bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Get the Picture? Goodness of Image Organization Contributes to Image Memorability
Authors: Goetschalckx Lore , Moors Pieter , Vanmarcke Steven , Wagemans Johan
Published: July 2018

This is a preprint. Please find the published and peer reviewed version of the paper here: https://www.journalofcognition.org/articles/10.5334/joc.80/. Images differ in their intrinsic memorability. The factors driving image memorability are not fully understood. Here, we hypothesized that memorability at least partly depends on goodness of image organization. Good organizations have been associated with fast, efficient processing and robustness against transformation (e.g., shrinking). Based on the main hypothesis, these characteristics would then also pertain to memorable images. Study 1 focused on fast processing and predicted that memorable images are easier to categorize rapidly, while Study 2 predicted that they survive a shrinking transformation better. We used real-life scene images of 14 semantic categories from a previous memorability study. Each image was assigned a “categorizability” and “shrinkability” score based on the average performance across participants on a rapid-scene categorization task (Study 1) and a thumbnail search task (Study 2), respectively. The predicted positive relation between categorizability and memorability was not observed. A post-hoc explanation attributed this null result to a masking role of image distinctiveness. In the thumbnail search task, memorable images were located faster, as predicted, but Study 2 could not rule out that this was merely a result of their distinctiveness. A third study quantified the images on distinctiveness and statistically controlled for this variable in a reanalysis of Study 1 and Study 2. When distinctiveness was controlled for, categorizability and memorability did show a significant positive correlation. Moreover, the results also argued against the alternative explanation of the results of Study 2. Taken together, the results support the hypothesis that goodness of organization contributes to image memorability.
Predicting Ideological Prejudice
Authors: Brandt Mark John
Published: July 2018

A major shortcoming of current models of ideological prejudice is that although they can anticipate the direction of the association between participants’ ideology and their prejudice against a range of target groups, they cannot predict the size of this association. I developed and tested models that can make specific size predictions. A quantitative model that used the perceived ideology of the target group as the primary predictor of the ideology-prejudice relationship was developed with a representative sample of Americans (N = 4,940) and tested against models using the perceived status of and choice to belong to the target group as predictors. In four studies (total N = 2,093), ideology-prejudice associations were estimated, and these observed estimates were compared with the models’ predictions. The model that was based only on perceived ideology was the most parsimonious with the smallest errors.
Competition all the way down: How children learn word order cues to sentence meaning
Authors: Rowland Caroline F , chan Angel , Noble Claire
Published: July 2018

Most work on competing cues in language acquisition has focussed on what happens when cues compete within a certain construction. There has been far less work on what happens when constructions themselves compete. The aim of the present chapter was to explore how the acquisition mechanism copes when constructions compete in a language. We present three experimental studies, all of which focus on the acquisition of the syntactic function of word order as a marker of the Theme-Recipient relation in ditransitives (form-meaning mapping). In Study 1 we investigated how quickly English children acquire form-meaning mappings when there are two competing structures in the language. We demonstrated that English speaking 4-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, correctly interpreted both prepositional and double object datives, assigning Theme and Recipient participant roles on the basis of word order cues. There was no advantage for the double object dative despite its greater frequency in child directed speech. In Study 2 we looked at acquisition in a language which has no dative alternation – Welsh – to investigate how quickly children acquire form-meaning mapping when there is no competing structure. We demonstrated that Welsh children (Study 2) acquired the prepositional dative at age 3 years, which was much earlier than English children. Finally, in Study 3 we examined bei2 (give) ditransitives in Cantonese, to investigate what happens when there is no dative alternation (as in Welsh), but when the child hears alternative, and possibly competing, word orders in the input. Like the English 3-year olds, the Cantonese 3-year-olds had not yet acquired the word order marking constraints of bei2 ditransitives. We conclude that there is not only competition between cues but competition between constructions in language acquisition. We suggest an extension to the competition model (Bates & MacWhinney, 1982) whereby generalisations take place across constructions as easily as they take place within constructions, whenever there are salient similarities to form the basis of the generalisation.
The transmission and stability of cultural life scripts: A cross-cultural study
Authors: Janssen Steve M. J.
Published: July 2018

Cultural life scripts are shared knowledge about the timing of important life events. In the present study, we examined whether cultural life scripts are transmitted through traditions and whether there are additional ways through which they can be attained by asking Australian and Malaysian participants which information sources they had used to generate the life script of their culture. Participants hardly reported that they had used cultural and religious traditions. They more often reported that they had used their own experiences and experiences of relatives and friends. They also reported the use of comments of relatives and friends and the use of newspapers, books, movies and television programs. Furthermore, we examined the stability of life scripts and similarities and differences across cultures. We found that life scripts are stable cognitive structures and that there are, besides cross-cultural differences in the content, small cross-cultural differences in the valence and distribution of life script events, with the Australian life script containing more positive events and more events expected to occur before the age of 16.
The list strength effect in source memory: Data and a global matching model
Authors: Osth Adam F , Fox Julian , McKague Meredith , Heathcote Andrew , Dennis Simon
Published: July 2018

A critical constraint on models of item recognition comes from the list strength paradigm, in which a proportion of items are strengthened to observe the effect on the non-strengthened items. In item recognition, it has been widely established that increasing list strength does not impair performance, in that performance of a set of items is unaffected by the strength of the other items on the list. However, to date the effects of list strength manipulations have not been measured in the source memory task. We conducted three source memory experiments where items studied in two sources were presented in a pure weak list, where all items were presented once, and a mixed list, where half of the items in both sources were presented four times. Each experiment varied the nature of the testing format. In Experiment 1, in which each study list was only tested on one task (item recognition or source memory), a list strength effect was found in source memory while a null effect was found for item recognition. Experiments 2 and 3 showed robust null list strength effects when either the test phase (Experiment 2) or the analysis (Experiment 3) was restricted to recognized items. An extension of the Osth and Dennis (2015) model was able to account for the results in both tasks in all experiments by assuming that unrecognized items elicit guess responses in the source memory task and that there was low interference among the studied items. The results were also found to be consistent with a variant of the retrieving effectively from memory model (REM; Shiffrin & Steyvers, 1997) that uses ensemble representations.
Association between sleep hygiene and sleep quality in medical students
Authors: Brick Cameron
Published: July 2018

The aim of the current study was to determine whether subjective sleep quality was reduced in medical students, and whether demographics and sleep hygiene behaviors were associated with sleep quality. A web-based survey was completed by 314 medical students, containing questions about demographics, sleep habits, exercise habits, caffeine, tobacco and alcohol use, and subjective sleep quality (using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index). Correlation and regression analyses tested for associations among demographics, sleep hygiene behaviors, and sleep quality. As hypothesized, medical students’ sleep quality was significantly worse than a healthy adult normative sample (t=5.13, p<.001). Poor sleep quality in medical students was predicted by several demographic and sleep hygiene variables, and future research directions are proposed.Brick, C., Seely, D. L., & Palermo, T. M. (2010). Association between sleep hygiene and sleep quality in medical students. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 8(2), 113–121. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15402001003622925
Trifurcated Model of Narcissism
Authors: Campbell William Keith , Miller Josh
Published: July 2018

This is a representation of the Trifurcated Model of Narcissism (TMN). This model visually shows how narcissism can be represented as one, two or three factors. This model is free to use under a CC license and includes a powerpoint slide can be modified for classroom or other used.
The role of salience in young children's processing of ad-hoc implicatures
Authors: Yoon Erica J. , Frank Michael C.
Published: July 2018

Language comprehension often requires making implicatures. For example, inferring that "I ate some of the cookies" implicates the speaker ate some but not all (scalar implicatures); and "I ate the chocolate-chip cookies" where there are both chocolate chip cookies and raisin cookies in the context implicates that the speaker ate the chocolate chip, but not both the chocolate chip and raisin cookies (ad-hoc implicatures). Children’s ability to make scalar implicatures develops around age five, with ad-hoc implicatures emerging somewhat earlier. In the current work, using a time-sensitive tablet paradigm, we examined developmental gains in children’s ad-hoc implicature processing, and found evidence for successful pragmatic inferences by children as young as 3 years in a supportive context and substantial developmental gains in inference computation from 2 to 5 years. We also tested whether one cause of younger children (2-year-olds)'s consistent failure to make pragmatic inferences is their difficulty in inhibiting an alternative interpretation that is more salient than the target meaning (the salience hypothesis). Our findings supported this hypothesis: Younger children’s failures with pragmatic inferences were related to effects of the salience mismatch between possible interpretations.
Robot-assisted line bisection test in virtual reality
Authors: Filbrich Lieve , Orban de Xivry Jean-Jacques , Verfaille Charlotte , Lefèvre Philippe , Legrain Valéry
Published: July 2018

There is growing evidence in the literature suggesting that sensori-motor deficits have a detrimental impact on cognitive abilities, such as the perception and representation of space. Most of the tasks classically used to assess spatial perception abilities after brain damage seem however not adequate to reveal potentially more discrete impairments in patients that are predominantly suffering from sensori-motor symptoms. To this aim we adapted the classic line bisection task in a virtual reality environment for the use with patients with upper-limb sensory-motor deficits. Here, we report the results from two pre-clinical experiments with healthy volunteers. Lines were projected horizontally on a semi-reflective mirror. Participants were asked to bisect the lines at their estimated midpoint by means of a robotic handle. Manipulated factors were the static hand, the position of the static hand (inside or outside of workspace), the visibility of the hands and the location of the lines. Results showed that participants neglected the most lateral part of the lines when they were projected distantly from the starting point. Bisection biases were in general more important when participants could see their hands. Additionally, participants took more time to initiate movements when they had to cover a short distance to reach the lines. We conclude that our robotic adaptation of the line bisection task was able to highlight subtle perceptual asymmetries in healthy individuals and that its use to reveal discrete cognitive deficits in patients with sensory-motor impairments seems therefore promising.
Has the evidence for moral licensing been inflated by publication bias?
Authors: Kuper Niclas , Bott Antonia
Published: July 2018

Moral licensing describes the phenomenon that displaying moral behavior can lead to subsequent immoral behavior. This is usually explained by the idea that an initial moral act affirms the moral self-image and hence licenses subsequent immoral acts. Previous meta-analyses on moral licensing indicate significant overall effects of d > .30. However, several large replication studies have either not found the effect or reported a substantially smaller effect size. The present article investigated whether this can be attributed to publication bias. Datasets from two previous meta-analyses on moral licensing were compared and when necessary modified. The larger dataset was used for the present analyses. Using PET-PEESE and a three-parameter-selection-model (3-PSM), we found some evidence for publication bias. The adjusted effect sizes were reduced to d = -.05, p = .64 and d = .18, p = .002, respectively. While the first estimate could be an underestimation, we also found indications that the second estimate might exaggerate the true effect size. It is concluded that both the evidence for and the size of moral licensing effects has likely been inflated by publication bias. Furthermore, our findings indicate that culture moderates the moral licensing effect. Recommendations for future meta-analytic and empirical work are given. Subsequent studies on moral licensing should be adequately powered and ideally pre-registered.
The psychology of rituals: An integrative review and process-based framework
Authors: Hobson Nicholas M , Schroeder Juliana , Risen Jane L , Xygalatas Dimitris , Inzlicht Michael
Published: July 2018

Traditionally, ritual has been studied from broad sociocultural perspectives, with little consideration of the psychological processes at play. Recently, however, psychologists have begun turning their attention to the study of ritual, uncovering the causal mechanisms driving this universal aspect of human behavior. With growing interest in the psychology of ritual, the current paper provides an organizing framework to understand recent empirical work from social psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience. Our framework focuses on three primary regulatory functions of rituals: regulation of (1) emotions, (2) performance goal states, and (3) social connection. We examine the possible mechanisms underlying each function by considering the bottom-up processes that emerge from the physical features of rituals and top-down processes that emerge from the psychological meaning of rituals. Our framework, by appreciating the value of psychological theory, generates novel predictions and enriches our understanding of ritual and human behavior more broadly.
Związek wysiłku fizycznego z odraczaniem wypłat finansowych
Authors: Bialek Michal
Published: July 2018

Zyski jak i straty zmieniają swoją subiektywną wartość wraz z rosnącym odroczeniem. Tempo tej zmiany, nazywane stopą dyskontową, określa impulsywność jednostki oraz pozwala przewidywać jej wybory, także finansowe. Badając sześćdziesiąt jeden osób przed i po ćwiczeniach fizycznych pokazaliśmy, że w wyniku wysiłku fizycznego ich stopa dyskontowa wyraźnie wzrosła. Obserwujemy zatem paradoksalny efekt wysiłku fizycznego, który – w świetle innych badań - długofalowo poprawia zdolności do samoregulacji i obniża stopę dyskontową, ale – w świetle naszych danych - krótkoterminowo przynosi dokładnie odwrotny efekt. Omawiamy wyniki w kontekście modeli samoregulacji (siłowego i zmęczeniowego) oraz alternatywnych modeli: zgeneralizowanej deprywacji, skojarzenia wysiłku z nagrodą i błędnej atrybucji.
Iconicity in word learning and beyond: A critical review
Authors: Nielsen Alan , Dingemanse Mark
Published: July 2018

Interest in iconicity (the resemblance-based mapping between aspects of form and meaning) is in the midst of a resurgence, and a prominent focus in the field has been the possible role of iconicity in language learning. Here we critically review theory and empirical findings in this domain. We distinguish local learning enhancement (where the iconicity of certain lexical items influences the learning of those items) and general learning enhancement (where the iconicity of certain lexical items influences the later learning of non-iconic items or systems). We find that evidence for local learning enhancement is quite strong, though not as clear cut as it is often described and based on a limited sample of languages. Despite common claims about broader facilitatory effects of iconicity on learning, we find that current evidence for general learning enhancement is lacking. We suggest a number of productive avenues for future research and specify what types of evidence would be required to show a role for iconicity in general learning enhancement. We also review evidence for functions of iconicity beyond word learning: iconicity enhances comprehension by providing complementary representations, supports communication about sensory imagery, and expresses affective meanings. Even if learning benefits may be modest or cross-linguistically varied, on balance, iconicity emerges as a vital aspect of language. Published as:Nielsen, Alan K. S. & Dingemanse, Mark. 2021. Iconicity in Word Learning and Beyond: A Critical Review. Language and Speech. 64(1). 52–72. (doi:10.1177/0023830920914339)
Language, thought, and real nouns
Authors: Barner David , Inagaki Shunji , Li Peggy
Published: July 2018

We test the claim that acquiring a mass-count language, like English,causes speakers to think differently about entities in the world, relativeto speakers of classifier languages like Japanese. We use three tasks toassess this claim: object-substance rating, quantity judgment, and wordextension. Using the first two tasks, we present evidence that learningmass-count syntax has little effect on the interpretation of familiar nounsbetween Japanese and English, and that speakers of these languages do notdivide up referents differently along an individuation continuum, asclaimed in some previous reports (Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001). Instead, weargue that previous cross-linguistic differences (Imai & Gentner, 1997) areattributable to “lexical statistics” (Gleitman & Papafragou, 2005).Speakers of English are more likely to think that a novel ambiguousexpression like “the blicket” refers to a kind of object (relative tospeakers of Japanese) because speakers of English are likely to assume that“blicket” is a count noun rather than a mass noun, based on the relativefrequency of each kind of word in English. This is confirmed by testingMandarin-English bilinguals with a word extension task. We find thatbilinguals tested in English with mass-count ambiguous syntax extend novelwords like English monolinguals (and assume that a word like “blicket”refers to a kind of object). In contrast, bilinguals tested in Mandarin aresignificantly more likely to extend novel words by material. Thus, onlinelexical statistics, rather than non-linguistic thought, mediate cross-linguistic differences in word extension. We suggest that speakers ofMandarin, English, and Japanese draw on a universal set of lexicalmeanings, and that mass-count syntax allows speakers of English to selectamong these meanings.
The Cognitive Processes Underlying Moral Judgment Across Development
Authors: Chalik Lisa , Van Bavel Jay Joseph , Rhodes Marjorie
Published: July 2018

Some moral philosophers have suggested that a basic prohibition against intentional harm ought to be at the core of moral belief systems across human societies. Yet, experimental work suggests that not all harm is created equal—people often respond more negatively to harm that occurs among fellow social group members, rather than between members of different groups. The present two studies investigated how concerns about social group membership factor into the moral judgment system. Adults (N = 111, Study 1) and children (N = 110, Study 2) evaluated instances of inter- and intra-group harm under varying levels of cognitive load. Both children and adults responded more slowly to intergroup harm than to intragroup harm. Furthermore, adults under cognitive load rated intergroup harm more leniently than intragroup harm, but adults who were not under load rated the two types of behaviors similarly. These findings suggest that across development, evaluations of intergroup harm rely more heavily on conscious deliberation than evaluations of intragroup harm. Thus, people's evaluations of harmful behaviors are made in light of information about the social category membership of the people involved.
Preprint of "Is Accurate, Positive, or Inflated Self-Perception Most Advantageous for Psychological Adjustment? A Competitive Test of Key Hypotheses"
Authors: Humberg Sarah , Dufner Michael , Schönbrodt Felix D. , Geukes Katharina , Hutteman Roos , Kuefner Albrecht , van Zalk Maarten , Denissen Jaap J. A. , Nestler Steffen , Back Mitja
Published: July 2018

Empirical research on the (mal-)adaptiveness of favorable self-perceptions, self-enhancement, and self-knowledge has typically applied a classical null-hypothesis testing approach and provided mixed and even contradictory findings. Using data from five studies (laboratory and field, total N = 2,823), we employed an information-theoretic approach combined with Response Surface Analysis to provide the first competitive test of six popular hypotheses: that more favorable self-perceptions are adaptive versus maladaptive (Hypotheses 1 and 2: Positivity of self-view hypotheses), that higher levels of self-enhancement (i.e., a higher discrepancy of self-viewed and objectively assessed ability) are adaptive versus maladaptive (Hypotheses 3 and 4: Self-enhancement hypotheses), that accurate self-perceptions are adaptive (Hypothesis 5: Self-knowledge hypothesis), and that a slight degree of self-enhancement is adaptive (Hypothesis 6: Optimal margin hypothesis). We considered self-perceptions and objective ability measures in two content domains (reasoning ability, vocabulary knowledge) and investigated six indicators of intra- and interpersonal psychological adjustment. Results showed that most adjustment indicators were best predicted by the positivity of self-perceptions, there were some specific self-enhancement effects, and evidence generally spoke against the self-knowledge and optimal margin hypotheses. Our results highlight the need for comprehensive simultaneous tests of competing hypotheses. Implications for the understanding of underlying processes are discussed.Humberg, S., Dufner, M., Schönbrodt, F. D., Geukes, K., Hutteman, R., Küfner, A. C. P., van Zalk, M. H. W., Denissen, J. J. A., Nestler, S., & Back, M. D. (2019). Is accurate, positive, or inflated self-perception most advantageous for psychological adjustment? A competitive test of key hypotheses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116(5), 835–859. doi:10.1037/pspp0000204
Deciding what to value and how to measure it: A psychological perspective
Authors: Buttliere Brett
Published: July 2018

Here we will focus on the problem of identifying good science from a psychological perspective, taking for granted that the people doing the science are human. The tendency to forget this is pointed out by Diener when he says, ‘I ask scholars to consider that the laws of psychology apply to them’ (p. 912, Diener, 2016).
Performing High-Powered Studies Efficiently With Sequential Analyses
Authors: Lakens Daniel
Published: July 2018

Running studies with high statistical power, while effect size estimates in psychology are often inaccurate, leads to a practical challenge when designing an experiment. This challenge can be addressed by performing sequential analyses while the data collection is still in progress. At an interim analysis, data collection can be stopped whenever the results are convincing enough to conclude an effect is present, more data can be collected, or the study can be terminated whenever it is extremely unlikely the predicted effect will be observed if data collection would be continued. Such interim analyses can be performed while controlling the Type 1 error rate. Sequential analyses can greatly improve the efficiency with which data is collected. Additional flexibility is provided by adaptive designs where sample sizes are increased based on the observed effect size. The need for pre-registration, ways to prevent experimenter bias, and a comparison between Bayesian approaches and NHST are discussed. Sequential analyses, which are widely used in large scale medical trials, provide an efficient way to perform high-powered informative experiments. I hope this introduction will provide a practical primer that allows researchers to incorporate sequential analyses in their research.
Rediscovering Tomkins’ Polarity Theory: Humanism, Normativism, and the Psychological Basis of Left-Right Ideological Conflict in the U.S. and Sweden
Authors: Nilsson Artur , Jost John
Published: July 2018

According to Silvan Tomkins’ polarity theory, ideological thought is universally structured by a clash between two opposing worldviews. On the left, a humanistic worldview seeks to uphold the intrinsic value of the person; on the right, a normative worldview holds that human worth is contingent upon conformity to rules. In this article, we situate humanism and normativism within the context of contemporary models of political ideology as a function of motivated social cognition, beliefs about the social world, and personality traits. In four studies conducted in the U.S. and Sweden, normativism was robustly associated with rightist (or conservative) self-placement; conservative issue preferences; resistance to change and acceptance of inequality; right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation; system justification and its underlying epistemic and existential motives to reduce uncertainty and threat; and a lack of openness, emotionality, and honesty-humility. Humanism exhibited the opposite relations to most of these constructs, but it was largely unrelated to epistemic and existential needs. Humanism was strongly associated with preferences for equality, openness to change, and low levels of authoritarianism, social dominance, and general and economic system justification. We conclude that polarity theory possesses considerable potential to explain how conflicts between worldviews shape contemporary politics.
Bayesian Hierarchical Finite Mixture Models of Reading Times: A Case Study
Authors: Vasishth Shravan , Nicenboim Bruno , Chopin Nicolas , Ryder Robin
Published: July 2018

We present a case study demonstrating the importance of Bayesian hierarchical mixture models as a modelling tool for evaluating the predictions of competing theories of cognitive processes. As a case study, we revisit two published data sets from psycholinguistics. In sentence comprehension, it is widely assumed that the distance between linguistic co-dependents affects the latency of dependency resolution: the longer the distance, the longer the time taken to complete the dependency (e.g., Gibson 2000). An alternative theory, direct access (McElree, 1993), assumes that retrieval times are a mixture of two distributions (Nicenboim & Vasishth, 2017): one distribution represents successful retrievals and the other represents an initial failure to retrieve the correct dependent, followed by a reanalysis that leads to successful retrieval. Here, dependency distance has the effect that in long-distance conditions the proportion of reanalyses is higher. We implement both theories as Bayesian hierarchical models and show that the direct-access model fits the Chinese relative clause reading time data better than the dependency-distance account. This work makes several novel contributions. First, we demonstrate how the researcher can reason about the underlying generative process of their data, thereby expressing the underlying cognitive process as a statistical model. Second, we show how models that have been developed in an exploratory manner to represent different underlying generative processes can be compared in terms of their predictive performance, using both K-fold cross validation on existing data, and using completely new data. Finally, we show how the models can be evaluated using simulated data.
Ukrainian culture: individualism or collectivism?
Authors: Borysenko Leonid
Published: July 2018

This short review deals with the problem of individualistic/collectivistic orientation in the Ukrainian population. It is thought that individualism is a striking feature of the Ukrainian national character. This was repeatedly stressed by some distinguished Ukrainian thinkers. Many interesting examples of individualistic behavior can also be found in Ukrainian proverbs and sayings. At the same time, some authors argued for deep collectivistic roots of the Ukrainian culture. Researches that have used quantitative approaches to measure individualism-collectivism, have also produced mixed conclusions. The reasons for these discrepancies are discussed.
ALIGN: Analyzing Linguistic Interactions with Generalizable techNiques - a Python Library
Authors: Duran Nicholas , Paxton Alexandra , Fusaroli Riccardo
Published: July 2018

Linguistic alignment (LA) is the tendency during a conversation to re-use each other’s linguistic expressions, including lexical, conceptual, or syntactic structures. LA is often argued to be a crucial driver in reciprocal understanding and interpersonal rapport, though its precise dynamics and effects are still controversial. One barrier to more systematic investigation of these effects lies in the diversity in the methods employed to analyze LA, which makes it difficult to integrate and compare results of individual studies. To overcome this issue, we have developed ALIGN (Analyzing Linguistic Interactions with Generalizable techNiques), an open-source Python package to measure LA in conversation (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/align) along with in-depth open-source tutorials hosted on ALIGN’s GitHub repository (https://github.com/nickduran/align-linguistic-alignment). Here, we first describe the challenges in the study of LA and outline how ALIGN can address them. We then demonstrate how our analytical protocol can be applied to theory-driven questions using a complex corpus of dialogue (the Devil’s Advocate corpus; Duran & Fusaroli, 2017). We close by identifying further challenges and point to future developments of the field.
Compositionality and Statistics in Adjective Acquisition: 4-year-olds Interpret Tall and Short Based on the Size Distributions of Novel Noun Referents
Authors: Barner David , Snedeker Jesse
Published: July 2018

We investigated 4-year-olds’ understanding of adjective/nouncompositionality and their sensitivity to statistics when interpretingscalar adjectives. In Experiments 1 and 2, children selected tall andshort itemsfrom nine novel objects called pimwits (1-9” in height), or from this arrayplus four taller or shorter distractor objects of the same kind. Changingthe height distributions of the sets shifted children’s judgments of whatcounted as tall and short. However, when distractors differed in name andsurface features from targets, in Experiment 3, judgments did not shift. InExperiment 4, dissimilar distractors did affect judgments when theyreceived the same name as targets. We conclude that 4-year-olds deploy acompositional semantics that is sensitive to statistics and mediated bylinguistic labels.
Controlling implicit bias: Insights from a public health perspective
Authors: Forscher Patrick S. , Devine Patricia G.
Published: July 2018

Research on reducing or controlling implicit bias has been characterized by a tension between the two goals of reducing lingering intergroup disparities and gaining insight into human cognition. The tension between these two goals has created two distinct research traditions, each of which is characterized by different research questions, methods, and ultimate goals. We argue that the divisions between these research traditions are more apparent than real and that the two research traditions could be synergistic. We attempt to integrate the two traditions by arguing that implicit bias, and the disparities it is presumed to cause, is a public health problem. Based on this perspective, we identify shortcomings in our current knowledge of controlling implicit bias and provide a set of recommendations for future research.
Subtle Priming of Shared Human Experiences Eliminates Threat-Induced Negativity Toward Arabs, Immigrants, and Peace-making
Authors: Motyl Matt , Hart Joshua , Weise David , Maxfield Molly
Published: July 2018

Many studies demonstrate that mortality salience can increase negativity toward outgroups butfew have examined variables that mitigate this effect. The present research examined whethersubtly priming people to think of human experiences shared by people from diverse culturesincreases perceived similarity of members of different groups, which then reduces MS-inducednegativity toward outgroups. In Study 1, exposure to pictures of people from diverse culturesengaged in common human activities non-significantly reversed the effect of MS on implicitanti-Arab prejudice. In Study 2, thinking about similarities between one’s own favoritechildhood memories and those of people from other countries eliminated MS-induced explicitnegative attitudes toward immigrants. In Study 3, thinking about similarities between one’s ownpainful childhood memories and those of people from other countries eliminated the MS-inducedreduction in support for peace-making. Mediation analyses suggest the effects were driven byperceived similarity of people across cultures. These findings suggest that priming widely sharedhuman experiences can attenuate MS-induced intergroup conflict.
Recognition Memory Shielded from Semantic but not Perceptual Interference in Normal Aging
Authors: Sanders D. Merika W. , Potter Kevin , Cowell Rosemary
Published: July 2018

Normal aging impairs long-term declarative memory, and evidence suggests that this impairment may be driven partly by structural or functional changes in the medial temporal lobe (MTL). Theories of MTL memory function therefore make predictions for age-related memory loss. One theory – the Representational-Hierarchical account – makes two specific predictions. First, recognition memory in older participants should be impaired by feature-level interference, in which studied items contain many shared perceptual features such that those features appear repeatedly. Second, if the interference in a recognition memory task – i.e., the information that repeats across items – resides at a higher level of complexity than simple perceptual features, such as semantic gist, older adults should be less impacted by such interference than young adults. We tested these predictions using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm, by creating feature-level (i.e., perceptual) interference with phonemically/orthographically related word categories, and higher-level associative interference with semantically related word categories. Importantly, we manipulated category size in order to compare the effect of less versus more interference (i.e., small versus large category size), which served to (1) avoid potential item confounds arising from systematic differences between words belonging to perceptually- versus semantically-related categories, and (2) ensure that any effect of interference was due to information encoded at study, rather than pre-experimentally. Further, we used signal detection theory to interpret our data, rather than examining false alarm rates in isolation, thereby avoiding potentially confounding contamination of the memory measure by changes in response bias across conditions or groups. Older participants, relative to young adults, were relatively more impaired by perceptual interference and less impaired by semantic interference. This pattern seems at odds with many current theories of age-related memory loss, but is in line with the Representational-Hierarchical account.
Seeing minds in others: Mind perception modulates social-cognitive performance and relates to ventromedial prefrontal structures
Authors: Wiese Eva , Buzzell George , Abubshait Abdulaziz , Beatty Paul
Published: July 2018

In social interactions, we rely on nonverbal cues like gaze direction to understand the behavior of others. How we react to these cues is affected by whether they are believed to originate from an entity with a mind, capable of having internal states (i.e., mind perception). While prior work has established a set of neural regions linked to social-cognitive processes like mind perception, the degree to which activation within this network relates to performance in subsequent social-cognitive tasks remains unclear. In the current study, participants performed a mind perception task (i.e. judging the likelihood that faces, varying in physical human-likeness, have internal states) while event-related fMRI was collected. Afterwards, participants performed a social-cognitive task outside the scanner, during which they were cued by the gaze of the same faces that they previously judged within the mind perception task. Parametric analyses of the fMRI data revealed activity within ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) to be related to both mind ratings inside the scanner and gaze-cueing performance outside the scanner. In addition, other social brain regions were related to gaze-cueing performance, including frontal areas like the left insula, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus, as well as temporal areas like the left temporo-parietal junction and bilateral temporal gyri. The findings suggest that functions subserved by the vmPFC are relevant to both mind perception and social attention, implicating a role of vmPFC in the top-down modulation of low-level social-cognitive processes.
Korte inleiding in gedragsverandering
Authors: Peters Gjalt - Jorn Ygram , Crutzen Rik
Published: July 2018

This is a Dutch text with an accessible introduction to the dynamics of behavior change, originally written for MAMDT students of the Hogeschool Zuyd for their Party Panel project.
Psychological Distance Promotes Exploration in Search of a Global Maximum
Authors: Yudkin Daniel Alexander
Published: July 2018

Agents must sometimes decide whether to exploit a known resource or search for potentially more profitable options. Here, we investigate the role of psychological distancing in promoting exploratory behavior. We argue that exploration dilemmas pit the value of a reward (“desirability”) against the difficulty or uncertainty of obtaining it (“feasibility”). Based on construal level theory, which suggests that psychological distance increases the importance of rewards’ desirability (versus feasibility), we expect that psychological distance will increase exploration. Two pretests and three experiments support this prediction. Pretests A and B confirm that exploration dilemmas conform to the feasibility/desirability decision structure. In Experiment 1, participants who were prompted to consider an exploration game from a physically distanced perspective were more likely to leave a local maximum in search of a global maximum. Experiments 2 and 3 show that social distance has similar results. Experiment 4 finds evidence of a direct association between construal mindset and exploration. Overall, this research highlights how psychological distancing strategies can promote exploration.
Caloric Primary Rewards Systematically Alter Time Perception
Authors: Fung Bowen John , Murawski Carsten , Bode Stefan
Published: July 2018

Human time perception can be influenced by contextual factors, such as the presence of reward. Yet, the exact nature of the relationship between time perception and reward has not been conclusively characterized. We implemented a novel experimental paradigm to measure estimations of time across a range of suprasecond intervals, during the anticipation and after the consumption of fruit juice, a physiologically relevant primary reward. We show that average time estimations were systematically affected by the consumption of reward, but not by the anticipation of reward. Compared with baseline estimations of time, reward consumption was associated with subsequent overproductions of time, and this effect increased for larger magnitudes of reward. Additional experiments demonstrated that the effect of consumption did not extend to a secondary reward (money), a tasteless, noncaloric primary reward (water), or a sweet, noncaloric reward (aspartame). However, a tasteless caloric reward (maltodexrin) did induce overproductions of time, although this effect did not scale with reward magnitude. These results suggest that the consumption of caloric primary rewards can alter time perception, which may be a psychophysiological mechanism by which organisms regulate homeostatic balance.
The Status Competition Model of Cultural Production
Authors: Winegard Bo M , Winegard Ben M , Geary David C. , Clark Cory J
Published: July 2018

Humans create many apparently functionless artifacts such as paintings, novels, poems, films, and decorative blankets. From an evolutionary perspective, such creations appear somewhat puzzling. Why create artifacts that do not appear to contribute to survival? One recent explanation, the cultural courtship model, argued that such creations are used to signal genetic health to the other sex. In this way, cultural creators are potentially rewarded with higher quality mates. We propose an alternative (but not completely contradictory) model, the status competition model of cultural production, which argues that cultural displays often, but not exclusively, signal the possession of important cultural competencies to others in a coalition. Cultural creators are recompensed with prestige, which they can use to secure mates or invest in their kin and lineage. We examine evidence for and against these models, and conclude that the status competition model can better explain cultural production than current theory.
[Working Paper] Deception predicts replication failure in OSC Reproducibility Project
Authors: Galang Adrianne John R.
Published: July 2018

Describes preliminary analysis using the data from the Open Science Collaboration's Reproducibility Project (2015). After coding the studies as to whether deception was a feature of their procedures, it is shown that replications that involved deception had an 89% probability of not being replicated, as opposed to the 63% failure rate of studies that did not involve deception. This result will be part of a larger project exploring the nature of experimental deception as a scientific technique.
Avoidant and Defensive: Adult Attachment and Quality of Apologies
Authors: Schumann Karina , Orehek Edward
Published: July 2018

After committing an offense, transgressors face an important decision regarding how to respond to the people they hurt. Do they make themselves emotionally vulnerable by offering high-quality, comprehensive apologies? Or do they seek to protect themselves with defensive strategies, such as justifications and excuses? In two studies, we examined the link between attachment styles and apology quality. We hypothesized that because people high in attachment avoidance are uncomfortable with emotional vulnerability and tend to defensively disengage from emotional aspects of relationships, they would offer less comprehensive and more defensive apologies. In Study 1, participants imagined hurting a friend and then rated their likelihood of using each of eight apology elements and five defensive strategies. In Study 2, participants wrote a real email to a person they had hurt. Our prediction was supported in both studies, suggesting that attachment avoidance plays an important role in how transgressors manage their offenses.
Children balance theories and evidence in exploration, explanation, and learning.
Authors: Bonawitz Elizabeth , Schulz Laura , van Schijndel Tessa J.P. , Friel Daniel
Published: July 2018

We look at the effect of evidence and prior beliefs on exploration, explanation and learning. In Experiment 1, we tested children both with and without differential prior beliefs about balance relationships (Center Theorists, mean: 82 months; Mass Theorists, mean: 89 months; No Theory children, mean: 62 months). Center and Mass Theory children who observed identical evidence explored the block differently depending on their beliefs. When the block was balanced at its geometric center (belief-violating to a Mass Theorist, but belief-consistent to a Center Theorist), Mass Theory children explored the block more, and Center Theory children showed the standard novelty preference; when the block was balanced at the center of mass, the pattern of results reversed. The No Theory children showed a novelty preference regardless of evidence. In Experiments 2 and 3, we follow-up on these findings, showing that both Mass and Center Theorists selectively and differentially appeal to auxiliary variables (e.g., a magnet) to explain evidence only when their beliefs are violated. We also show that children use the data to revise their predictions in the absence of the explanatory auxiliary variable but not in its presence. Taken together, these results suggest that children’s learning is at once conservative and flexible; children integrate evidence, prior beliefs, and competing causal hypotheses in their exploration, explanation, and learning.