<Literal>flankr</Literal>: An R package implementing computational models of attentional selectivity

The Eriksen flanker task (Eriksen and Eriksen, Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 143–149, 1974) is a classic test in cognitive psychology of visual selective attention. Two recent computational models have formalised the dynamics of the apparent increasing attentional selectivity during stimulus processing, but with very different theoretical underpinnings: The shrinking spotlight (SSP) model (White et al., Cognitive Psychology, 210–238, 2011) assumes attentional selectivity improves in a gradual, continuous manner; the dual stage two phase (DSTP) model (Hübner et al., Psychological Review, 759–784, 2010) assumes attentional selectivity changes from a low- to a high-mode of selectivity at a discrete time-point. This paper presents an R package—flankr—that instantiates both computational models. flankr allows the user to simulate data from both models, and to fit each model to human data. flankr provides statistics of the goodness-of-fit to human data, allowing users to engage in competitive model comparison of the DSTP and the SSP models on their own data. It is hoped that the utility of flankr lies in allowing more researchers to engage in the important issue of the dynamics of attentional selectivity.     

The Hidden Set-Theoretical Paradox of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Tractatus</Emphasis>

We are familiar with various set-theoretical paradoxes such as Cantor's paradox, Burali-Forti's paradox, Russell's paradox, Russell-Myhill paradox and Kaplan's paradox. In fact, there is another new possible set-theoretical paradox hiding itself in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Wittgenstein 1989). From the Tractatus’s Picture theory of language (hereafter LP) we can strictly infer the two contradictory propositions simultaneously: (a) the world and the language are equinumerous; (b) the world and the language are not equinumerous. I call this antinomy the world-language paradox. Based on a rigorous analysis of the Tractatus, with the help of the technical resources of Cantor’s naive set theory (Cantor in Mathematische Annalen, 46, 481–512, 1895, Mathematische Annalen, 49, 207–246, 1897) and Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (hereafter ZFC) (Jech 2006: 3–15; Kunen 1992: xv–xvi; Bagaria 2008: 619–622), I outline the world-language paradox and assess the unique possible solution plan, i.e., the mathematical plan utilizing ‘infinity’. I conclude that Wittgenstein cannot solve the hidden set-theoretical paradox of the Tractatus successfully unless he gives up his finitism.     

Revalidation of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sat</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">Chit</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">Ananda</Emphasis> Scale

Sat-Chit-Ananda is an indigenous construct that refers to absolute bliss and consciousness. The present study aimed to strengthen the psychometric properties of the newly developed Sat-Chit-Ananda scale (Singh et al. in Int J Vedic Found Manag 1(2):54–74, 2014). A total of 398 students aged 17–36 years (mean age = 21.33 years, SD = 2.2, 70% males) participated in this study. An exploratory as well as confirmatory factor analysis was computed for the 17-item scale. Its’ concurrent validity was established by assessing its correlation with other well-being measures, namely Flourishing (Diener et al. in Soc Indic Res 97:143–156 2010) and Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (Diener et al. 2010). Satisfactory results were obtained from both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Sat-Chit-Ananda and its factors were found to be significantly positively correlated with Flourishing and Positive Experiences and were negatively correlated with Negative Experiences. Thus, the validity of the Sat-Chit-Ananda (Singh et al. 2014) scale stands further substantiated—offering this scale as a promising new assessment tool.     

Probabilistic Opinion Pooling with Imprecise Probabilities

The question of how the probabilistic opinions of different individuals should be aggregated to form a group opinion is controversial. But one assumption seems to be pretty much common ground: for a group of Bayesians, the representation of group opinion should itself be a unique probability distribution (Madansky [44]; Lehrer and Wagner [34]; McConway Journal of the American Statistical Association, 76(374), 410–414, [45]; Bordley Management Science, 28(10), 1137–1148, [5]; Genest et al. The Annals of Statistics, 487–501, [21]; Genest and Zidek Statistical Science, 114–135, [23]; Mongin Journal of Economic Theory, 66(2), 313–351, [46]; Clemen and Winkler Risk Analysis, 19(2), 187–203, [7]; Dietrich and List [14]; Herzberg Theory and Decision, 1–19, [28]). We argue that this assumption is not always in order. We show how to extend the canonical mathematical framework for pooling to cover pooling with imprecise probabilities (IP) by employing set-valued pooling functions and generalizing common pooling axioms accordingly. As a proof of concept, we then show that one IP construction satisfies a number of central pooling axioms that are not jointly satisfied by any of the standard pooling recipes on pain of triviality. Following Levi (Synthese, 62(1), 3–11, [39]), we also argue that IP models admit of a much better philosophical motivation as a model of rational consensus.     

Transgender Dispossession in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Transparent</Emphasis>: Coming Out as a Euphemism for Honesty

Since the 1990s, television narratives have increased visibility for LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual) individuals and underscored the need for a deep exploration of the heterosexism (homophobia) that pervades much mainstream American programming (Lee and Meyer in Sex Cult 141:234–250, 2010; Manuel in Soc Semiot 19(3):275–291, 2009). One such serial, Transparent, has been credited by many major media outlets with transforming the way Americans think about transgender, gender expansive (Ehrensaft in Gender born gender made, The Experiment, New York, 2011), or trans*, individuals. Exploring Transparent through Butler and Athanasiou’s (Dispossession: the performative in the political, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2013) framework of dispossession, this essay argues that the depiction of dispossession in Transparent may serve to hypostasize the gender binary rather than to disrupt it. By severing the rhetorical act of “coming out” from the historical pathologization of non-normative sexualities and gender expansiveness in America, Transparent risks undoing the very social progress that it has the potential to further. While the show could powerfully disrupt cisgender privilege (Brydum in The true meaning of the word cisgender, 2015), as of its second season, instead, it merely illustrates how the media produced trans* “coming out” narrative all too often reifies the gender binary and cisgender privilege. Although it is tempting to praise Transparent for its representation of gender expansiveness, its problematic use of the “coming out” rhetoric should not be ignored.     

Modus Ponens Under the Restrictor View

There is a renewed debate about modus ponens. Strikingly, the recent counterexamples in Cantwell (Theoria, 74, 331–351 2008), Dreier (2009) and MacFarlane and Kolodny (The Journal of Philosophy, 107, 115–143 2010) are generated by restricted readings of the ‘if’-clause. Moreover, it can be argued on general grounds that the restrictor view of conditionals developed in Kratzer (1986) and Lewis (1975) leads to counterexamples to modus ponens (cp. Charlow Synthese, 190, 2291–2323 2013; Khoo Philosophical Studies, 166, 153–64 2013). This paper provides a careful analysis of modus ponens within the framework of the restrictor view. Despite appearances to the contrary, there is a robust sense in which modus ponens is valid, owing to the fact that conditionals do not only allow for restricted readings but have bare interpretations, too.     

Lost in Translation: Religion in The Public Sphere

This paper proposes a Wittgenstein-inspired critique of the prism of translation that frames the recent literature about the debate between Rawls and Habermas on the role of religious reasons in the public sphere (Habermas 2008; Weithman 2006; Wolterstorff 1997). This debate originates with the introduction of Rawls’s proviso in his conception of the public use of reason (Rawls The University of Chicago Law Review, 64(3), 765-807, 1997), which consists in the “translation” of religious reasons into secular ones, which he thinks is necessary in order for religious reasons to be legitimate in the public sphere (Courtois Dialogue, 49, 91-112, 2010; Loobuyck and Rummens Ars disputandi: The Online Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 5, 237–249, 2011; Sikka The Review of Politics, 78, 91-116, 2016). Even though Wittgenstein is not himself concerned with religious pluralism as a political issue, there are numerous scholars who have discussed the political implications of his remarks (Gunnell Contemporary Political Theory, 12 80-101, 2013; Livingston Philosophy and Social Criticism, 33(6), 691–715, 2007; Moore Philosophy and Social Criticism, 36(9), 1113-1136 2010; Pohlhaus and Wright Political Theory, 30(6), 800–27, 2002). The thesis of this paper is that the interpretation proposed by Cora Diamond (2000) in regards to ethical and religious questions turns out to be a suitable way out of the “translation requirement”. According to this solution, if there is to be an understanding between secular and religious citizens on the basis of religious reasons, it should not rely on a “translation” but rather on mutual self-representation.     

Imperfection,Indecision, and Hoarding

Hoarding disorder is a new DSM-5 disorder that causes functional impairment and affects 2 to 6% of the population (Frost and Steketee 2014). The current study evaluated a multiple mediation model with 243 undergraduate women in which indecisiveness (VOCI; Thordarson et al. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 42(11), 1289-1314, 2004) and decisional procrastination (DPS; Mann 1982) mediated the relationship between dimensions of perfectionism (F-MPS-B; Burgess et al. 2016a) and hoarding behavior (SI-R; Frost et al. Behaviour Research And Therapy, 42(10), 1163–1182, 2004) and excessive acquiring (CAS; Frost et al. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 8, 219–242, 2012). Multiple mediational analyses indicated a significant indirect effect for decisional procrastination, but not indecisiveness, in mediating evaluative concerns (but not striving) to SI-R Total, SI-R Clutter, SIR Excessive Acquisition, and both CAS subscales. Both mediators were significant pathways between evaluative concerns and SI-R Difficulty Discarding. These findings support a cognitive behavioral model of hoarding, suggesting that evaluative concerns produces problems in decision-making that influence acquisition, discarding, and clutter.     

Temporal encoding strategies result in boosts to final free recall performance comparable to spatial ones

The method of loci is a highly effective mnemonic that recruits existing salient memory for spatial locations and uses the information as a scaffold for remembering a list of items (Yates, 1966). One possible account for the effectiveness of the spatial method of loci comes from the perspective that it utilizes evolutionarily preserved mechanisms for spatial navigation within the hippocampus (Maguire et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97(8), 4398–4403, 2000; O’Keefe & Nadel, 1978; Rodriguez et al. in Brain Research Bulletin, 57(3), 499–503, 2002). Recently, though, neurons representing temporal information have also been described within the hippocampus (Eichenbaum in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(11), 732–744, 2014; Itskov, Curto, Pastalkova, & Buzsáki in The Journal of Neuroscience, 31(8), 2828–2834, 2011; MacDonald, Lepage, Eden, & Eichenbaum in Neuron, 71(4), 737–749, 2011; Mankin et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(47), 19462–19467, 2012; Meck, Church, & Matell in Behavioral Neuroscience, 127(5), 642, 2013), challenging the primacy of spatial-based functions to hippocampal processing. Given the presence of both spatial and temporal coding mechanisms within the hippocampus, we predicted that primarily temporal encoding strategies might also enhance memory. In two different experiments, we asked participants to learn lists of unrelated nouns using the (spatial) method of loci (i.e., the layout of their home as the organizing feature) or using two novel temporal methods (i.e., autobiographical memories or using the steps to making a sandwich). Participants’ final free recall performance showed comparable boosts to the method of loci for both temporal encoding strategies, with all three scaffolding approaches demonstrating performance well above uninstructed free recall. Our findings suggest that primarily temporal representations can be used effectively to boost memory performance, comparable to spatial methods, with some caveats related to the relative ease with which participants appear to master the spatial versus temporal methods.     

Distilling Common History and Practice Elements to Inform Dissemination: Hanf-Model BPT Programs as an Example

There is a shift in evidence-based practice toward an understanding of the treatment elements that characterize empirically supported interventions in general and the core components of specific approaches in particular. The evidence base for behavioral parent training (BPT) and the standard of care for early-onset disruptive behavior disorders (oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder), which frequently co-occur with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, are well established, yet an ahistorical, program-specific lens tells little regarding how leaders, University of Oregon Medical School, shaped the common practice elements of contemporary evidence-based BPT. Accordingly, this review summarizes the formative work of Hanf, as well as the core elements, evolution, and extensions of her work, represented in Community Parent Education (COPE; (Cunningham et al. in J Child Psychol Psychiatry 36:1141–1159, 1995; Cunningham et al. in COPE, the community parent education program: large group community-based workshops for parents of 3- to 18-year-olds, COPE Works, Hamilton, 2009), Defiant Children (DC; (Barkley in Defiant children: a clinician’s manual for assessment and parent training, Guilford Press, New York, 1987; Barkley in Defiant children: a clinician’s manual for assessment and parent training, Guilford Press, New York, 2013), Helping the Noncompliant Child (HNC; Forehand and McMahon in Helping the noncompliant child: a clinician’s guide to parent training, Guilford Press, New York, 1981; McMahon and Forehand in Helping the noncompliant child: family-based treatment for oppositional behavior, 2nd ed., Guilford Press, New York, 2003), Parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT; Eyberg and Robinson in J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 11:130–137, 1982. doi:10.1080/15374418209533076; Eyberg in Child Fam Behav Ther 10:33–46, 1988; Eyberg and Funderburk in Parent–child interaction therapy protocol, PCIT International, Gainesville, 2011), and the Incredible Years (IY; (Webster-Stratton in Behav Ther 12:634–642, 1981. doi:10.1016/S0005-7894(81)80135-9; Webster-Stratton in J Pediatr Psychol 7:279–294, 1982. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/7.3.279; Webster-Stratton in The incredible years: parents and children series. Leader’s guide: preschool version of BASIC (ages 3–6 years, The Incredible Years, Seattle, 2008). Our goal is not to provide an exhaustive review of the evidence base for the Hanf-Model programs, rather our intention is to provide a template of sorts from which agencies and clinicians can make informed choices about how and why they are using one program versus another, as well as how to make inform flexible use one program or combination of practice elements across programs, to best meet the needs of child clients and their families. Clinical implications and directions for future work are discussed.     

Agency,Chance, and the Scientific Status of Psychology

Psychologists generally reject the reductionist, physicalist, “nothing but” stance of the natural sciences. At the same time they consider their discipline a science and wonder why it does not enjoy the status (and funding) of the natural sciences. Ferguson American Psychologist, 70, 527-542 (2015), Lilienfeld American Psychologist, 67, 111-129 (2012), and Schwartz et al. American Psychologist, 71, 52-70 (2016) are among those who adopt a soft naturalism of nonreductive physicalism which declares, or implies, that when it comes to humans, there is more than what the natural sciences can unravel. They envision psychology as scientific in the epistemological sense of generating reproducible results, but reject the reductive ontology of science which currently points to the undeterminable chance of quantum theory as the closest physics has come to the beginnings and what might loosely be called the foundation of the universe (e.g., Bridgman Harper's, 158, 443-451 1929; Eddington 1948). The case made here is that any science, including a psychological one, must be based on a naturalist ontology. This implies restricting the term science to disciplines which not only meet epistemological criteria like reproducibility, but which also adopt—on the ontological level—the parsimonious assumption that at present it makes sense to think that “there is nothing but time and chance” (e.g., Cox and Forshaw 2011; Crease and Goldhaber 2014; Rorty 1989). From this perspective, psychology emerges as two distinct disciplines, one a natural science, the other a human science in the broad sense of science as scientia.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Wh</Emphasis>-Questions,Universal Statements and Free Choice Inferences in Child Mandarin

This study investigated 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children’s comprehension of wh-questions, universal statements and free choice inferences. Previous research has found that Mandarin-speaking children assign a universal interpretation to sentences with a wh-word (e.g., shei ‘who’) followed by the adverbial quantifier dou ‘all’ (Zhou in Appl Psycholinguist 36:411–435, 2013). Children also compute free choice inferences in sentences that contain a modal verb in addition to a wh-word and dou (Zhou, in: Nakayama, Su, Huang (eds.) Studies in Chinese and Japanese language acquisition: in honour of Stephen Crain. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp 223–235, 2017). The present study used a Question-Statement Task to assess children’s interpretation of sentences containing shei + dou, both with and without the modal verb beiyunxu ‘was allowed to’, as well as the contrast between sentences with shei + dou, which are statements for adults, versus ones with dou + shei, which are wh-questions for adults. The 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking child participants exhibited adult-like linguistic knowledge of the semantics and pragmatics of wh-words, the adverbial quantifier dou, and the deontic modal verb beiyunxu.     

Recall is not necessary for verbal sequence learning

The question of whether overt recall of to-be-remembered material accelerates learning is important in a wide range of real-world learning settings. In the case of verbal sequence learning, previous research has proposed that recall either is necessary for verbal sequence learning (Cohen & Johansson Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6, 139–143, 1967; Cunningham, Healy, & Williams Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10, 575–597, 1984), or at least contributes significantly to it (Glass, Krejci, & Goldman Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 189–199, 1989; Oberauer & Meyer Memory, 17, 774–781, 2009). In contrast, here we show that the amount of previous spoken recall does not predict learning and is not necessary for it. We suggest that previous research may have underestimated participants’ learning by using suboptimal performance measures, or by using manual or written recall. However, we show that the amount of spoken recall predicted how much interference from other to-be-remembered sequences would be observed. In fact, spoken recall mediated most of the error learning observed in the task. Our data support the view that the learning of overlapping auditory–verbal sequences is driven by learning the phonological representations and not the articulatory motor responses. However, spoken recall seems to reinforce already learned representations, whether they are correct or incorrect, thus contributing to a participant identifying a specific stimulus as either “learned” or “new” during the presentation phase.     

The influence of object similarity and orientation on object-based cueing

Responses to targets that appear at a noncued position within the same object (invalid–same) compared to a noncued position at an equidistant different object (invalid–different) tend to be faster and more accurate. These cueing effects have been taken as evidence that visual attention can be object based (Egly, Driver, & Rafal, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 161–177, 1994). Recent findings, however, have shown that the object-based cueing effect is influenced by object orientation, suggesting that the cueing effect might be due to a more general facilitation of attentional shifts across the horizontal meridian (Al-Janabi & Greenberg, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 1–17, 2016; Pilz, Roggeveen, Creighton, Bennet, & Sekuler, PLOS ONE, 7, e30693, 2012). The aim of this study was to investigate whether the object-based cueing effect is influenced by object similarity and orientation. According to the object-based attention account, objects that are less similar to each other should elicit stronger object-based cueing effects independent of object orientation, whereas the horizontal meridian theory would not predict any effect of object similarity. We manipulated object similarity by using a color (Exp. 1, Exp. 2A) or shape change (Exp. 2B) to distinguish two rectangles in a variation of the classic two-rectangle paradigm (Egly et al., 1994). We found that the object-based cueing effects were influenced by the orientation of the rectangles and strengthened by object dissimilarity. We suggest that object-based cueing effects are strongly affected by the facilitation of attention along the horizontal meridian, but that they also have an object-based attentional component, which is revealed when the dissimilarity between the presented objects is accentuated.     

Conditioned task-set competition: Neural mechanisms of emotional interference in depression

Depression has been associated with increased response times at the incongruent-, neutral-, and negative-word trials of the classical and emotional Stroop tasks (Epp et al., Clinical Psychology Review, 32, 316–328, 2012). Response-time slowdown effects at incongruent- and negative-word trials of the Stroop tasks were reported to correlate with depressive severity, indicating strong relevance of the effects to the symptomatology. This study proposes a novel integrative computational model of neural mechanisms of both the classical and emotional Stroop effects, drawing on the previous prominent theoretical explanations of performance at the classical Stroop task (Cohen, Dunbar, & McClelland, Psychological Review, 97, 332–361, 1990; Herd, Banich, & O’Reilly, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 22–32, 2006), and in addition suggesting that negative emotional words represent conditioned stimuli for future negative outcomes. The model is shown to explain the classical Stroop effect and the slow (between-trial) emotional Stroop effect with biologically plausible mechanisms, providing an advantage over the previous theoretical accounts (Matthews & Harley, Cognition & Emotion, 10, 561–600, 1996; Wyble, Sharma, & Bowman, Cognition & Emotion, 22, 1019–1051, 2008). Simulation results suggested a candidate mechanism responsible for the pattern of depressive performance at the classical and the emotional Stroop tasks. Hyperactivity of the amygdala, together with increased inhibitory influence of the amygdala over dopaminergic neurotransmission, could be at the origin of the performance deficits.     

Pinocchio against the Semantic Hierarchies

The Liar paradox is an obstacle to a theory of truth, but a Liar sentence need not contain a semantic predicate. The Pinocchio paradox, devised by Veronique Eldridge-Smith, was the first published paradox to show this. Pinocchio’s nose grows if, and only if, what Pinocchio is saying is untrue (the Pinocchio principle). What happens if Pinocchio says that his nose is growing? Eldridge-Smith and Eldridge-Smith (Analysis, 70(2): 212-5, 2010) posed the Pinocchio paradox against the Tarskian-Kripkean solutions to the Liar paradox that use language hierarchies. Eldridge-Smith (Analysis, 71(2): 306-8, 2011) also set the Pinocchio paradox against semantic dialetheic solutions to the Liar. Beall (2011) argued the Pinocchio story was just an impossible story. Eldridge-Smith (Analysis, 72(3): 749-752, 2012b) responded that unless the T-schema is a necessary truth of some sort (logical, metaphysical or analytic), the Pinocchio principle is possible. Luna (Mind & Matter 14(1): 77–86, 2016) argues that the Pinocchio contradiction proves the principle is false. D’Agostini & Ficara (2016) discuss a more plausible physical truth-tracking trait, the Blushing Liar, and argue that the Pinocchio contradiction is not a metaphysical dialetheia. I respond to Luna, and D’Agostini & Ficara, and prove that the Pinocchio paradox is a counterexample to hierarchical solutions to the Liar.     

Transformation emergence,enactive co-emergence,and the causal exclusion problem

In The Self: Naturalism, Consciousness and the First-Person Stance (Oxford University Press 2012), Jonardon Ganeri draws on the ancient Indian Cārvāka philosophy to delineate a “transformation” account of strong emergence, and argues that the account adequately addresses the well-known “causal exclusion problem” formulated by Kim (Supervenience and mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993; Mind in a physical world: an essay on the mind-body problem and mental causation. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1998; Philos Stud 95:3–36, 1999; Synthese 151:547–559, 2006). Ganeri moreover suggests that the transformation account is superior to the enactive account of emergence, developed by Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson (Varela et al. in Embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1991; Thompson and Varela in Trends Cogn Sci 5:418–425, 2001; Thompson in Mind in life: biology, phenomenology, and the sciences of mind. Belknap Press, Cambridge, 2007) for the latter merely “sidesteps” the exclusion problem (Ganeri in The self: naturalism, consciousness, and the first-person stance. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012: ch. 4, footnote 9). In this commentary, presented in an “author meets critics” panel at the Pacific APA 2016, I suggest that, contrary to Ganeri’s claim, the enactive account does not merely sidestep the causal exclusion problem—the response the enactive account can offer is actually highly similar to the response offered by the transformation account.     

Responses to Presentations at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting Forum on the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion</Emphasis>

This article is a response to essay reviews of the Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Rambo and Farhadian 2014) published in this issue of Pastoral Psychology. The editors of that volume seek to engage the various issues raised by the reviewers.     

Use of the familiarity difference cue in inferential judgments

The familiarity difference cue has been regarded as a general cue for making inferential judgments (Honda, Abe, Matsuks, & Yamagishi in Memory and Cognition, 39(5), 851–863, 2011; Schwikert & Curran in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(6), 2341–2365, 2014). The current study tests a model of inference based on familiarity differences that encompasses the recognition heuristic (Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 1999, Goldstein & Gigerenzer in Psychological Review, 109(1), 75–90, 2002). In two studies, using a large pool of stimuli, participants rated their familiarity of cities and made choices on a typical city-size task. The data were fitted with the r-s model (Hilbig, Erdfelder, & Pohl in, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 37(4), 827–839, 2011), which was adapted to include familiarity differences. The results indicated that people used the familiarity difference cue because the participants ignored further knowledge in a substantial number of cases when the familiarity difference cue was available. An analysis of reaction-time data further indicated that the response times were shorter for heuristic judgments than for knowledge-only-based judgments. Furthermore, when knowledge was available, the response times were shorter when knowledge was congruent with a heuristic cue than when it was in conflict with it. Differences between the familiarity difference cue and the fluency heuristic (Schooler & Hertwig, 2005, Psychological Review, 112, 610–628) are discussed.     

Estimating the average need of semantic knowledge from distributional semantic models

Continuous bag of words (CBOW) and skip-gram are two recently developed models of lexical semantics (Mikolov, Chen, Corrado, & Dean, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 26, 3111–3119, 2013). Each has been demonstrated to perform markedly better at capturing human judgments about semantic relatedness than competing models (e.g., latent semantic analysis; Landauer & Dumais, Psychological Review, 104(2), 1997 211; hyperspace analogue to language; Lund & Burgess, Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 28(2), 203–208, 1996). The new models were largely developed to address practical problems of meaning representation in natural language processing. Consequently, very little attention has been paid to the psychological implications of the performance of these models. We describe the relationship between the learning algorithms employed by these models and Anderson’s rational theory of memory (J. R. Anderson & Milson, Psychological Review, 96(4), 703, 1989) and argue that CBOW is learning word meanings according to Anderson’s concept of needs probability. We also demonstrate that CBOW can account for nearly all of the variation in lexical access measures typically attributable to word frequency and contextual diversity—two measures that are conceptually related to needs probability. These results suggest two conclusions: One, CBOW is a psychologically plausible model of lexical semantics. Two, word frequency and contextual diversity do not capture learning effects but rather memory retrieval effects.