Pub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-11-20DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106376
Xiaozhi Yang , Elizabeth E. Riggs , Jason C. Coronel , Ian Krajbich
There are many factors that can influence a voter’s decision in the ballot booth but not all of them are policy related. One non-policy factor that may influence voters is the tendency to choose options that attract attention. Here, we investigate this possibility in two proof-of-concept laboratory studies with people choosing between proposed laws. We find that people are slower to vote when their party is split over an issue, and that they tend to vote for laws that they look at more. Moreover, this gaze effect is stronger for more important issues. We also find that we can increase the probability that someone will vote for one of two laws by getting them to look at that option first. Our work harnesses the power of sequential sampling models to explain the relationship between gaze and vote choice. We find support for a goal-based model where overt attention amplifies information supporting a particular law. This model explains why gaze has a stronger effect on choice for more important issues. Our findings indicate that some voting decisions are not predetermined and instead rely on an on-the-spot evaluation. As a result, these decisions can be swayed by attentional manipulations. Thus, visual attention may serve as a unifying framework for understanding different biases that occur in the voting booth, such as ballot-order and candidate-name-familiarity effects.
{"title":"Issue importance amplifies the effect of gaze on voting decisions","authors":"Xiaozhi Yang , Elizabeth E. Riggs , Jason C. Coronel , Ian Krajbich","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106376","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106376","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There are many factors that can influence a voter’s decision in the ballot booth but not all of them are policy related. One non-policy factor that may influence voters is the tendency to choose options that attract attention. Here, we investigate this possibility in two proof-of-concept laboratory studies with people choosing between proposed laws. We find that people are slower to vote when their party is split over an issue, and that they tend to vote for laws that they look at more. Moreover, this gaze effect is stronger for more important issues. We also find that we can increase the probability that someone will vote for one of two laws by getting them to look at that option first. Our work harnesses the power of sequential sampling models to explain the relationship between gaze and vote choice. We find support for a goal-based model where overt attention amplifies information supporting a particular law. This model explains why gaze has a stronger effect on choice for more important issues. Our findings indicate that some voting decisions are not predetermined and instead rely on an on-the-spot evaluation. As a result, these decisions can be swayed by attentional manipulations. Thus, visual attention may serve as a unifying framework for understanding different biases that occur in the voting booth, such as ballot-order and candidate-name-familiarity effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 106376"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145574811","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 : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-11-20DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106337
Pascale Willemsen, Lucien Baumgartner
Moore’s Paradox—e.g., “It’s raining but I don’t think it’s raining”—is widely considered infelicitous despite being logically consistent. In this paper, we extend Moore’s Paradox to moral discourse and test whether moral statements like “Murder is wrong but I don’t disapprove of it” elicit similar intuitions. Rooted in moral expressivism, the Parity Thesis predicts that moral assertions express non-cognitive attitudes (e.g., approval/disapproval) in a manner analogous to how descriptive statements express beliefs. In a pre-registered study with 1200 participants, we empirically test this thesis using a mixed design that manipulates moral term type (thick vs thin), evaluative polarity (positive vs negative), perspective (first vs third person), and attitude (belief vs disapproval). The results of our main study and one qualitative follow-up study suggest that while moral statements resemble Moorean Paradoxes in important ways, participants find it largely acceptable to call an action wrong without disapproving of it. As the infelicity of such statements is a core ingredient of Moorean Paradoxes and, as we suggest, the Parity Thesis, we conclude that moral language does not express approval and disapproval like declarative language expresses beliefs.
{"title":"Moral language and Moore’s Paradox: Challenging moral expressivism","authors":"Pascale Willemsen, Lucien Baumgartner","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106337","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106337","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Moore’s Paradox—e.g., “It’s raining but I don’t think it’s raining”—is widely considered infelicitous despite being logically consistent. In this paper, we extend Moore’s Paradox to moral discourse and test whether moral statements like “Murder is wrong but I don’t disapprove of it” elicit similar intuitions. Rooted in moral expressivism, the Parity Thesis predicts that moral assertions express non-cognitive attitudes (e.g., approval/disapproval) in a manner analogous to how descriptive statements express beliefs. In a pre-registered study with 1200 participants, we empirically test this thesis using a mixed design that manipulates moral term type (thick vs thin), evaluative polarity (positive vs negative), perspective (first vs third person), and attitude (belief vs disapproval). The results of our main study and one qualitative follow-up study suggest that while moral statements resemble Moorean Paradoxes in important ways, participants find it largely acceptable to call an action wrong without disapproving of it. As the infelicity of such statements is a core ingredient of Moorean Paradoxes and, as we suggest, the Parity Thesis, we conclude that moral language does not express approval and disapproval like declarative language expresses beliefs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 106337"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145574809","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 : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-11-20DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106356
Ágnes Lukács , Bálint József Ugrin , Krisztina Sára Lukics
Language acquisition and processing rely on a dynamic network of cognitive abilities, where various mechanisms interact to support the recognition, integration, and application of linguistic patterns. Previous research has largely focused on the dual relationships between statistical learning and language abilities, or between core cognitive functions (perceptual speed, working memory, cognitive control) and linguistic abilities, leaving their combined interaction underexplored. To address this gap, this study investigates how statistical learning—a process that enables individuals to detect patterns in language—relates to linguistic abilities and the extent to which core cognitive functions contribute to this relationship. We assessed a large sample of 608 Hungarian speakers (ages 14 to 92) on multiple tasks measuring statistical learning (speech segmentation, artificial grammar learning), linguistic performance (grammatical sensitivity, pragmatic comprehension, semantic prediction, violation processing, and reading efficiency), and core cognitive abilities (perceptual speed, working memory, cognitive control). Structural equation modelling revealed significant small to moderate relationships between statistical learning and language abilities, with offline statistical learning tasks predicting linguistic performance better than online measures (which assess statistical learning in real time). Importantly, core cognitive abilities, especially perceptual speed and working memory, consistently mediated the relationship between statistical learning and language processing, revealing the interconnected dynamics between these functions. These results support the notion that while statistical learning contributes to individual differences in language abilities, its effect is partially explained by core cognitive mechanisms implicated in both statistical learning and language processing. The findings highlight the complexity of language acquisition and processing, and underscore the need for further investigation into the mediating role of other cognitive factors.
{"title":"Statistical learning and individual differences in language abilities: A structural equation modelling study on the mediating roles of perceptual speed, working memory, and cognitive control","authors":"Ágnes Lukács , Bálint József Ugrin , Krisztina Sára Lukics","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106356","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106356","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Language acquisition and processing rely on a dynamic network of cognitive abilities, where various mechanisms interact to support the recognition, integration, and application of linguistic patterns. Previous research has largely focused on the dual relationships between statistical learning and language abilities, or between core cognitive functions (perceptual speed, working memory, cognitive control) and linguistic abilities, leaving their combined interaction underexplored. To address this gap, this study investigates how statistical learning—a process that enables individuals to detect patterns in language—relates to linguistic abilities and the extent to which core cognitive functions contribute to this relationship. We assessed a large sample of 608 Hungarian speakers (ages 14 to 92) on multiple tasks measuring statistical learning (speech segmentation, artificial grammar learning), linguistic performance (grammatical sensitivity, pragmatic comprehension, semantic prediction, violation processing, and reading efficiency), and core cognitive abilities (perceptual speed, working memory, cognitive control). Structural equation modelling revealed significant small to moderate relationships between statistical learning and language abilities, with offline statistical learning tasks predicting linguistic performance better than online measures (which assess statistical learning in real time). Importantly, core cognitive abilities, especially perceptual speed and working memory, consistently mediated the relationship between statistical learning and language processing, revealing the interconnected dynamics between these functions. These results support the notion that while statistical learning contributes to individual differences in language abilities, its effect is partially explained by core cognitive mechanisms implicated in both statistical learning and language processing. The findings highlight the complexity of language acquisition and processing, and underscore the need for further investigation into the mediating role of other cognitive factors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 106356"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145574801","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 : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-11-11DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106373
Olaf Borghi , Ben M. Tappin , Kaat Smets , Manos Tsakiris
People often favour information aligned with their ideological motives. Can our tendency for directional motivated reasoning be overcome with cognitive control? It remains contested whether cognitive control processes, such as cognitive reflection and inhibitory control, are linked to a greater tendency to engage in politically motivated reasoning, as proposed by the “motivated reflection” hypothesis, or can help people overcome it, as suggested by cognitive science research. In this pre-registered study (N = 504 UK participants rating n = 4963 news messages), we first provide evidence for motivated reasoning on multiple political and non-political topics. We then investigated the associations of the two cognitive control variables cognitive reflection and inhibitory control with motivated reasoning. We find that associations between cognitive control processes and motivated reasoning are likely small. On political topics specifically, we find that a negative association with cognitive reflection is more likely than a positive association. This finding is contrary to predictions from the popular motivated reflection hypothesis. Results for inhibitory control are inconclusive. We discuss how these findings relate to interdisciplinary literature from cognitive and political psychology.
{"title":"Mind over bias: How is cognitive control related to politically motivated reasoning?","authors":"Olaf Borghi , Ben M. Tappin , Kaat Smets , Manos Tsakiris","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106373","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106373","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>People often favour information aligned with their ideological motives. Can our tendency for directional motivated reasoning be overcome with cognitive control? It remains contested whether cognitive control processes, such as cognitive reflection and inhibitory control, are linked to a greater tendency to engage in politically motivated reasoning, as proposed by the “motivated reflection” hypothesis, or can help people overcome it, as suggested by cognitive science research. In this pre-registered study (<em>N</em> = 504 UK participants rating <em>n</em> = 4963 news messages), we first provide evidence for motivated reasoning on multiple political and non-political topics. We then investigated the associations of the two cognitive control variables cognitive reflection and inhibitory control with motivated reasoning. We find that associations between cognitive control processes and motivated reasoning are likely small. On political topics specifically, we find that a negative association with cognitive reflection is more likely than a positive association. This finding is contrary to predictions from the popular motivated reflection hypothesis. Results for inhibitory control are inconclusive. We discuss how these findings relate to interdisciplinary literature from cognitive and political psychology.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 106373"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145479070","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 : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-11-25DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106374
Ilanit Hochmitz , Yaffa Yeshurun , Amit Yashar
Individuating a single item presented within a continuous sequence of items requires segregating its signal from that of the other items. In contrast, representing a global aspect of the sequence, such as its average orientation, involves integration of information across time. Individuation and integration allow us to focus on individual events while maintaining an overall perception of our environment. To examine the relations between temporal averaging and individuation, we measured orientation averaging over short and long timescales using the same stimuli and orientation-estimation procedure previously used to measure individuation. Participants reported the average orientation of a sequence of three oriented items separated by either short (SOAs<150 ms) or long intervals (SOAs>150 ms). Analysis of the error distribution and mixture-modeling revealed distinct patterns of results for the different tasks and timescales, but also some similarities, particularly for the short timescale. In this timescale, the relative contribution of each individual item to the final response was similar across tasks, indicating the involvement of low-level factors operating regardless of the task. With the long timescale, the two tasks showed dissociable pattern across all performance aspects, except guessing rate, indicating that long-scale individuation and averaging engage mainly higher-level, task-related processes. Importantly, regardless of timescale, estimation errors in these tasks were best described by different models: in integration they primarily reflected unequal weighting of the averaged items, whereas in individuation they reflected imprecise target encoding with occasional misreports of distractors. Together, the findings reveal dissociable dynamics for integration and individuation.
{"title":"Temporal dynamics of integration and individuation: Insights from temporal averaging and crowding","authors":"Ilanit Hochmitz , Yaffa Yeshurun , Amit Yashar","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106374","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106374","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Individuating a single item presented within a continuous sequence of items requires segregating its signal from that of the other items. In contrast, representing a global aspect of the sequence, such as its average orientation, involves integration of information across time. Individuation and integration allow us to focus on individual events while maintaining an overall perception of our environment. To examine the relations between temporal averaging and individuation, we measured orientation averaging over short and long timescales using the same stimuli and orientation-estimation procedure previously used to measure individuation. Participants reported the average orientation of a sequence of three oriented items separated by either short (SOAs<150 ms) or long intervals (SOAs>150 ms). Analysis of the error distribution and mixture-modeling revealed distinct patterns of results for the different tasks and timescales, but also some similarities, particularly for the short timescale. In this timescale, the relative contribution of each individual item to the final response was similar across tasks, indicating the involvement of low-level factors operating regardless of the task. With the long timescale, the two tasks showed dissociable pattern across all performance aspects, except guessing rate, indicating that long-scale individuation and averaging engage mainly higher-level, task-related processes. Importantly, regardless of timescale, estimation errors in these tasks were best described by different models: in integration they primarily reflected unequal weighting of the averaged items, whereas in individuation they reflected imprecise target encoding with occasional misreports of distractors. Together, the findings reveal dissociable dynamics for integration and individuation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 106374"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145624483","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 : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-11-25DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106377
Michelle R. Ellefson , Rui Wang , Aaron Britton , Harriet Godfrey , Aidan Feeney
Learning science often appears to involve replacement of naïve, intuitive ideas with correct, counterintuitive ones. Recent studies indicate that the old naïve, intuitive ideas are not actually replaced but exist alongside the correct but often counterintuitive ones. On this account, newer knowledge for scientific thinking might involve inhibition of the old idea. However, instead of merely inhibiting old ideas, it is possible that switching is necessary to select between new and old scientific ideas. In this study, we explored the direct and indirect contributions of behavioural inhibition, cognitive inhibition and switching to intuitive and counterintuitive science reasoning in adults (N = 167). After replicating the commonly observed processing costs of counterintuitive items relative to intuitive ones, we find that individual differences in switching rather than in inhibition are most strongly associated with variation in the accuracy and speed of adult intuitive and counterintuitive science reasoning. These results suggest that adults switch between older and newer ideas when reasoning about science rather than suppressing one in favour of the other.
{"title":"The roles of switching and inhibition in adult counterintuitive scientific thinking","authors":"Michelle R. Ellefson , Rui Wang , Aaron Britton , Harriet Godfrey , Aidan Feeney","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106377","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106377","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Learning science often appears to involve replacement of naïve, intuitive ideas with correct, counterintuitive ones. Recent studies indicate that the old naïve, intuitive ideas are not actually replaced but exist alongside the correct but often counterintuitive ones. On this account, newer knowledge for scientific thinking might involve inhibition of the old idea. However, instead of merely inhibiting old ideas, it is possible that switching is necessary to select between new and old scientific ideas. In this study, we explored the direct and indirect contributions of behavioural inhibition, cognitive inhibition and switching to intuitive and counterintuitive science reasoning in adults (<em>N</em> = 167). After replicating the commonly observed processing costs of counterintuitive items relative to intuitive ones, we find that individual differences in switching rather than in inhibition are most strongly associated with variation in the accuracy and speed of adult intuitive and counterintuitive science reasoning. These results suggest that adults switch between older and newer ideas when reasoning about science rather than suppressing one in favour of the other.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 106377"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145624485","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 : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-11-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106385
Dalia L. Garcia , Tamar H. Gollan
The present study examined how bilinguals switch languages under conditions of varying contextual support for each language. Bilinguals were cued to name pictures in two contextually biased blocks, one biasing the dominant-language by cuing its use on 88 % of trials, another biasing the nondominant-language, and a third no-bias block (in which each language was used 50 % of the time). Experiment 1 tested 70 young Spanish-English bilinguals, while Experiment 2 compared a proficiency-matched subset of the young bilinguals to 40 older bilinguals tested on the same tasks. In the no-bias block, young but not older bilinguals exhibited reversed language dominance, replicating a previously reported aging deficit in global inhibition of the dominant language. In biased-language contexts, young, but not older, bilinguals switched-back to the biased language faster than they switched-out, and switching-back was not easier than switching-out, if anything, switching back was more costly (for young bilinguals in Experiment 1, and for older bilinguals in Experiment 2). Surprisingly, older bilinguals exhibited larger switch-back, but not switch-out, costs than younger bilinguals. To explain these results, we hypothesize that young bilinguals engage multiple forms of proactive control to switch languages, including inhibition of the dominant language, and proactive activation of a selected language, which they maintain even while temporarily switching out of it to facilitate imminent switches back. By contrast, older bilinguals rely primarily on reactive control to switch languages, and without proactive selection, bottom-up activation of the contextually supported language collapses upon switching out of it.
{"title":"Switching-back versus switching-out: Language context reveals a novel aging deficit in proactive bilingual language control","authors":"Dalia L. Garcia , Tamar H. Gollan","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106385","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106385","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The present study examined how bilinguals switch languages under conditions of varying contextual support for each language. Bilinguals were cued to name pictures in two contextually biased blocks, one biasing the dominant-language by cuing its use on 88 % of trials, another biasing the nondominant-language, and a third no-bias block (in which each language was used 50 % of the time). Experiment 1 tested 70 young Spanish-English bilinguals, while Experiment 2 compared a proficiency-matched subset of the young bilinguals to 40 older bilinguals tested on the same tasks. In the no-bias block, young but not older bilinguals exhibited reversed language dominance, replicating a previously reported aging deficit in global inhibition of the dominant language. In biased-language contexts, young, but not older, bilinguals switched-back to the biased language faster than they switched-out, and switching-back was not easier than switching-out, if anything, switching back was more costly (for young bilinguals in Experiment 1, and for older bilinguals in Experiment 2). Surprisingly, older bilinguals exhibited larger switch-back, but not switch-out, costs than younger bilinguals. To explain these results, we hypothesize that young bilinguals engage multiple forms of proactive control to switch languages, including inhibition of the dominant language, and proactive activation of a selected language, which they maintain even while temporarily switching out of it to facilitate imminent switches back. By contrast, older bilinguals rely primarily on reactive control to switch languages, and without proactive selection, bottom-up activation of the contextually supported language collapses upon switching out of it.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 106385"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145655936","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 : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-10-21DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106325
Jordan Wylie , Matthew Lindauer , Ana Gantman
Pursuing a life of moral excellence is often seen as allowing a person not only to live by good and just principles but also to live an authentic life that brings them closest to their true self. This view is taken to reflect the priority that people should place on moral pursuits or “moral primacy.” The results of four preregistered studies (N = 2909) suggest that people do not always hold this view and highlight a tension within it: how can morality both constrain human behavior and afford the freedom to be one's truest self? We find that people resolve this conflict with ‘value pluralism,’ preferring a balance of life pursuits across several value domains, where aesthetic pursuits are viewed as affording freedom from rules and conventions. We then adapt a personal change paradigm from prior work and develop a novel paradigm to examine whether people's intuitions about the true self also reveal that a broader set of values—not just moral ones—inform judgments of the true self. We find no differences in true self judgments following the loss of an aesthetic versus moral quality. However, when directly comparing life paths, the pursuit of aesthetic excellence is sometimes viewed as offering greater access to one's true self compared with moral excellence, in part because aesthetic pursuits are seen as less rule bound. These findings offer insights into the myriad paths a person can take in life while pursuing autonomy, authenticity, and closeness to their true self.
{"title":"People can find their true selves outside moral pursuits","authors":"Jordan Wylie , Matthew Lindauer , Ana Gantman","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106325","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106325","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pursuing a life of moral excellence is often seen as allowing a person not only to live by good and just principles but also to live an authentic life that brings them closest to their true self. This view is taken to reflect the priority that people should place on moral pursuits or “moral primacy.” The results of four preregistered studies (<em>N</em> = 2909) suggest that people do not always hold this view and highlight a tension within it: how can morality both constrain human behavior and afford the freedom to be one's truest self? We find that people resolve this conflict with ‘value pluralism,’ preferring a balance of life pursuits across several value domains, where aesthetic pursuits are viewed as affording freedom from rules and conventions. We then adapt a personal change paradigm from prior work and develop a novel paradigm to examine whether people's intuitions about the true self also reveal that a broader set of values—not just moral ones—inform judgments of the true self. We find no differences in true self judgments following the loss of an aesthetic versus moral quality. However, when directly comparing life paths, the pursuit of aesthetic excellence is sometimes viewed as offering greater access to one's true self compared with moral excellence, in part because aesthetic pursuits are seen as less rule bound. These findings offer insights into the myriad paths a person can take in life while pursuing autonomy, authenticity, and closeness to their true self.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"267 ","pages":"Article 106325"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145349467","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 : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106359
Lorenzo Ciccione , Marie Lubineau , Théo Morfoisse , Stanislas Dehaene
How sophisticated is young children's comprehension of geometric lines, curves and patterns, and how can we probe it? We investigated early proto-mathematical intuitions by asking kindergarteners (N = 39, 25 girls, 66 months) and first-graders (N = 42, 20 girls, 76 months) to draw the prolongation of mathematical patterns. Children's drawings revealed an early yet partial understanding of key mathematical properties such as linearity, curvature, periodicity, and compositionality. These abilities were confirmed in a second task, where participants were asked to select the correct prolongation among six options, ruling out motor entrainment as an explanation for the drawing task. These findings highlight children's emerging intuitions of proto-mathematical concepts and underscore the potential of drawing as a powerful and concrete tool for assessing early mathematical reasoning.
{"title":"Intuitions of mathematical curves in young children's drawings","authors":"Lorenzo Ciccione , Marie Lubineau , Théo Morfoisse , Stanislas Dehaene","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106359","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106359","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How sophisticated is young children's comprehension of geometric lines, curves and patterns, and how can we probe it? We investigated early proto-mathematical intuitions by asking kindergarteners (<em>N</em> = 39, 25 girls, 66 months) and first-graders (<em>N</em> = 42, 20 girls, 76 months) to draw the prolongation of mathematical patterns. Children's drawings revealed an early yet partial understanding of key mathematical properties such as linearity, curvature, periodicity, and compositionality. These abilities were confirmed in a second task, where participants were asked to select the correct prolongation among six options, ruling out motor entrainment as an explanation for the drawing task. These findings highlight children's emerging intuitions of proto-mathematical concepts and underscore the potential of drawing as a powerful and concrete tool for assessing early mathematical reasoning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"267 ","pages":"Article 106359"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145418636","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 : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-11-10DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106338
Cole Robertson , Seán G. Roberts , Asifa Majid , Tammy Lu , Philip Wolff , Robin I.M. Dunbar
Speaking a language that obliges the future tense for linguistic Future Time Reference (FTR) may cause speakers to devalue future outcomes. Evidence suggests such grammars make speakers less “future-oriented”: less likely, for example, to invest, eat healthily, or support costly climate change mitigation efforts. This has been explained using the notion that the future tense (e.g., will) encodes temporal notions of distance and/or precision; its obligatory use is therefore hypothesized to cause speakers to perceive delayed outcomes as less valuable. We argue that this causal account is not supported by extant evidence. Rather, we hypothesize the obligation to use low-certainty modal verbs (e.g., may) causes speakers to construe delayed outcomes as risky and therefore less valuable. We tested this in speakers of Dutch (which does not oblige FTR marking) and English (which does). English speakers used more low-certainty modal verbs, which in turn caused them to place a relatively lower value on future outcomes; at the same time, future tense had no effect, in terms of either distance or precision, on reward value construals (Study 1). When bilinguals were tested in English and Dutch, increased relative use of low-certainty modals again caused English speakers to devalue future outcomes, addressing possible cultural confounds (Study 2). English and Dutch speakers were tested on a non-linguistic probability estimation task; higher modal verb use in English caused lower probability estimates relative to Dutch speakers on matched visual stimuli—supporting the modal account that the obligation to use low-certainty language impacts judgments about probability (Study 3). Relative to matched US nationals, corporate executives from countries which speak languages that, like Dutch, do not oblige future statements to be grammatically marked, used fewer low-certainty modal verbs and more present tense FTR statements, while there was no difference in future tense use (Study 4)—broadly supporting the modal account by suggesting the modal differences characteristic of English and Dutch are widespread. Together, these results indicate that, relative to Dutch, English FTR requires speakers to use more low-certainty modals, and that this negatively biases construals of probability, which in turn leads to increased discounting (Studies 1–3), and that this cross-linguistic contrast may be general (Study 4). The studies provide evidence for linguistic relativity by identifying cross-linguistic effects of FTR grammar on discounting via low-certainty modals. However, the hypothesis that obligatory tenses impacted discounting via temporal notions was not supported, suggesting numerous reported results should be re-evaluated using the causal framework we propose.
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