the specific feature value of a sought-after object (e.g., a specific colour or orientation) to aid search. However, subsequent research has shown that attention is often tuned to the <em>relative</em> feature of the target, that the target has in relation to other items in the surround (e.g., redder/greener, darker/lighter, larger/smaller), in line with a Relational Account of Attention. Previous research is still limited though, as it used repeated-target designs and relatively sparse displays. With this, it is still unknown whether we can indeed tune attention to relative features prior to the first eye movement, or whether this requires context knowledge gained from experience. Moreover, it is unclear how search progresses from one item to the next. The present study tested these questions in a 36-item search display with multiple distractors and variable target and non-target colours. The first fixations on a trial showed that these displays still reliably evoked relational search, even when observers had no knowledge of the context. Moreover, the first five fixations within a trial showed that we tend to select the most extreme items first, followed by the next-extreme, until the target is found, in line with the relational account. These findings show that information about the relative target feature can be rapidly extracted and is used to guide attention in the first fixation(s) of search, whereby attention only hones in on the target colour after multiple fixations on relatively more extreme distractors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"260 ","pages":"Article 106132"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143767470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-03DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106127
Agata Dymarska , Louise Connell
Word associates are commonly collected and employed in cognitive and clinical research, yet the precise reasons why a particular word is activated as an associate for a given cue remain unclear. We examined the source of responses in a word association task using linguistic and sensorimotor relationships between words as measures of relatedness, in order to assess whether responses are more likely to be driven by the cue or by preceding associates. We asked participants to produce up to 20 associates for each cue and analysed the strength of relationships and latency for each response. Results showed that word association responses had strong effects of local response chaining, where a given associate was more likely to be related to the preceding associate than to the cue itself. In growth curve analysis of the timecourse of producing responses, we found little influence of the cue on response times. Instead, the strongest source of facilitation was the sensorimotor and linguistic relationship of each response with its immediately-preceding associate. These findings suggest that linguistic and sensorimotor information underpins word association mechanisms, whereby local chaining from the most recent response is the primary driver of which new associates are activated and produced. Results support the linguistic-sensorimotor basis of semantic memory as well as theories that people search memory using local rather than global constraints, with implications for using existing word association norms to investigate semantic memory structure and for the study of semantic relatedness in language production and comprehension.
{"title":"Free word association is driven by local response chaining of linguistic and sensorimotor relationships","authors":"Agata Dymarska , Louise Connell","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106127","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106127","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Word associates are commonly collected and employed in cognitive and clinical research, yet the precise reasons why a particular word is activated as an associate for a given cue remain unclear. We examined the source of responses in a word association task using linguistic and sensorimotor relationships between words as measures of relatedness, in order to assess whether responses are more likely to be driven by the cue or by preceding associates. We asked participants to produce up to 20 associates for each cue and analysed the strength of relationships and latency for each response. Results showed that word association responses had strong effects of local response chaining, where a given associate was more likely to be related to the preceding associate than to the cue itself. In growth curve analysis of the timecourse of producing responses, we found little influence of the cue on response times. Instead, the strongest source of facilitation was the sensorimotor and linguistic relationship of each response with its immediately-preceding associate. These findings suggest that linguistic and sensorimotor information underpins word association mechanisms, whereby local chaining from the most recent response is the primary driver of which new associates are activated and produced. Results support the linguistic-sensorimotor basis of semantic memory as well as theories that people search memory using local rather than global constraints, with implications for using existing word association norms to investigate semantic memory structure and for the study of semantic relatedness in language production and comprehension.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"260 ","pages":"Article 106127"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143760748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-03DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106136
Neil Cohn , Fred Atilla , Lenneke Lichtenberg , Bruno Cardoso
Writing is a significant human invention claimed to affect numerous aspects of cognition, including the ordering of pictures. However, picture sequences like those in comics often have complex directional paths within their layouts. Here we therefore examine whether comic page layouts are affected by the directionality of writing systems and/or encode distinctive conventionalized patterns. Using the TINTIN Corpus of 1030 annotated comics from 144 countries and territories (14,311 pages, 76,361 panels), we observed that lateral directionality between rightward and leftward writing systems did affect the reading direction of comic page layouts. However, additional variance was observed particularly by Japanese manga, which showed a preference for greater right-to-left and down “S-paths” and increased vertical columns beyond the influence of writing systems. This suggests that, while writing systems may affect picture sequencing, visual narrative layouts can also be encoded above and beyond the influence of writing directionality.
{"title":"The influence of writing systems on comics layouts","authors":"Neil Cohn , Fred Atilla , Lenneke Lichtenberg , Bruno Cardoso","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106136","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106136","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Writing is a significant human invention claimed to affect numerous aspects of cognition, including the ordering of pictures. However, picture sequences like those in comics often have complex directional paths within their layouts. Here we therefore examine whether comic page layouts are affected by the directionality of writing systems and/or encode distinctive conventionalized patterns. Using the TINTIN Corpus of 1030 annotated comics from 144 countries and territories (14,311 pages, 76,361 panels), we observed that lateral directionality between rightward and leftward writing systems did affect the reading direction of comic page layouts. However, additional variance was observed particularly by Japanese manga, which showed a preference for greater right-to-left and down “S-paths” and increased vertical columns beyond the influence of writing systems. This suggests that, while writing systems may affect picture sequencing, visual narrative layouts can also be encoded above and beyond the influence of writing directionality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"260 ","pages":"Article 106136"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143760750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-27DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106122
Ayeh Alhasan , Eyal Karin , Nathan Caruana , Emily Cross , David Kaplan , Michael J. Richardson
Intention prediction is essential for successful social interaction, but traditional research focusing solely on movement kinematics often overlooks the array of action possibilities in natural settings. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to explore intention prediction, analysing free-text responses from participants who watched videos of an actor reaching for a cup, bottle, or spoon, each with a distinct intention. Each video included varied environmental contexts to suggest specific intentions (e.g., full cups for drinking, empty cups for clearing) or presented ambiguous contexts (e.g., half-full cups). We found that participants’ intention predictions depended on the variety of action possibilities presented by both kinematics and context. Participants tended to identify the primary action possibility of the grasped item as the intended action when both kinematics and context supported its feasibility. Predictions diversified when kinematics or context suggested that the object’s primary action was less likely. Our findings suggest that while intention predictions can sometimes be inaccurate, they align with the (most functional) action possibilities (i.e., affordances) indicated by the actor’s movements within a given context.
{"title":"Kinematics in context: Predicting other’s action intentions entails the perception of affordances","authors":"Ayeh Alhasan , Eyal Karin , Nathan Caruana , Emily Cross , David Kaplan , Michael J. Richardson","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106122","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106122","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Intention prediction is essential for successful social interaction, but traditional research focusing solely on movement kinematics often overlooks the array of action possibilities in natural settings. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to explore intention prediction, analysing free-text responses from participants who watched videos of an actor reaching for a cup, bottle, or spoon, each with a distinct intention. Each video included varied environmental contexts to suggest specific intentions (e.g., full cups for drinking, empty cups for clearing) or presented ambiguous contexts (e.g., half-full cups). We found that participants’ intention predictions depended on the variety of action possibilities presented by both kinematics and context. Participants tended to identify the primary action possibility of the grasped item as the intended action when both kinematics and context supported its feasibility. Predictions diversified when kinematics or context suggested that the object’s primary action was less likely. Our findings suggest that while intention predictions can sometimes be inaccurate, they align with the (most functional) action possibilities (i.e., affordances) indicated by the actor’s movements within a given context.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"260 ","pages":"Article 106122"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143705774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-27DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106128
Hannah Hok , Emily Gerdin , Xin Zhao , Alex Shaw
Across many contexts, majority rule is used as a decision-making procedure to coordinate conflicts within groups. Despite the prevalence of majority rule procedures, it is unclear how children think about majority rule as a way to resolve group disagreements in early childhood, and how this develops across age. In four experiments, we explored 4- to 9-year-olds' early intuitions about majority rule voting (N = 814) in two countries: the United States and China. Specifically, we compared majority rule voting to two different ways of making decisions: a randomized decision (coin flip) and abiding by a single individual's preference. We found children preferred majority rule over letting a single individual decide by age 4, and over coin flip by age 6. We further demonstrated that children do not use majority rule indiscriminately. Instead, they clearly think majority rule is inappropriate in some circumstances: While they think majority rule can be used to resolve matters of preference for groups, they do not think an individual should obey what the majority wants when deciding for themselves. Furthermore, they do not think that the majority should rule, even for group decision making, when they recommend clearly immoral behavior. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on the development of procedural justice and group decision-making.
{"title":"When should the majority rule?: Children's developing intuitions about majority rules voting","authors":"Hannah Hok , Emily Gerdin , Xin Zhao , Alex Shaw","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106128","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106128","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Across many contexts, majority rule is used as a decision-making procedure to coordinate conflicts within groups. Despite the prevalence of majority rule procedures, it is unclear how children think about majority rule as a way to resolve group disagreements in early childhood, and how this develops across age. In four experiments, we explored 4- to 9-year-olds' early intuitions about majority rule voting (<em>N</em> = 814) in two countries: the United States and China. Specifically, we compared majority rule voting to two different ways of making decisions: a randomized decision (coin flip) and abiding by a single individual's preference. We found children preferred majority rule over letting a single individual decide by age 4, and over coin flip by age 6. We further demonstrated that children do not use majority rule indiscriminately. Instead, they clearly think majority rule is inappropriate in some circumstances: While they think majority rule can be used to resolve matters of preference for groups, they do not think an individual should obey what the majority wants when deciding for themselves. Furthermore, they do not think that the majority should rule, even for group decision making, when they recommend clearly immoral behavior. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on the development of procedural justice and group decision-making.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"260 ","pages":"Article 106128"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143705773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-24DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106123
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff , Sam Katz , Jinwoo Jo , Leher Singh , Margaret Anne Collins , Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
Perceptual attunement occurs in a number of areas in infants' lives, preparing them to be members of their culture. Infants begin with the ability to discriminate between a wide range of distinctions found in all cultures, such as speech sounds, face perception, and tonal scales in music. Over time, infants' discrimination abilities become gradually aligned with those distinctions supported by their language and culture. At the same time, sensitivity to distinctions not supported in the ambient environment become attenuated. Here, we review the literature on perceptual attunement and propose a new domain which may undergo a similar process: the perception of motion events. For example, there is evidence that infants learning Japanese continue to attend to the grounds over which events occur (i.e., unbounded versus bounded, as in a field versus a road, respectively), while infants learning English attend less to grounds by 23 months of age. This process, which we refer to as semantic attunement, is somewhat analogous to the properties of phonological attunement, an area that has been extensively studied. We conclude by suggesting future research in this area.
{"title":"How the perception of events in children is influenced by language","authors":"Roberta Michnick Golinkoff , Sam Katz , Jinwoo Jo , Leher Singh , Margaret Anne Collins , Kathy Hirsh-Pasek","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106123","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106123","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Perceptual attunement occurs in a number of areas in infants' lives, preparing them to be members of their culture. Infants begin with the ability to discriminate between a wide range of distinctions found in all cultures, such as speech sounds, face perception, and tonal scales in music. Over time, infants' discrimination abilities become gradually aligned with those distinctions supported by their language and culture. At the same time, sensitivity to distinctions not supported in the ambient environment become attenuated. Here, we review the literature on perceptual attunement and propose a new domain which may undergo a similar process: the perception of motion events. For example, there is evidence that infants learning Japanese continue to attend to the grounds over which events occur (i.e., unbounded versus bounded, as in a field versus a road, respectively), while infants learning English attend less to grounds by 23 months of age. This process, which we refer to as semantic attunement, is somewhat analogous to the properties of phonological attunement, an area that has been extensively studied. We conclude by suggesting future research in this area.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"259 ","pages":"Article 106123"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143681547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-22DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106126
David J. Young , Jens Koed Madsen , Lee H. de-Wit
A large literature debates whether belief polarization, in both experiments and real-world political opinion data, is the result of biased forms of reasoning like biased assimilation and motivated reasoning, or if it can be caused by rational reasoning. We present evidence for the plausibility of a novel Bayesian mechanism of experimental and real-world political belief polarization involving perceptions of source independence. We show, using a novel Bayesian network, that when presented with conflicting testimony from two source groups, Bayesians should update towards the position of the group they deem to be more independent, meaning those who disagree about which group that is should polarize. We find in a pre-registered experiment (N = 351) that human participants polarize under these conditions. We then find in a UK study (N = 507) and a pre-registered US replication (N = 300) that, using a novel scale instrument, real-world partisans (Labour, Conservative, Republican, and Democrat) perceive their party's supporters to be more independent than the opposing party's supporters, with large average effect sizes (d = 0.87 UK, d = 0.82 US), suggesting the conditions are in place for such polarization to occur in the real world. Accordingly, we find that those who view their party's supporters as more independent than their opponents to the greatest extent have the most polarized beliefs, even after controlling for partisanship and affective polarization. Overall, our results highlight perceptions of testimonial independence as a plausible mediator of experimental and real-world belief polarization.
{"title":"Belief polarization can be caused by disagreements over source independence: Computational modelling, experimental evidence, and applicability to real-world politics","authors":"David J. Young , Jens Koed Madsen , Lee H. de-Wit","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106126","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106126","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A large literature debates whether belief polarization, in both experiments and real-world political opinion data, is the result of biased forms of reasoning like biased assimilation and motivated reasoning, or if it can be caused by rational reasoning. We present evidence for the plausibility of a novel Bayesian mechanism of experimental and real-world political belief polarization involving perceptions of source independence. We show, using a novel Bayesian network, that when presented with conflicting testimony from two source groups, Bayesians should update towards the position of the group they deem to be more independent, meaning those who disagree about which group that is should polarize. We find in a pre-registered experiment (<em>N</em> = 351) that human participants polarize under these conditions. We then find in a UK study (<em>N</em> = 507) and a pre-registered US replication (<em>N</em> = 300) that, using a novel scale instrument, real-world partisans (Labour, Conservative, Republican, and Democrat) perceive their party's supporters to be more independent than the opposing party's supporters, with large average effect sizes (<em>d</em> = 0.87 UK, <em>d</em> = 0.82 US), suggesting the conditions are in place for such polarization to occur in the real world. Accordingly, we find that those who view their party's supporters as more independent than their opponents to the greatest extent have the most polarized beliefs, even after controlling for partisanship and affective polarization. Overall, our results highlight perceptions of testimonial independence as a plausible mediator of experimental and real-world belief polarization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"259 ","pages":"Article 106126"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143681546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-03-22DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106119
Shijie Zhang , Silke Brandt , Anna Theakston
Young children's comprehension of adverbial clauses is significantly affected by iconicity, which refers to whether the order of information in the sentence reflects the order of events in the real world. In contrast, clause order (main-subordinate vs. subordinate-main) and input frequency of specific adverbial clauses do not seem to play independent roles (De Ruiter et al., 2018). The present study tests children's sentence production across four different connective types (after, before, because, if) to determine whether the factors that underpin the comprehension of adverbial clauses also apply to production, which involves utterance planning and articulation. 42 four-year-old, 42 five-year-old, and 22 eight-year-old monolingual English-speaking children, along with 20 adult controls, completed a sentence completion task. The results showed that both four- and five-year-olds produced all type of sentences in iconic order (“She builds a tower, before she breaks her train”; “After she builds a tower, she breaks her train”) more accurately than in non-iconic order. This suggests that while comprehension and production likely impose different demands on children, iconicity as a general semantic strategy benefits children's early processing of adverbial clauses. Moreover, the effect of iconicity persisted in older children's production, but only for their because- and if-sentences, which could be related to their semantic complexity and the pragmatic properties they encode.
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