bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Multiple states in visual working memory: Evidence from oculomotor capture by memory-matching distractors
Authors: Beck Valerie , Vickery Timothy J.
Published: July 2018

Visual working memory (VWM) representations interact with attentional guidance, but there is controversy over whether multiple VWM items simultaneously influence attentional guidance. Extant studies relied on continuous variables like response times, which can obscure capture – especially if VWM representations cycle through interactive and non-interactive states. We employed an oculomotor paradigm to characterize discrete attentional capture events under both high and low VWM load. Participants held one or two colors in memory, then executed a saccade to a target disk. On some trials, a distractor (sometimes VWM-matching) appeared simultaneous with the target. Eye movements were more frequently directed to a VWM-matching than a non-matching distractor for both load conditions. However, oculomotor capture by a VWM-matching distractor occurred less frequently (by approximately half) under high compared with low load. These results suggest that, without task demands to maintain both, one VWM item is held in an active state at a time.
Defining social class across time and between groups
Authors: cohen dov , Shin Faith , Liu Xi , Ondish Pete , Kraus Michael W.
Published: July 2018

We examined changes over four decades and between ethnic groups in how people define their social class. Changes included: the increasing importance of income; decreasing importance of occupational prestige; and the demise of the “Victorian bargain,” in which poor people who subscribed to conservative sexual and religious norms could think of themselves as middle-class. The period also saw changes (among Whites) and continuity (among Black Americans) in subjective-status perceptions. For Whites (and particularly poor Whites), their perceptions of enhanced social class were greatly reduced. Poor Whites now view their social class as slightly but significantly lower than their poor Black and Latino counterparts. For Black respondents, a caste-like understanding of social class persisted, as they continued to view their class-standing as relatively independent of their achieved education, income, and occupation. Such achievement indicators, however, predicted Black respondents’ self-esteem more than they predicted self-esteem for any other group.
A People-As-Means Approach to Interpersonal Relationships
Authors: Orehek Edward , Forest Amanda Lynn
Published: July 2018

Interpersonal relationships and goal pursuit are intimately interconnected. In the present paper, we present a people-as-means perspective on relationships. According to this perspective, people serve as means to goals—helping other people to reach their goals in a variety of ways, such as by contributing their time, lending their knowledge, skills, and resources, and providing emotional support and encouragement. Because people serve as means to goals, we propose that considering relationship processes in terms of the principles of goal pursuit can provide novel and important insights into the ways that people think, feel, and behave in these interpersonal contexts. We describe the principles of means-goals relations, review evidence for each principle involving people as means, and discuss implications of our approach for relationship formation, maintenance, and dissolution.
In-lab Replication of Saffran, Newport, & Aslin (1996) Word segmentation:The role of distributional cues, Exp. 1
Authors: Hartshorne Joshua K. , Skorb Lauren
Published: July 2018

These are the results for an in-lab replication of Saffran, Newport, & Aslin (1996) Word segmentation: The role of distributional cues, Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 606-621. This replication follows an online replication of the same experiment (Hartshorne 2017, Replication of Saffran, Newport, & Aslin (1996) Word segmentation: The role of distributional cues, Exp. 1. PsyArXiv doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/E5C64).
Spatial Metaphor and the Development of Cross-Domain Mappings in Early Childhood
Authors: Starr Ariel , Srinivasan Mahesh
Published: July 2018

Spatial language is often used metaphorically to describe other domains, including time (long sound) and pitch (high sound). How does experience with these metaphors shape the ability to associate space with other domains? Here, we tested 3- to 6-year-old English-speaking children and adults with a cross-domain matching task. We probed cross-domain relations that are expressed in English metaphors for time and pitch (length-time and height-pitch), as well asrelations that are unconventional in English but expressed in other languages (size-time and thickness-pitch). Participants were tested with a perceptual matching task, in which theymatched between spatial stimuli and sounds of different durations or pitches, and a linguistic matching task, in which they matched between a label denoting a spatial attribute, duration, or pitch, and a picture or sound representing another dimension. Contrary to previous claims thatexperience with linguistic metaphors is necessary for children to make cross-domain mappings, children performed above chance for both familiar and unfamiliar relations in both tasks, as did adults. Children’s performance was also better when a label was provided for one of thedimensions, but only when making length-time, size-time, and height-pitch mappings (not thickness-pitch mappings). These findings suggest that, although experience with metaphorical language is not necessary to make cross-domain mappings, labels can promote these mappings,both when they have familiar metaphorical uses (e.g., English ‘long’ denotes both length and duration), and when they describe dimensions that share a common ordinal reference frame (e.g., size and duration, but not thickness and pitch).
Behavioral models in psychopathology: Epistemic and semantic considerations
Authors: Maximino Caio , van der Staay Franz Josef
Published: July 2018

The use of animals in neurosciences has a long history. It is considered indispensable in areas in which “translational” research is deemed invaluable, such as behavioral pharmacology and comparative psychology. Animal models are being used in pharmacology and genetics to screen for treatment targets, and in the field of experimental psychopathology to understand the neurobehavioral underpinnings of a disorder and of its putative treatment. The centrality of behavioral models betrays the complexity of the epistemic and semantic considerations which are needed to understand what a model is. In this review, such considerations are made, and the breadth of model building and evaluation approaches is extended to include theoretical considerations on the etiology of mental disorders. This expansion is expected to help improve the validity of behavioral models and to increase their translational value. Moreover, the role of theory in improving construct validity creates the need for behavioral scientists to fully engage this process.
Evidence from hunter-gatherer and subsistence agricultural populations for the universality of contagion sensitivity
Authors: Apicella Coren Lee , Rozin Paul , Busch Justin Thomas Albert , Watson-Jones Rachel , Legare Cristine
Published: July 2018

The phenomenon of magical contagion – the unobserved passage of properties between entitiesthat come into physical contact – was described by anthropologists over a century ago, yetquestions remain about its origin, function, and universality. Contagion sensitivity, along withthe emotion of disgust, have been proposed to be part of a biologically-evolved system designedto reduce exposure to pathogens by increasing the avoidance of “contaminated” objects. Yet thisphenomenon has not been studied using systematic psychological comparison outside ofindustrialized populations. Here we document contagion sensitivity in two culturally,geographically, and economically distinct populations with little exposure to Westernbiomedicine and formal education: the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania and Tannesesubsistence-agriculturalists of Vanuatu. In both populations, a majority of individuals rejectedfamiliar and palatable foods when contaminating items touched the food but were subsequentlyremoved. The Tannese children in our study showed a similar response, consistent with previousresearch with Western children. Our data support the proposal that contagion sensitivity isuniversal in human populations.
Open Science is Robust Science
Authors: McAbee Samuel T. , Grubbs Joshua B. , Zickar Michael J.
Published: July 2018

The present work represents a commentary response to Grand and colleagues' (2017) work calling for a more robust science in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. The present work details how open science as a movement and the Open Science Framework can facilitate the excellent recommendations made by Grand and colleagues.
Preprint of "Response Surface Analysis in Personality and Social Psychology: Checklist and Clarifications for the Case of Congruence Hypotheses"
Authors: Humberg Sarah , Nestler Steffen , Back Mitja
Published: July 2018

Response Surface Analysis (RSA) enables researchers to test complex psychological effects, for example, whether the congruence of two psychological constructs is associated with higher values in an outcome variable. RSA is increasingly applied in the personality and social psychological literature, but the validity of published results has been challenged by some persistent oversimplifications and misconceptions. Here, we describe the mathematical fundamentals required to interpret RSA results, and we provide a checklist for correctly identifying congruence effects. We clarify two prominent fallacies by showing that the test of a single RSA parameter cannot indicate a congruence effect, and when there is a congruence effect, RSA cannot indicate whether a predictor mismatch in one direction (e.g., overestimation of one’s intelligence) is better or worse than a mismatch in the other direction (underestimation). We hope that this contribution will further enhance the validity and strength of empirical studies that apply this powerful approach.Humberg, S., Nestler, S., & Back, M. D. (2019). Response Surface Analysis in Personality and Social Psychology: Checklist and Clarifications for the Case of Congruence Hypotheses. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(3), 409–419. doi:10.1177/1948550618757600The journal version of this article can be found at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550618757600
Is crossed laterality associated with academic achievement and intelligence? A systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Ferrero Marta , West Gillian , Vadillo Miguel A.
Published: July 2018

Over the last century, sporadic research has suggested that people whose hand, eye, foot, or ear dominances are not consistently right- or left-sided are at special risk of suffering academic difficulties. This phenomenon is known as crossed laterality. Although the bulk of this research dates from 1960’s and 1970’s, crossed laterality is becoming increasingly popular in the area of school education, driving the creation of several interventions aimed at restoring or consolidating lateral dominance. However, the available evidence is fragmentary. To determine the impact of crossed laterality on academic achievement and intelligence, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of articles published since 1900. The inclusion criteria for the review required that studies used one or more lateral preference tasks for at least two specific parts of the body; they included a valid measure of crossed laterality; they measured the impact of crossed laterality on academic achievement or intelligence; and they included participants between 3 and 17 years old. The final sample included 26 articles that covered a total population of 3578 children aged 5 to 12. Taken collectively, the results of these studies do not support the claim that there is a reliable association between crossed laterality and either academic achievement or intelligence. Along with this, we detected important shortcomings in the literature, such as considerable heterogeneity among the variables used to measure laterality and among the tasks utilized to measure the outcomes. The educational implications of these results are discussed.
An analysis of the Canadian cognitive psychology job market (2006-2016)
Authors: Pennycook Gordon , Thompson Valerie A
Published: July 2018

How accomplished does one need to be in order to be competitive on the Canadian cognitive psychology job market? We looked at the publication record of everyone who was hired as an Assistant Professor in Canadian cognitive psychology divisions with PhD programs between 2006 and 2016 (N = 64). Individuals who were hired from 2006-2011 averaged 10 journal article publications up to and including the year that they were hired. However, this increased by 57% to 18 publications by 2012-2016. Notably, this increase (a) occurred despite an increase in the number of positions since 2010, (b) was not restricted to top-ranked institutions, (c) did not come at the cost of decreasing quality in research (based on citations), and (d) was not driven by longer postdoctoral fellowships. To supply context, we obtained data on the publication records of 98 eminent and early career award winning cognitive psychologists when they obtained their first faculty position. The correlation between year of hire and publication number in the full sample was strongly positive (r = .47) and driven primarily by a substantial increase in recent years. This suggests that the increasingly competitive job market is not specific to Canada. Finally, we found that behavioural (as opposed to neuroscience) researchers and those who obtained their PhD from Canadian universities may be at particular risk in the job market. At a time when increasing numbers of PhDs are graduating from cognitive psychology programs, it has likely never been more difficult to obtain a faculty position.
Personalizing Practice using Preferences for Meditation Anchor Modality
Authors: Anderson Thomas , Farb Norman A. S.
Published: July 2018

Many new people are engaging contemplative practices and Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) have become quite popular. While MBIs positively impact well-being, drop-out and lack of practice-maintenance plagues these interventions, which use the breath to anchor attention. No study had yet compared preferences for practices using anchors from different sensory modalities (e.g. auditory, visual) thus the present study examined such individual differences, sharing resources on the OSF (osf.io/hcnz2/). Participants engaged 10-min practices within three modalities (somatosensory, auditory, visual) and post-practice preferences were modelled. Preference differences did exist: 49% preferred the breath, 30% the auditory-phrase, and 21% the visual-image. Pre-practice motivation and anchor-modality were primary predictors and cardiac responses also influenced preference. Preferences were updated through experience and over half of participants left the experiment preferring a different anchor than when entering. Tangible next-steps are discussed, including integrating additional anchor modalities into existing interventions by offering brief practices with a variety of anchors. Suggestions are made for increasing post-training contact using email-automation to answer central practice-maintenance questions, including whether and which contemplative benefits are predicated on continued practice.
Irony processing in Adolescents: an ERP study
Authors: Symeonidou Irene , Dumontheil Iroise , Chow Wing Yee , Breheny Richard
Published: July 2018

Irony comprehension requires complex inferences about a speaker’s mind. Behavioural data indicates that while children between ages 6-10 begin to show some appreciation of the communicative intent in an ironic remark, full appreciation of speaker attitude might be developing beyond middle childhood and into adolescence. Additionally, recent findings suggest that the online use of Theory of Mind (ToM) shows a prolonged development through late childhood and adolescence. We provide ERP evidence that suggests that the two age-groups process irony differently and engage different cognitive mechanisms. This is the first study to investigate figurative language comprehension in adolescents through ERPs.
Robust neurocognitive individual differences in grammatical agreement processing: A latent variable approach
Authors: Tanner Darren
Published: July 2018

Many neurocognitive accounts of language processing presume that neural responses detected in grand mean analyses of cortical electrophysiological activity reflect the normative brain response in the population under investigation. However, emerging work now shows that individuals’ brain responses can vary systematically in both the size and type of effect elicited. The present research therefore examined individual differences in neural activity elicited by grammatical agreement anomalies during language comprehension in a large cohort of highly literate, monolingual English speakers (N = 114), a population generally assumed to be relatively homogenous in terms of linguistic knowledge and processing. Results showed systematic variability in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by subject-verb agreement anomalies, with brain responses varying on a continuum between N400 and P600 dominant responses. Similar variation was found both when agreement was realized via inflectional morphology or via lexical alternations. Individuals’ brain response type correlated strongly across these two conditions. Similar variation was also found for ERPs elicited during rapid serial visual presentation and when self-paced ERPs were recorded. Multilevel latent variable regression showed that variation in brain response amplitude and type was not related to individual differences in language experience or verbal working memory capacity, despite high statistical power. These findings indicate that descriptions of processing dynamics predicated solely on grand mean analyses of central tendency can fail to provide an accurate, generalizable account of how processing unfolds in many or most individual members of the population studied. Furthermore, these findings show that systematic individual variation in engagement of neural system supporting grammatical processing is found even in language users at the highest end of the proficiency spectrum and in grammatically simple sentences. This study therefore has implications for studies of language processing in atypical populations.
Neighbourhood characteristics at birth and positive and negative psychotic symptoms in adolescence: findings from the ALSPAC birth cohort
Authors: Solmi Francesca , Lewis Glyn , Kirkbride James Bowes
Published: July 2018

Objective: Urban birth is associated with risk of non-affective psychoses. While emerging evidence suggests that this association is also apparent for subclinical positive psychotic phenomena in the general population, few studies have considered which specific aspects of the urban environment predict risk, or whether these factors also increase the likelihood of negative symptoms. Method: Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, linked to census geographical indicators, we examined whether population density, deprivation, inequality, and social fragmentation at birth were associated with negative and positive psychotic symptoms at age 16 and 18 years, respectively. We used logistic regression models, controlling for child’s ethnicity, maternal age, education, marital status, social class, depressive symptoms, other neighbourhood exposures, and, in sensitivity analyses, polygenic risk scores (PRS) for schizophrenia in a sub-sample of children of white ethnicity (N=10,283). Results: Amongst 11,879 adolescents, those born in the most densely populated tertile had greater odds of reporting positive psychotic experiences, after multivariable adjustment (odds ratio (OR): 1.57, 95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.14 – 2.17). Adolescents born in the most socially fragmented neighbourhoods had greater odds of negative symptoms, after multivariable adjustment (OR: 1.43, 95%CI: 1.06 – 1.85). These associations were not confounded by schizophrenia PRS. There was no evidence of any other associations. Discussion: Birth into more densely populated and socially fragmented environments increased risk of positive and negative psychotic phenomena in adolescence. Our findings suggest that different forms of neighbourhood social adversity impinge on different psychopathophysiologies associated with the clinical expression of psychosis.
The Voodoo Doll Self-Injury Task: A New Measure of Sub-Clinical Self-Harm Tendencies
Authors: Chester David , Davis Tchiki , DeWall C. Nathan
Published: July 2018

We introduce a new measure of sub-clinical self-harm tendencies, the Voodoo Doll Self-Injury Task (VDSIT). In this computer task, participants virtually stick a number of sharp pins in a doll that represents themselves. Across five community and undergraduate samples who were not recruited based on their self-harm history or risk (total N = 1,289), VDSIT scores were higher among participants with histories of actual self-injury and were positively correlated with state and trait level motivations to self-harm. VDSIT scores did not correspond to tendencies to harm others, showed sensitivity to experimental manipulations that increase self-harm tendencies, and were positively correlated with established risk factors for self-harm (e.g., depression). The VDSIT did not, on average, elicit significant distress from participants during or after the task, even among participants who had previously engaged in self-harm. Whereas the clinical utility of this measure remains unexamined, these findings provide initial support for the VDSIT’s sub-clinical validity, which can help researchers accurately, economically, and rapidly measure state and trait level self-harm tendencies using both correlational and experimental designs.
Countability in Absence of Count Syntax: Evidence from Japanese Quantity Judgments
Authors: Inagaki Shunji , Barner David
Published: July 2018

We investigated the interaction of mass-count syntax and item-specific wordmeanings by comparing quantity judgments in two mass-count languages(English, French) and a classifier language (Japanese). Speakers of bothEnglish and Japanese based quantity judgments on volume for substance-massterms (e.g., judging two large portions of toothpaste to be moretoothpaste thansix tiny portions) but on number for count nouns (e.g., shoes) andobject-mass nouns (e.g., judging that six small pieces of furniture are morefurniture than two large pieces). For words that can be used in either massor count syntax in English (e.g., string), English quantity judgmentsshifted as a function of mass-count syntax (i.e., based on number when usedin count syntax, but on volume when used in mass syntax), whileapproximately 50% of Japanese quantity judgments were based on number,falling between English mass and count judgments. For words that are massnouns in English but count nouns in French (e.g., spinach), quantityjudgments shifted as a function of syntax between these languages, whileJapanese judgments were not different from the count judgments of Frenchspeakers, and were based mainly on number. We argue that, across languages,mass-count syntax is not necessary for nouns to specify individuation, butacts to select from among universally available lexical meanings.
Do the folk actually hold folk-economic beliefs?
Authors: Tappin Ben M , Ross Robert M , McKay Ryan
Published: July 2018

Boyer and Petersen argue that folk-economic beliefs are widespread—shaped by evolved cognitive systems—and they offer exemplar beliefs to illustrate their thesis. We highlight evidence of substantial variation in one domain of these exemplars; beliefs about immigration. Contra B&Ps exemplars, the balance of this evidence suggests the “folk” may actually hold positive beliefs about the economic impact of immigration.
Assumptions of the Process-Dissociation Procedure are Violated in Implicit Sequence Learning
Authors: Barth Marius , Stahl Christoph , Haider Hilde
Published: July 2018

In implicit sequence learning, a process-dissociation (PD) approach has been proposed to dissociate implicit and explicit learning processes. Applied to the popular generation task, participants perform two different task versions: inclusion instructions require generating the transitions that form the learned sequence; exclusion instructions require generating transitions other than those of the learned sequence. Whereas accurate performance under inclusion may be based on either implicit or explicit knowledge, avoiding to generate learned transitions requires controllable explicit sequence knowledge. The PD approach yields separate estimates of explicit and implicit knowledge that are derived from the same task; it therefore avoids many problems of previous measurement approaches. However, the PD approach rests on the critical assumption that the implicit and explicit processes are invariant across inclusion and exclusion conditions. We tested whether the invariance assumptions hold for the PD generation task. Across three studies using first-order as well as second-order regularities, invariance of the controlled process was found to be violated. In particular, despite extensive amounts of practice, explicit knowledge was not exhaustively expressed in the exclusion condition. We discuss the implications of these findings for the use of process-dissociation in assessing implicit knowledge.
Mirror Neurons, Prediction and Hemispheric Coordination; The Prioritizing of Intersubjectivity over ‘Intrasubjectivity’
Authors: Shillcock Richard , Thomas James , Bailes Rachael
Published: July 2018

We observe that approaches to intersubjectivity, involving mirror neurons and involving emulationand prediction, have eclipsed discussion of those same mechanisms for achieving coordination between the two hemispheres of the human brain. We explore some of the implications of the suggestion that the mutual modelling of the two situated hemispheres (each hemisphere ‘second guessing’ the other) is a productive place to start in understanding the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of cognition and of intersubjectivity.
PERSONA: a Psychometric Monitoring Instrument for High-stress Individuals
Authors: Kirk Nicholas Hubert , Arbanasić Karmela
Published: July 2018

Stress is considered to be among the leading causes of various psychopathological problems, whose outcomes are often difﬁcult to foresee. In order to prevent consequent maladaptive behaviors, the present paper introduces a novel, three-phase architecture for analyzing the formation, handling and manifestation of stress in individuals. We speciﬁcally model the process of transforming stressful stimuli to cognitive schemas, and from these to subconscious defense mechanism manifestations. Such three-phase model has been implemented and validated via the PERSONA-80 test. Psychometric properties of PERSONA-80 have been evaluated on a sample of 83 individuals from general and clinical populations. The test showed good internal consistency and excellent predictive validity results, from which we derived the puriﬁed scale PERSONA-16. The potential of the developed instrument is the detection of the inability to produce mature defense mechanisms from an arbitrary state of mind, or the inability to preserve schemas when exposed to stressful conditions, useful in high-stress occupation screening and monitoring. To encourage widespread use and validation in different domains, we provide at the end of this text the complete PERSONA-16 instrument.
The Politics of Embarrassment
Authors: Paulus Frieder Michel , Müller-Pinzler Laura , Meshi Dar , Peng Tai-Quan , Mateo Marina Martinez , Krach Sören
Published: July 2018

Within the last year, expressions of second-hand embarrassment on Twitter significantly increased. We show how this relates to the current situation in U.S. politics under Trump and provide two explanations for why people feel this way in response to his actions. First, compared to former politicians, Trump’s norm violations seem intentional. Second, intentional norm violations specifically threaten the social integrity of in-group members—in this case, U.S citizens. We theorize that these strong, frequent and widespread feelings of second-hand embarrassment motivate political actions to prevent further harm to individuals’ self-concept and protect their social integrity.
Evaluative conditioning as memory-based judgment
Authors: Stahl Christoph , Aust Frederik
Published: July 2018

The article proposes a view of evaluative conditioning (EC) as resulting from judgments based on learning instances stored in memory. It is based on the formal episodic memory model MINERVA 2. Additional assumptions specify how the information retrieved from memory is used to inform specific evaluative dependent measures. The present approach goes beyond previous accounts in that it uses a well-specified formal model of episodic memory; it is however more limited in scope as it aims at explaining EC phenomena that do not involve reasoning processes. The article illustrates how the memory-based-judgment view accounts for several empirical findings in the EC literature that are often discussed as evidence for dual-process models of attitude learning. It sketches novel predictions, discusses limitations of the present approach, and identifies challenges and opportunities for its future development.
Visual motion prediction and verbal false memory performance in autistic children
Authors: Tewolde Furtuna , Bishop Dorothy Vera Margaret , Manning Catherine
Published: July 2018

Recent theoretical accounts propose that atypical predictive processing can explain the diverse cognitive and behavioural features associated with autism, and that difficulties in making predictions may be related to reduced contextual processing. In this pre-registered study, thirty autistic children aged 6-14 years and thirty typically developing children matched in age and non-verbal IQ completed visual extrapolation and false memory tasks to assess predictive abilities and contextual processing, respectively. In the visual extrapolation tasks, children were asked to predict when an occluded car would reach the end of a road and when an occluded set of lights would fill up a grid. Autistic children made predictions that were just as precise as those made by typically developing children, across a range of occlusion durations. In the false memory task, autistic and typically developing children did not differ significantly in their discrimination between items presented in a list and semantically related, non-presented items, although the data were insensitive, suggesting the need for larger samples. Our findings help to refine theoretical accounts by challenging the notion that autism is caused by pervasively disordered prediction abilities. Further studies will be required to assess the relationship between predictive processing and context use in autism, and to establish the conditions under which predictive processing may be impaired.
Current knowledge on the role of the Inferior Frontal Gyrus in Theory of Mind
Authors: Hartwright Charlotte Emily , Apperly Ian , Hansen Peter
Published: July 2018

preprint of manuscript under peer review. Manuscript now accepted for publication 14/10/16 in Cortex, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2016.10.005
Evidence for a Non-Linguistic Distinction Between Singular and Plural Sets in Rhesus Monkeys.
Authors: Barner David , Wood Justin , Hauser Marc , Carey Susan
Published: July 2018

Set representations are explicitly expressed in natural language. Forexample, many languages distinguish between sets and subsets (all vs.some), as well as between singular and plural sets (a cat vs. some cats).Three experiments explored the hypothesis that these representations arelanguage specific, and thus absent from the conceptual resources ofnon-linguistic animals. We found that rhesus monkeys spontaneouslydiscriminate sets based on a conceptual singular– plural distinction. Underconditions that do not elicit comparisons based on approximate magnitudesor one-to-one correspondence, rhesus monkeys distinguished between singularand plural sets (1 vs. 2 and 1 vs. 5), but not between two plural sets (2vs. 3, 2 vs. 4, and 2 vs. 5). These results suggest hat set-relationaldistinctions are not a privileged part of natural language, and may haveevolved in non-linguistic species to support domain general quantitativecomputations.
Multidimensional internal dynamics underlying the perception of motion
Authors: Wexler Mark
Published: July 2018

When ambiguous visual stimuli are presented continuously, they often lead to oscillations between usually two perceptions. Because of these oscillations, it has been thought that the underlying neural dynamics also arises from a binary or two-state system. Contradicting the binary assumption, it has been shown recently that the perception of some ambiguous stimuli is governed by continuously varying internal states, measured as biases that differ considerably from one observer to the next and that can also evolve over time (Wexler et al., 2015). Here I study bias patterns in the motion quartet, an ambiguous apparent motion stimulus, as the quartet’s orientation is varied. The bias patterns are robustly idiosyncratic, and are even more complex than those that have been described previously. There are two qualitatively different bias types: some observers prefer a translation axis, while others show preference for a rotation direction. Each type also varies parametrically: the orientation of the preferred axis, and the direction of preferred rotation. The are also clear cases of combination of the two bias types. When measured repeatedly over 9 hours, the bias patterns usually remain stable, but also sometimes evolve both parametrically (e.g., change of preferred axis), as well as across bias type (change from axial to rotational bias). Control experiments revealed that the variety of bias patterns observed across subjects, and their changes over time, are not due to voluntary decisions. Overall, these results exhibit the multidimensional complexity of internal states underlying the perception of even simple stimuli.
Constructing and model-fitting receiver operator characteristics using continuous data.
Authors: Urquhart Josephine Ann , O'Connor Akira
Published: July 2018

Receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) are plots which provide a visual summary of a classifier’s decision response accuracy at varying discrimination thresholds. Typical practice, particularly within psychological studies, involves plotting an ROC from a limited number of discrete thresholds before fitting signal detection parameters to the plot. We propose that additional insight into decision-making could be gained through increasing ROC resolution, using trial-by-trial measurements derived from a continuous variable, in place of discrete discrimination thresholds. Such continuous ROCs are not yet routinely used in behavioural research, which we attribute to issues of practicality (i.e. the difficulty of applying standard ROC model-fitting methodologies to continuous data). Consequently, the purpose of the current article is to provide a documented method of fitting signal detection parameters to continuous ROCs. This method reliably produces model fits equivalent to the unequal variance least squares method of model-fitting (Yonelinas et al., 1998), irrespective of the number of data points used in ROC construction. We present the suggested method in three main stages: I) building continuous ROCs, II) model-fitting to continuous ROCs and III) extracting model parameters from continuous ROCs. Throughout the article, procedures are demonstrated in Microsoft Excel, using an example continuous variable: reaction time, taken from a single-item recognition memory. Supplementary MATLAB code used for automating our procedures is also presented in Appendix B, with a validation of the procedure using simulated data shown in Appendix C.
Intergenerational Incest Aversion
Authors: Kresanov Paula , Kotler Jennifer , Seto Michael , Lieberman Debra , Santtila Pekka , Antfolk Jan
Published: July 2018

The biological costs of inbreeding are expected to have shaped human incest aversion. These costs depend on biological sex, relatedness, and age. Whereas previous studies have focused on investigating how these factors modulate incest aversion in siblings and cousins—family members of the same generation—here we examined relatives of different generations. In a population-based sample, 2,499 respondents reported reactions to imagined sexual behaviors with either a biological child or parent, a niece/nephew or aunt/uncle, or a stepchild or stepparent; these responses were compared to reactions to imagined sexual behaviors involving a friend’s child or parent. Replicating prior results, women report stronger incest aversions than do men. We extend previous findings by showing that incest aversions tended to be stronger between close (vs. more distant) intergenerational relatives. Indeed, for biological relatives, decreased degree of relatedness was associated with decreased incest aversion, and for biological relatives, the certainty in relatedness was also positively associated with incest aversion. As expected, age modulated sexual aversion for unrelated, but not related, target individuals. Sexual aversions toward step-relatives did not differ from sexual aversions to biological relatives.
A reward shaping method for promoting metacognitive learning
Authors: Lieder Falk , Krueger Paul M. , Callaway Frederick , Griffiths Tom
Published: July 2018

The human mind has an impressive ability to improve itself based on experience, but this potential for cognitive growth is rarely fully realized. Cognitive training programs seek to tap into this unrealized potential but their theoretical foundation is incomplete and the scientific findings on their effectiveness are mixed. Recent work suggests that mechanisms by which people learn to think and decide better can be understood in terms of metacognitive reinforcement learning. This perspective allow us to translate the theory of reward shaping developed in machine learning into a computational method for designing feedback structures for effective cognitive training. Concretely, our method applies the shaping theorem for accelerating model-free reinforcement learning to a meta-decision problem whose actions are computations that update the decision-maker’s probabilistic beliefs about the returns of alternative courses of action. As a proof of concept, we show that our method can be applied to accelerate learning to plan in an environment similar to a grid worldwhere every location contained a reward. To measure and give feedback on people’s planning process, each reward was initially occluded and had to be revealed by clicking on the corresponding location. We found that participants in the feedback condition learned faster to deliberate more and consequently reaped higher rewards and identified the optimal sequence of moves more frequently. These findings inspire optimism that meta-level reward shaping might provide a principled theoretical foundation for cognitive training and enable more effective interventions for improving the human mind by giving feedback that is optimized for promoting metacognitive reinforcement learning.
People represent their own mental states more distinctly than others’
Authors: Thornton Mark Allen , Schwyck Miriam E. , Mildner Judith N. , Tamir Diana
Published: July 2018

One can never know the internal workings of another person – one can only infer others’ mental states based on external cues. In contrast, each person has direct access to the contents of their own mind. Here we test the hypothesis that this privileged access shapes the way people represent internal mental experiences, such that they represent their own mental states more distinctly than the states of others. Across four studies, participants considered their own and others’ mental states; analyses measured the distinctiveness of mental state representations. Two neuroimaging studies used representational similarity analyses to demonstrate that the social brain manifests more distinct activity patterns when thinking about one’s own states versus others’. Two behavioral studies support these findings. Further, they demonstrate that people differentiate between states less as social distance increases. Together these results suggest that we represent our own mind with greater granularity than the minds of others.
Empirically investigating the concept of lying
Authors: Wiegmann Alex , Rutschmann Ronja , Willemsen Pascale
Published: July 2018

Lying is an everyday moral phenomenon about which philosophers have written a lot. Not only the moral status of lying has been intensively discussed but also what it means to lie in the first place. Perhaps the most important criterion for an adequate definition of lying is that it fits with people’s understanding and use of this concept. In this light, it comes as a surprise that researchers only recently started to empirically investigate the folk concept of lying. In this paper, we describe three experimental studies which address the following questions: Does a statement need to be objectively false in order to constitute lying? Does lying necessarily include the intention to deceive? Can one lie by omitting relevant facts?
Young children choose informative referring expressions to describe the agents and patients of transitive events
Authors: Kline Struhl Melissa , Gibson Edward , Schulz Laura
Published: July 2018

A key component of most models of pragmatics is that speakers consider more than one way of conveying a message, and how informative each version is in context. Theories of pragmatics, and particularly pragmatic development, are hampered by the fact that while we can often observe what a participant does (either as a speaker or a listener), we can rarely observe the choices they consider. Here, we focus on the problem that remains once two alternative utterances are available: selecting the most informative one. By providing 3-6 year old children with a choice between transitive sentences that drop either an uninformative argument (i.e. one that can be directly recovered from the visual context) or an informative one, we can directly test their ability to select between alternate ways of conveying the same message, abstracting away from the many other processes required to produce a multi-word expression. While 3 year olds select between these alternatives at chance (a pattern which, based on control version, may be partially due to task demands), we find clear evidence that children aged 4 and older preferentially select the more informative option. This result shows that (1) children's awareness of informativity contrasts extends to sentence-level messages, not just object referent selection and (2) directly testing the development of specific cognitive abilities theorized to be involved in pragmatic communication can both clarify and constrain our theories of language development.
Efficacy and Collective (Dis)satisfaction
Authors: Watkins Hanne M
Published: July 2018

There is currently extensive debate in psychological science about how to improve the field’s replicability (e.g. Kruglanski, Chernikova, & Jasko, 2017; Lindsay, 2015). In this paper I explore the meta-scientific question of who is pushing for changes to the way research is done, and why. I use the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA; Van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2008) to derive (pre-registered) hypotheses about how researchers’ identity as academic psychologists, their efficacy, and their sense of satisfaction relate to their willingness to engage in reformative research practices. Results show that efficacy and collective satisfaction are consistent predictors of collective action, participating in direct replication projects, and pre-registering one’s studies. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.
The Nerve Supply of the Human Auricle – Inconsistencies in the reporting of innervation patterns
Authors: Burger Andreas Michael , Verkuil Bart
Published: July 2018

A comment on the Peuker and Filler (2002) article. The study by Peuker and Filler remains the only detailed description of the nerve distribution of different innervation areas of the lateral surface of the human auricle. As such, it is of extreme importance to the area of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation.We reason that on the basis of inconsistencies between the text and the Table, in which the results are presented, it is not possible to conclude that the tragus of the auricle is innervated by the ABVN and this impacts the interpretation of studies using this type of auricular stimulation.
Multisensory perceptual interactions between higher-order temporal frequency signals
Authors: Crommett Lexi E. , Madala Deeksha , Yau Jeffrey M
Published: July 2018

Naturally occurring signals in audition and touch can be complex and marked by temporal variations in frequency and amplitude. Auditory frequency sweep processing has been studied extensively; however, much less is known about sweep processing in touch since studies have primarily focused on the perception of simple sinusoidal vibrations. Given the extensive interactions between audition and touch in the frequency processing of pure tone signals, we reasoned that these senses might also interact in the processing of higher-order frequency representations like sweeps. In a series of psychophysical experiments, we characterized the influence of auditory distractors on the ability of participants to discriminate tactile frequency sweeps. Auditory frequency sweeps systematically biased the tactile perception of sweep direction. Importantly, auditory cues exerted little influence on tactile sweep direction perception when the sounds and vibrations occupied different absolute frequency ranges or when the sounds consisted of intensity sweeps. Thus, audition and touch interact in frequency sweep perception in a frequency- and feature-specific manner. Our results demonstrate that audio-tactile interactions are not constrained to the processing of simple sinusoids. Because higher-order frequency representations may be synthesized from simpler representations, our findings imply that multisensory interactions in the temporal frequency domain span multiple hierarchical levels in sensory processing.
Sex differences in ability tilt in the right tail of cognitive abilities: A 35-year examination
Authors: Wai Jonathan , Makel Matthew C.
Published: July 2018

Sex differences in cognitive ability level and cognitive ability pattern or tilt (e.g., math > verbal) have been linked to educational and occupational outcomes in STEM and other fields. The present study examines cognitive ability tilt across the last 35 years in 2,053,221 academically talented students in the U.S. (SAT, ACT, EXPLORE) and 7,118 students in India (ASSET) who were in the top 5% to 0.01% of cognitive ability, populations that largely feed high level STEM and other occupations. Across all measures and samples, sex differences in ability tilt were uncovered, favoring males for math > verbal and favoring females for verbal > math. As ability tilt increased, so did sex differences in ability tilt. Additionally, sex differences in tilt increased as ability selectivity increased. Broadly, sex differences in ability tilt remained fairly stable over time, were consistent across most measures, and replicated across the U.S. and India. Across time, exceptions to the general trend were females increased their verbal tilt advantage over males, on the EXPLORE, males increased their math tilt advantage over females, and in the top 0.01% of ability on the SAT, the male math tilt advantage decreased over time. Such trends should be carefully monitored given their potential to impact future workforce trends.