Surprise,defence, or making sense: What removes hindsight bias?

This paper examines predictions concerning the absence of hindsight bias. Some hypothesise that because hindsight bias increases with outcome "surprisingness", only unsurprising outcomes will remove it. Others suggest the opposite--that very surprising outcomes will reduce or reverse the bias. A proposed sense-making model suggests that unexpected outcomes (i.e., initially surprising) invoke greater sensemaking, which typically produces greater hindsight bias. If the process is not successful, however, the bias may be reduced or reversed. Expected outcomes will also produce little hindsight bias, but only because they invoke relatively little sensemaking in the first place. Feelings of surprise arising from sensemaking (i.e., resultant surprise) should be inversely related to hindsight bias. Results of four experiments provide support for the model. A secondary goal was to determine the boundaries of a defensive-processing mechanism also thought to reduce hindsight bias for negative, self-relevant outcomes. Results suggest that a sense of responsibility for the outcome may be necessary for defensive processing to be activated.     

Two-digit number processing: holistic,decomposed or hybrid? A computational modelling approach

Currently, there are three competing theoretical accounts concerning the nature of two-digit number magnitude representation: a holistic, a strictly decomposed, and a hybrid model. Observation of the unit-decade compatibility effect (Nuerk et al. in Cognition 82:B25–B33, 2001) challenged the view of two-digit number magnitude to be represented as one integrated entity. However, at the moment there is no study distinguishing between the decomposed and the hybrid model. The present study addressed this issue using a computational modelling approach. Three network models complying with the constraints of all three theoretical models were programmed and trained on two-digit number comparison. Models were compared as to how well they accounted for empirical effects in the most parsimonious way. Generally, this evaluation indicated that the empirical data were simulated best by the strictly decomposed model. Implications of these results for our understanding of the nature of human number magnitude representation are discussed.     

Accounting for cognitive aging: context processing, inhibition or processing speed?

Age-related deficits in context processing were examined in relationship to two predominant theories of cognitive aging (the Inhibitory Deficit and Processing Speed Models). Older and younger adults completed a measure of context processing (AX Continuous Performance Test (CPT) task) as well as a computerized battery of inhibitory tasks: Stroop, garden path sentences, go no-go, and the stop-signal paradigm. Participants also completed a simple processing speed task. After controlling for baseline differences in processing speed, age effects were detected on the AX-CPT. Smaller, but significant age effects were noted on the Stroop and stop-signal tasks, but no significant age effects were found on the garden path sentence and go no-go tasks. Intertask correlations were weak, providing little evidence for a homogenous or uniform construct of inhibition. The sensitivity of the AX-CPT to cognitive aging is discussed in the context of existing theories of cognitive aging. The authors suggest that deficits in context processing and utilization may underlie cognitive aging phenomena.     

What is the deficit in phonological processing deficits: auditory sensitivity, masking, or category formation?

Although children with language impairments, including those associated with reading, usually demonstrate deficits in phonological processing, there is minimal agreement as to the source of those deficits. This study examined two problems hypothesized to be possible sources: either poor auditory sensitivity to speech-relevant acoustic properties, mainly formant transitions, or enhanced masking of those properties. Adults and 8-year-olds with and without phonological processing deficits (PPD) participated. Children with PPD demonstrated weaker abilities than children with typical language development (TLD) in reading, sentence recall, and phonological awareness. Dependent measures were word recognition, discrimination of spectral glides, and phonetic judgments based on spectral and temporal cues. All tasks were conducted in quiet and in noise. Children with PPD showed neither poorer auditory sensitivity nor greater masking than adults and children with TLD, but they did demonstrate an unanticipated deficit in category formation for nonspeech sounds. These results suggest that these children may have an underlying deficit in perceptually organizing sensory information to form coherent categories.     

Surprise, defence, or making sense: what removes hindsight bias?

This paper examines predictions concerning the absence of hindsight bias. Some hypothesise that because hindsight bias increases with outcome "surprisingness", only unsurprising outcomes will remove it. Others suggest the opposite-that very surprising outcomes will reduce or reverse the bias. A proposed sense-making model suggests that unexpected outcomes (i.e., initially surprising) invoke greater sensemaking, which typically produces greater hindsight bias. If the process is not successful, however, the bias may be reduced or reversed. Expected outcomes will also produce little hindsight bias, but only because they invoke relatively little sensemaking in the first place. Feelings of surprise arising from sensemaking (i.e., resultant surprise) should be inversely related to hindsight bias. Results of four experiments provide support for the model. A secondary goal was to determine the boundaries of a defensive-processing mechanism also thought to reduce hindsight bias for negative, self-relevant outcomes. Results suggest that a sense of responsibility for the outcome may be necessary for defensive processing to be activated.     

Beyond the mental number line: A neural network model of number–space interactions

It is commonly assumed that there is an interaction between the representations of number and space (e.g., Dehaene et al., 1993, Walsh, 2003), typically ascribed to a mental number line. The exact nature of this interaction has remained elusive, however. Here we propose that spatial aspects are not inherent to number representations, but that instead spatial and numerical representations are separate. However, cultural factors establish ties between them. By extending earlier models (Gevers et al., 2006, Verguts et al., 2005) based on this hypothesis, the authors present computer simulations showing that a model incorporating this idea can account for data from a series of studies. These results suggest that number–space interactions are emergent properties resulting from the interaction between different brain areas.     

Larger,smaller, odd or even? Task-specific effects of optokinetic stimulation on the mental number space

Previous studies have shown that number processing can induce spatial biases in perception and action and can trigger the orienting of visuospatial attention. Few studies, however, have investigated how spatial processing and visuospatial attention influences number processing. In the present study, we used the optokinetic stimulation (OKS) technique to trigger eye movements and thus overt orienting of visuospatial attention. Participants were asked to stare at OKS, while performing parity judgements (Experiment 1) or number comparison (Experiment 2), two numerical tasks that differ in terms of demands on magnitude processing. Numerical stimuli were acoustically presented, and participants responded orally. We examined the effects of OKS direction (leftward or rightward) on number processing. The results showed that rightward OKS abolished the classic number size effect (i.e., faster reaction times for small than large numbers) in the comparison task, whereas the parity task was unaffected by OKS direction. The effect of OKS highlights a link between visuospatial orienting and processing of number magnitude that is complementary to the more established link between numerical and visuospatial processing. We suggest that the bidirectional link between numbers and space is embodied in the mechanisms subserving sensorimotor transformations for the control of eye movements and spatial attention.     

Gifts,talismans and tokens in analysis: symbolic enactments or sinister acts?

Analysis is nuanced with many non-verbal cues and interactions. This is vividly illustrated when gifts are presented to the analyst. Their physical presence transcends the symbolic frame of analysis because, although their meaning may be metaphorical, their presence is real. Unlike other material objects and pictures, the gift may seem to invite the analyst to receive it personally. It may apparently demand some form of action. A gift may be consciously given as a token, or it may be magically invested as a talisman. On the surface, it might appear to be an expression of love; it may be a communication of a wish for acceptance; but it may have more 'sinister', unconscious intent. It may embody the wish to expel unwanted affect, ward off evil or control the analyst. Therefore disposal, that is the resolution and settling of the object, is significant. The case with which this paper is illustrated traces the meaning of a series of gifts in a single analysis. It is hoped that this will enhance a wider understanding of this common analytic phenomenon.     

Coding strategies in number space: Memory requirements influence spatial–numerical associations

The tendency to respond faster with the left hand to relatively small numbers and faster with the right hand to relatively large numbers (spatial numerical association of response codes, SNARC effect) has been interpreted as an automatic association of spatial and numerical information. We investigated in two experiments the impact of task-irrelevant memory representations on this effect. Participants memorized three Arabic digits describing a left-to-right ascending number sequence (e.g., 3–4–5), a descending sequence (e.g., 5–4–3), or a disordered sequence (e.g., 5–3–4) and indicated afterwards the parity status of a centrally presented digit (i.e., 1, 2, 8, or 9) with a left/right keypress response. As indicated by the reaction times, the SNARC effect in the parity task was mediated by the coding requirements of the memory tasks. That is, a SNARC effect was only present after memorizing ascending or disordered number sequences but disappeared after processing descending sequences. Interestingly, the effects of the second task were only present if all sequences within one experimental block had the same type of order. Taken together, our findings are inconsistent with the idea that spatial–numerical associations are the result of an automatic and obligatory cognitive process but do suggest that coding strategies might be responsible for the cognitive link between numbers and space.     

Fear of success and failure,or norms for achievement?

Previous research has indicated that success in competitive situations is differentially perceived, considering the level of success and sex of person who succeeded. The amount of projected negative imagery of 100 college students under various degrees of a man's or woman's failure in medical school was investigated in the present study. Data indicated a pervasive tendency to downgrade unsuccessful men in relation to unsuccessful women. The possibility that subjects' responses reflect anxiety about the level of success and failure obtained, rather than anxiety about success and failure in general, is discussed.The authors thank D. F. Ricks for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Portions of this article were presented at the 6th Annual Conference for Research on Women and Education, Pacific Grove, California, December, 1980.     

Short-term memory capacity: magic number or magic spell?

Previous experiments have found that memory span is greater for items that can be pronounced more quickly. For a variety of materials the span equals the number of items that can be pronounced in about 1.5 s, presumably the duration of the verbal trace. This suggests a model for immediate recall: The probability of correctly recalling a list equals the probability that the time to recite the list is less than the variable duration of the trace. Recall probability for lists of various lengths was determined for six materials. Later, subjects read the lists aloud. The standard normal deviates corresponding to probability of correct recall were linear in pronunciation time. Evidently, over subjects, a normal distribution is a reasonable approximation of the distribution of the trace duration. The mean and variance of the trace duration were estimated. The mean (1.88 s) agrees well with previous estimates, and the model accounts for 95% of the variance in immediate recall.     

The plausibility effect: Lexical priming or sentential processing?

Five experiments are reported that investigated whether the plausibility effect is caused by lexical priming resulting from the higher proportion of related words in plausible than in implausible sentences. In Experiment 1, a plausibility effect was demonstrated that was entirely attributable to the way in which lexical items were combined rather than to the properties of individual lexical items. In Experiment 2, the content words from the sentences used in Experiment 1 were shown to produce a similar reaction-time difference in a task in which syntactic processing was disrupted, supporting a lexical priming explanation of the plausibility effect. However, Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that, in another task less prone to task-specific strategies but sensitive to plausibility, the disruption of syntactic processing eliminated the effect. In Experiment 5, it was shown that when lexical priming was eliminated, a plausibility effect still occurred. Thus, two separate lines of evidence suggested that the plausibility effect cannot be fully explained in terms of lexical priming.     

Selective target processing: perceptual load or distractor salience?

Perceptual load theory (Lavie, 1995) states that participants cannot engage in focused attention when shown displays containing a low perceptual load, because attentional resources are not exhausted, whereas in high-load displays attention is always focused, because attentional resources are exhausted. An alternative "salience" hypothesis holds that the salience of distractors and not perceptual load per se determines selective attention. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the influence that target and distractor onsets and offsets have on selective processing in a standard interference task. Perceptual load theory predicts that, regardless of target or distractor presentation (onset or offset), interference from ignored distractors should occur in low-load displays only. In contrast, the salience hypothesis predicts that interference should occur when the distractor appears as an onset and would occur for distractor offsets only when the target was also an offset. Interference may even occur in highload displays if the distractor is more salient. The results supported the salience hypothesis.     

Defective number module or impaired access? Numerical magnitude processing in first graders with mathematical difficulties

This study examined numerical magnitude processing in first graders with severe and mild forms of mathematical difficulties, children with mathematics learning disabilities (MLD) and children with low achievement (LA) in mathematics, respectively. In total, 20 children with MLD, 21 children with LA, and 41 regular achievers completed a numerical magnitude comparison task and an approximate addition task, which were presented in a symbolic and a nonsymbolic (dot arrays) format. Children with MLD and LA were impaired on tasks that involved the access of numerical magnitude information from symbolic representations, with the LA children showing a less severe performance pattern than children with MLD. They showed no deficits in accessing magnitude from underlying nonsymbolic magnitude representations. Our findings indicate that this performance pattern occurs in children from first grade onward and generalizes beyond numerical magnitude comparison tasks. These findings shed light on the types of intervention that may help children who struggle with learning mathematics.     

The processing of non-target words: Semantic or not?

It is known that people reacting to visual words may be affected by the meaning of accompanying non-target words. On the approach to perception developed by Treisman (e.g. 1986), this is surprising, because meaning might be thought to require analysis of conjunctions of physical features and so should remain uncomputed for non-target words. Treisman's approach does, however, assert that analysis of the target may unleash further processes that would prime the system for detection of related words. If this were so, then presentation of the target earlier than the distractors would increase the effect of the latter; whereas if analysis of non-targets were independent of priming, they might be expected to have a smaller effect when delayed. Further, if the sets of words involved are small and familiar, then individual features of primed non-targets, rather than conjunctions of features, might trigger interference. They might especially do so when spatial separation of target and non-target is small.

Five experiments using a paradigm developed by Shaffer and LaBerge confirm that the meaning of non-target words affects response to targets; but (1) this is more true for early than for late arrival of the target; (2) it is affected by target/non-target separation in space; (3) it is true for familiar sets of repeated words but not, in these data, for words used once only in the experiment. It is therefore concluded that the results are more consistent with a Treisman type of explanation than with a theory of universal and automatic full analysis.     

Children's cognitive triage: optimal retrieval or effortful processing?

Cognitive triage is a surprising nonmonotonic relationship that exists between the order in which children read words out of long-term memory and the memory strengths of those same words. Two forgetting experiments with 7- and 12-year-old children are reported in which fuzzy-trace theory's explanation of this effect was pitted against an effortful processing explanation. The two explanations make different predictions about the relative rates of forgetting for words that are recalled at the primacy and recency positions of output queues. The data consistently favored fuzzy-trace theory's predictions. We discuss the implications of our results for two assumptions that are commonly made in theories of memory development--namely, that recall accuracy is a monotonic-increasing function of memory strength and that recall order is a monotonic-decreasing function of memory strength.