Pub Date : 2024-12-04DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106015
Tom Kelly , Elliot A. Ludvig
People given written descriptions often learn and decide differently from those learning from experience, even in formally identical tasks. This paper presents two experiments detailing how telling participants about the value of one stimulus impacts a keystone learning effect – blocking. The paper investigates if descriptions can be used to effectively block future trial-by-trial learning. Participants were presented with coloured shape stimuli and asked if those shapes caused reward. Experiment 1 found both standard, trial-by-trial experienced blocking and the novel effect of described blocking of future trial-by-trial learning. Experiment 2 investigated the conditions that promote described blocking by manipulating the training that occurred prior to exposure to the description. In the Pre-training Present group, participants exposed to a training set of compound and elemental stimuli produced more pronounced blocking than the Pre-training Absent group, which had no such training. These results show that explicit descriptions about causal relations can block learning from subsequent experience, providing a new extension of associative learning toward the verbal domain.
{"title":"Blocking of associative learning by explicit descriptions","authors":"Tom Kelly , Elliot A. Ludvig","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106015","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106015","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>People given written descriptions often learn and decide differently from those learning from experience, even in formally identical tasks. This paper presents two experiments detailing how telling participants about the value of one stimulus impacts a keystone learning effect – blocking. The paper investigates if descriptions can be used to effectively block future trial-by-trial learning. Participants were presented with coloured shape stimuli and asked if those shapes caused reward. Experiment 1 found both standard, trial-by-trial experienced blocking and the novel effect of described blocking of future trial-by-trial learning. Experiment 2 investigated the conditions that promote described blocking by manipulating the training that occurred prior to exposure to the description. In the Pre-training Present group, participants exposed to a training set of compound and elemental stimuli produced more pronounced blocking than the Pre-training Absent group, which had no such training. These results show that explicit descriptions about causal relations can block learning from subsequent experience, providing a new extension of associative learning toward the verbal domain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"256 ","pages":"Article 106015"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142786606","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 : 2024-11-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105870
David Burr, Giovanni Anobile, Roberto Arrighi
Adaptation is a ubiquitous property of perceptual systems, increasing sensitivity to change and allowing them to operate over a large dynamic range. The number sense, like most other perceptual systems, is adaptable. Yousif et al. (2024) challenge the existence of number adaptation, offering an alternate explanation that they term the “old news hypothesis”. Here we consider the major evidence advanced for their theory and show that, while their predicted effects may reach statistical significance, they are far too small to begin to explain the robust phenomenon of adaptation. We also highlight a series of studies using fMRI, EEG, pupillometry and psychophysical techniques that support the existence of adaption, and are inconsistent with “old news”. We conclude that number adaptation, while not fully understood, does indeed exist, and remains an invaluable concept for understanding the number sense.
{"title":"Number adaptation: Reply","authors":"David Burr, Giovanni Anobile, Roberto Arrighi","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105870","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105870","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Adaptation is a ubiquitous property of perceptual systems, increasing sensitivity to change and allowing them to operate over a large dynamic range. The <em>number sense</em>, like most other perceptual systems, is adaptable. Yousif et al. (2024) challenge the existence of number adaptation, offering an alternate explanation that they term the “old news hypothesis”. Here we consider the major evidence advanced for their theory and show that, while their predicted effects may reach statistical significance, they are far too small to begin to explain the robust phenomenon of adaptation. We also highlight a series of studies using fMRI, EEG, pupillometry and psychophysical techniques that support the existence of adaption, and are inconsistent with “old news”. We conclude that number adaptation, while not fully understood, does indeed exist, and remains an invaluable concept for understanding the <em>number sense</em>.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105870"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142744569","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 : 2024-11-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105990
Carlos G. Correa , Sophia Sanborn , Mark K. Ho , Frederick Callaway , Nathaniel D. Daw , Thomas L. Griffiths
Human behavior is often assumed to be hierarchically structured, made up of abstract actions that can be decomposed into concrete actions. However, behavior is typically measured as a sequence of actions, which makes it difficult to infer its hierarchical structure. In this paper, we explore how people form hierarchically structured plans, using an experimental paradigm with observable hierarchical representations: participants create programs that produce sequences of actions in a language with explicit hierarchical structure. This task lets us test two well-established principles of human behavior: utility maximization (i.e. using fewer actions) and minimum description length (MDL; i.e. having a shorter program). We find that humans are sensitive to both metrics, but that both accounts fail to predict a qualitative feature of human-created programs, namely that people prefer programs with reuse over and above the predictions of MDL. We formalize this preference for reuse by extending the MDL account into a generative model over programs, modeling hierarchy choice as the induction of a grammar over actions. Our account can explain the preference for reuse and provides better predictions of human behavior, going beyond simple accounts of compressibility to highlight a principle that guides hierarchical planning.
{"title":"Exploring the hierarchical structure of human plans via program generation","authors":"Carlos G. Correa , Sophia Sanborn , Mark K. Ho , Frederick Callaway , Nathaniel D. Daw , Thomas L. Griffiths","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105990","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105990","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Human behavior is often assumed to be hierarchically structured, made up of abstract actions that can be decomposed into concrete actions. However, behavior is typically measured as a sequence of actions, which makes it difficult to infer its hierarchical structure. In this paper, we explore how people form hierarchically structured plans, using an experimental paradigm with observable hierarchical representations: participants create programs that produce sequences of actions in a language with explicit hierarchical structure. This task lets us test two well-established principles of human behavior: utility maximization (i.e. using fewer actions) and minimum description length (MDL; i.e. having a shorter program). We find that humans are sensitive to both metrics, but that both accounts fail to predict a qualitative feature of human-created programs, namely that people prefer programs with <em>reuse</em> over and above the predictions of MDL. We formalize this preference for reuse by extending the MDL account into a generative model over programs, modeling hierarchy choice as the induction of a grammar over actions. Our account can explain the preference for reuse and provides better predictions of human behavior, going beyond simple accounts of compressibility to highlight a principle that guides hierarchical planning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"255 ","pages":"Article 105990"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142744998","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 : 2024-11-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106025
Dennis Norris , James M. McQueen
In reply to Magnuson, Crinnion, Luthra, Gaston, and Grubb (2023), we challenge their conclusion that on-line activation feedback improves word recognition. This type of feedback is instantiated in the TRACE model (McClelland & Elman, 1986) as top-down spread of activation from lexical to phoneme nodes. We give two main reasons why Magnuson et al.'s demonstration that activation feedback speeds up word recognition in TRACE is not informative about whether activation feedback helps humans recognize words. First, the same speed-up could be achieved by changing other parameters in TRACE. Second, more fundamentally, there is room for improvement in TRACE's performance only because the model, unlike Bayesian models, is suboptimal. We also challenge Magnuson et al.'s claim that the available empirical data support activation feedback. The data they base this claim on are open to alternative explanations and there are data against activation feedback that they do not discuss. We argue, therefore, that there are no computational or empirical grounds to conclude that activation feedback benefits human spoken-word recognition and indeed no theoretical grounds why activation feedback would exist. Other types of feedback, for example feedback to support perceptual learning, likely do exist, precisely because they can help listeners recognize words.
{"title":"Why might there be lexical-prelexical feedback in speech recognition?","authors":"Dennis Norris , James M. McQueen","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106025","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106025","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In reply to Magnuson, Crinnion, Luthra, Gaston, and Grubb (2023), we challenge their conclusion that on-line activation feedback improves word recognition. This type of feedback is instantiated in the TRACE model (McClelland & Elman, 1986) as top-down spread of activation from lexical to phoneme nodes. We give two main reasons why Magnuson et al.'s demonstration that activation feedback speeds up word recognition in TRACE is not informative about whether activation feedback helps humans recognize words. First, the same speed-up could be achieved by changing other parameters in TRACE. Second, more fundamentally, there is room for improvement in TRACE's performance only because the model, unlike Bayesian models, is suboptimal. We also challenge Magnuson et al.'s claim that the available empirical data support activation feedback. The data they base this claim on are open to alternative explanations and there are data against activation feedback that they do not discuss. We argue, therefore, that there are no computational or empirical grounds to conclude that activation feedback benefits human spoken-word recognition and indeed no theoretical grounds why activation feedback would exist. Other types of feedback, for example feedback to support perceptual learning, likely do exist, precisely because they can help listeners recognize words.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"255 ","pages":"Article 106025"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142757346","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 : 2024-11-30DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105883
Frank H. Durgin
Yousif et al. (2024) have raised a number of pertinent objections to the idea that number adaptation is a straightforward account of the readily-observable aftereffects that affect perceived numerosity. Their criticisms appear well-motivated, but their particular version of the old-news proposal, involving specific dots, may be insufficiently abstract given that adaptation accumulates. Two new experiments are presented that are meant to buttress their critique by (1) confirming their predictions concerning neutral adaptation, and (2) re-evaluating related claims concerning number vs. density comparisons that have been widely accepted. Present behavioral evidence dissociating effects of adapter size, adapter number and adapter density, supports the idea that density adaptation is implicated as a primary source of most phenomenologically-compelling aftereffects of perceived numerosity.
Experiment 2 was preregistered on AsPredicted.org. The pre-registration is available at the following link: https://aspredicted.org/PC7_2ZB
The full raw data sets for the two experiments reported her are available on OSF at the following links:
{"title":"Refreshing the conversation about adaptation and perceived numerosity: A reply to Yousif, Clarke and Brannon","authors":"Frank H. Durgin","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105883","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105883","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><span><span>Yousif et al. (2024)</span></span> have raised a number of pertinent objections to the idea that number adaptation is a straightforward account of the readily-observable aftereffects that affect perceived numerosity. Their criticisms appear well-motivated, but their particular version of the old-news proposal, involving specific dots, may be insufficiently abstract given that adaptation accumulates. Two new experiments are presented that are meant to buttress their critique by (1) confirming their predictions concerning neutral adaptation, and (2) re-evaluating related claims concerning number vs. density comparisons that have been widely accepted. Present behavioral evidence dissociating effects of adapter size, adapter number and adapter density, supports the idea that density adaptation is implicated as a primary source of most phenomenologically-compelling aftereffects of perceived numerosity.</div><div>Experiment 2 was preregistered on <span><span>AsPredicted.org</span><svg><path></path></svg></span>. The pre-registration is available at the following link: <span><span>https://aspredicted.org/PC7_2ZB</span><svg><path></path></svg></span></div><div>The full raw data sets for the two experiments reported her are available on OSF at the following links:</div><div>Experiment 1: <span><span>https://osf.io/b9qwy/?view_only=73beb62d9c2046c3aa08cdeb96cd5cca</span><svg><path></path></svg></span></div><div>Experiment 2: <span><span>https://osf.io/6ax5j/?view_only=723ceb0b44da47dba99e56db12db02a9</span><svg><path></path></svg></span></div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"254 ","pages":"Article 105883"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142744570","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 : 2024-11-29DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106017
Nora Andermane , Arianna Moccia , Chong Zhai , Lisa M. Henderson , Aidan J. Horner
Episodic events are typically retrieved and forgotten holistically. If you recall one element (e.g., a person), you are more likely to recall other elements from the same event (e.g., the location), a pattern that is retained over time in the presence of forgetting. In contrast, representations of individual items, such as objects, may be less coherently bound, such that object features are forgotten at different rates and retrieval dependency decreases across delay. To test the theoretical prediction that forgetting qualitatively differs across levels in a representational hierarchy, we investigated the potential dissociation between event and item memory across five experiments. Participants encoded three-element events comprising images of famous people, locations, and objects. We measured retrieval accuracy and the dependency between the retrieval of event associations and object features, immediately after encoding and after various delays (5 h to 3 days). Across experiments, retrieval accuracy decreased for both events and objects over time, revealing forgetting. Retrieval dependency for event elements (i.e., people, locations, and objects) did not change over time, suggesting the holistic forgetting of events. Retrieval dependency for object features (i.e., state and colour) was more variable. Depending on encoding and delay conditions across the experiments, we observed both fragmentation and holistic forgetting of object features. Our results suggest that event representations remain coherent over time, whereas object representations can, but do not always, fragment. This provides support for our representational hierarchy framework of forgetting, however there are (still to be determined) boundary conditions in relation to the fragmentation of object representations.
{"title":"The holistic forgetting of events and the (sometimes) fragmented forgetting of objects","authors":"Nora Andermane , Arianna Moccia , Chong Zhai , Lisa M. Henderson , Aidan J. Horner","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106017","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106017","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Episodic events are typically retrieved and forgotten holistically. If you recall one element (e.g., a person), you are more likely to recall other elements from the same event (e.g., the location), a pattern that is retained over time in the presence of forgetting. In contrast, representations of individual items, such as objects, may be less coherently bound, such that object features are forgotten at different rates and retrieval dependency decreases across delay. To test the theoretical prediction that forgetting qualitatively differs across levels in a representational hierarchy, we investigated the potential dissociation between event and item memory across five experiments. Participants encoded three-element events comprising images of famous people, locations, and objects. We measured retrieval accuracy and the dependency between the retrieval of event associations and object features, immediately after encoding and after various delays (5 h to 3 days). Across experiments, retrieval accuracy decreased for both events and objects over time, revealing forgetting. Retrieval dependency for event elements (i.e., people, locations, and objects) did not change over time, suggesting the holistic forgetting of events. Retrieval dependency for object features (i.e., state and colour) was more variable. Depending on encoding and delay conditions across the experiments, we observed both fragmentation and holistic forgetting of object features. Our results suggest that event representations remain coherent over time, whereas object representations can, but do not always, fragment. This provides support for our representational hierarchy framework of forgetting, however there are (still to be determined) boundary conditions in relation to the fragmentation of object representations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"255 ","pages":"Article 106017"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142744997","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 : 2024-11-28DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106013
Olya Bulatova , Keisuke Fukuda
A growing body of literature suggests a powerful role of predictions on memory through prediction violation and prediction confirmation. Violation appears to enhance memory for the event violating the prediction, meanwhile, confirmation boosts memory for the predicted event instead. Crucially, however, the effect of prediction by itself has not been identified as it has typically been studied with its violation or confirmation. Here, we demonstrate the power of explicit predictions on memory by isolating it from its direct violation and confirmation. In a series of experiments, participants were presented with a real-world object along with three characters and they predicted which character the object belonged to. Upon prediction, participants received either visual confirmation (predicted character showing the item), visual rebuttal (another character showing the item) or no feedback (none of the characters showing the item) with regard to their prediction. When their memory was tested, participants were more likely to falsely remember that their predicted character showed them the item than the other characters did, even when no feedback was provided. This false memory was not eliminated by visual rebuttal and it was not weakened when participants had a strong item memory. Experiments 2–4 eliminated action (selecting a predicted character) as an alternative explanation and demonstrated that this prediction-based false memory could be modulated through indirect prediction confirmation and rebuttal. Taken together, our findings show that explicit predictions can be sufficient to induce false memory of predicted events that are robust enough to withstand its direct rebuttal.
{"title":"Prediction-based false memory: Unconfirmed prediction can result in robust false memories","authors":"Olya Bulatova , Keisuke Fukuda","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A growing body of literature suggests a powerful role of predictions on memory through prediction violation and prediction confirmation. Violation appears to enhance memory for the event violating the prediction, meanwhile, confirmation boosts memory for the predicted event instead. Crucially, however, the effect of prediction by itself has not been identified as it has typically been studied with its violation or confirmation. Here, we demonstrate the power of explicit predictions on memory by isolating it from its direct violation and confirmation. In a series of experiments, participants were presented with a real-world object along with three characters and they predicted which character the object belonged to. Upon prediction, participants received either visual confirmation (predicted character showing the item), visual rebuttal (another character showing the item) or no feedback (none of the characters showing the item) with regard to their prediction. When their memory was tested, participants were more likely to falsely remember that their predicted character showed them the item than the other characters did, even when no feedback was provided. This false memory was not eliminated by visual rebuttal and it was not weakened when participants had a strong item memory. Experiments 2–4 eliminated action (selecting a predicted character) as an alternative explanation and demonstrated that this prediction-based false memory could be modulated through indirect prediction confirmation and rebuttal. Taken together, our findings show that explicit predictions can be sufficient to induce false memory of predicted events that are robust enough to withstand its direct rebuttal.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"255 ","pages":"Article 106013"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142744996","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 : 2024-11-26DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106005
Jan Pfänder, Benoît De Courson, Hugo Mercier
Are people who agree on something more likely to be right and competent? Evidence suggests that people tend to make this inference. However, standard wisdom of crowds approaches only provide limited normative grounds. Using simulations and analytical arguments, we argue that when individuals make independent and unbiased estimates, under a wide range of parameters, individuals whose answers converge with each other tend to have more accurate answers and to be more competent. In 6 experiments (UK participants, total N = 1197), we show that participants infer that informants who agree have more accurate answers and are more competent, even when they have no priors, and that these inferences are weakened when the informants were systematically biased. In conclusion, we speculate that inferences from convergence to accuracy and competence might help explain why people deem scientists competent, even if they have little understanding of science.
{"title":"How wise is the crowd: Can we infer people are accurate and competent merely because they agree with each other?","authors":"Jan Pfänder, Benoît De Courson, Hugo Mercier","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Are people who agree on something more likely to be right and competent? Evidence suggests that people tend to make this inference. However, standard wisdom of crowds approaches only provide limited normative grounds. Using simulations and analytical arguments, we argue that when individuals make independent and unbiased estimates, under a wide range of parameters, individuals whose answers converge with each other tend to have more accurate answers and to be more competent. In 6 experiments (UK participants, total N = 1197), we show that participants infer that informants who agree have more accurate answers and are more competent, even when they have no priors, and that these inferences are weakened when the informants were systematically biased. In conclusion, we speculate that inferences from convergence to accuracy and competence might help explain why people deem scientists competent, even if they have little understanding of science.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"255 ","pages":"Article 106005"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142722554","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 : 2024-11-26DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105991
Kun Sun , Haitao Liu
In recent years, several influential computational models and metrics have been proposed to predict how humans comprehend and process sentence. One particularly promising approach is contextual semantic similarity. Inspired by the attention algorithm in Transformer and human memory mechanisms, this study proposes an “attention-aware” approach for computing contextual semantic relevance. This new approach takes into account the different contributions of contextual parts and the expectation effect, allowing it to incorporate contextual information fully. The attention-aware approach also facilitates the simulation of existing reading models and their evaluation. The resulting “attention-aware” metrics of semantic relevance can more accurately predict fixation durations in Chinese reading tasks recorded in an eye-tracking corpus than those calculated by existing approaches. The study’s findings further provide strong support for the presence of semantic preview benefits in Chinese naturalistic reading. Furthermore, the attention-aware metrics of semantic relevance, being memory-based, possess high interpretability from both linguistic and cognitive standpoints, making them a valuable computational tool for modeling eye-movements in reading and further gaining insight into the process of language comprehension. Our approach emphasizes the potential of these metrics to advance our understanding of how humans comprehend and process language.
{"title":"Attention-aware semantic relevance predicting Chinese sentence reading","authors":"Kun Sun , Haitao Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105991","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105991","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In recent years, several influential computational models and metrics have been proposed to predict how humans comprehend and process sentence. One particularly promising approach is contextual semantic similarity. Inspired by the attention algorithm in Transformer and human memory mechanisms, this study proposes an “attention-aware” approach for computing contextual semantic relevance. This new approach takes into account the different contributions of contextual parts and the expectation effect, allowing it to incorporate contextual information fully. The attention-aware approach also facilitates the simulation of existing reading models and their evaluation. The resulting “attention-aware” metrics of semantic relevance can more accurately predict fixation durations in Chinese reading tasks recorded in an eye-tracking corpus than those calculated by existing approaches. The study’s findings further provide strong support for the presence of semantic preview benefits in Chinese naturalistic reading. Furthermore, the attention-aware metrics of semantic relevance, being memory-based, possess high interpretability from both linguistic and cognitive standpoints, making them a valuable computational tool for modeling eye-movements in reading and further gaining insight into the process of language comprehension. Our approach emphasizes the potential of these metrics to advance our understanding of how humans comprehend and process language.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48455,"journal":{"name":"Cognition","volume":"255 ","pages":"Article 105991"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142722553","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 : 2024-11-23DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.106016
Ella Simmons, Susan A. Gelman
Generic statements (e.g., “Ducks lay eggs”) provide generalizations about kinds that can be judged as true, even in the face of exceptions. Although past research has focused on the positive evidence that justifies a generic, little work has explored the role of evidence that does not match the generic claim (e.g., ducks that do not lay eggs). The current studies aim to understand how different types of exceptions may differentially undermine generic claims. In Studies 1 and 2, adults (n = 560) and children ages 5–11 (n = 141) were asked to judge the truth of generic statements about fictitious animal kinds (e.g., Wugs have blue horns). Accompanying each statement was a set of 6 kind members, some of which displayed the target property (e.g., blue horns), and others of which displayed either an alternative property (e.g., red horns), or an absence of the property (e.g., no horns). Study 1 found that adults were less likely to endorse generic statements when non-matching examples displayed an alternative property than when they displayed an absence of the property. Study 2 indicated that children as well as adults were less likely to endorse generic statements when presented with alternative evidence, regardless of the salience of the alternative. Study 3 replicated these findings with a more sensitive task in which adults (n = 120) and children (n = 97) were asked to choose between sets with either alternative or absence evidence. These studies provide the first evidence that children and adults attend to non-matching evidence when making judgments about generic statements, interpret alternative evidence to be stronger counterevidence than absence evidence, and do not use the salience of alternative properties to determine the strength of alternative evidence. We discuss the implications of this work for problematic generic claims in language and thought.
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