Set-Congruent Priming Stimuli Normalize the Information Processing of Psychopathic Offenders

Psychopathic individuals display characteristic deficits in processing emotion cues, the abstract meaning of words, and peripheral inhibitory cues, that have been linked to deficits in self-regulation and antisocial behavior. One view, supported by recent research, is that psychopathic individuals have difficulty processing set-incongruent information and that their difficulty may be ameliorated using task manipulations that establish a set-relevant focus of attention. We evaluated this characterization of the psychopathic deficit using a lexical decision (i.e., word recognition) task and priming manipulation that caused target stimuli to be set-congruent or set-incongruent. As predicted, low-anxious (i.e., primary) psychopathic participants displayed a significantly greater priming effect than low anxious non-psychopathic participants. The results highlight the potential value of priming relevant cognitive sets to overcome the costly information processing deficits associated with psychopathy. Treatment efforts emphasizing a balance of attention between primary and peripheral information may prove especially effective for reducing maladaptive behavior in psychopathic individuals.     

The independence of endogenous and exogenous temporal attention

Temporal attention is the focusing of perceptual resources at a particular point in time. Valid temporal cue information has the capability to improve performance by reducing reaction times, while invalid information has the possibility of impairing performance. The performance difference between valid and invalid conditions is called a temporal cueing effect (TCE). We explored how different alerting mechanisms interact with a participant’s ability to utilize temporal information cues, using the Kingstone (The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 44(1), 69–104, 1992) temporal cueing paradigm. Extracting the alerting procedure from Lawrence and Klein (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142(2), 560–572, 2013), one of two different temporally contingent warning signals were presented to participants during a trial. The “hi-intensity” warning signal increases intensity and elicits both exogenous and endogenous alerting mechanisms. The “no-intensity” warning signal is isointense relative to baseline and elicits only endogenous alerting mechanisms. Two experiments conducted previously using a discrimination task showed interference between the signal intensity and task difficulty, where the “no-intensity” signal failed to elicit TCEs. In the present study, we implemented a detection task, reducing the mental effort required for a response. The results showed equal TCEs in both signal conditions. We argue for independence of these alerting mechanisms, by way of Sternberg’s (Acta Psychologica, 30, 276–315, 1969) additive factor method. Arguments contrasting what mechanism is being impacted by this paradigm are further outlined.     

May I have your attention please: Binding of attended but response-irrelevant features

The feature codes of stimuli and responses can be integrated, and if a stimulus is repeated it can retrieve the previously integrated response. Furthermore, even irrelevant features can be integrated and, upon repetition, retrieve the response. Yet the role of attention in feature integration and retrieval is not clearly understood. Some theories assume a central role of attention (e.g., Logan, 1988; Treisman & Gelade, 1980), but other studies have shown no influence of attention on feature binding (e.g., Hommel, 2005). In the present experiments the effect of attention on the integration of two different response-irrelevant features of the same stimulus was examined. In two experiments, participants responded to the color (response feature) of word stimuli, while two irrelevant features of the words (word type and valence) were systematically varied. Participants’ attention was directed to either one or the other of the response-irrelevant features by asking participants to report that feature at the end of the trial. Feature–response binding effects in the color task were observed to be stronger for the attended response-irrelevant feature. These results indicate that feature binding is not only very flexible but also sensitive to the distribution of attention. It is also automatic, in the sense that as long as attention is available, feature binding occurs irrespective of the task-specific demands.     

Aggressive Male Juvenile Offenders with Callous-Unemotional Traits Show Aberrant Attentional Orienting to Distress Cues

Antisocial youth with callous-unemotional (CU) traits exhibit a pattern of severe and persistent conduct problems and deficits in emotional processing that parallels adults with psychopathy. Aberrant emotional attention, particularly among individuals high on aggression, constitutes one such deficit; however, its robustness across race/ethnicity requires further investigation given findings that the psychopathy construct manifests differently across race (Sullivan and Kosson 2006), and emotional attention is susceptible to the influence of adverse environmental factors such as violence exposure that is more common among ethnic minority youth (Kimonis et al. in Development and Psychopathology, 20, 569–589, 2008b). Also, the development of a comprehensive measure of CU traits, the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU), has identified specific CU dimensions (Uncaring, Callous, Unemotional) that are yet to be investigated in relation to emotional attention deficits. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine whether aggressive boys high on total CU traits and specific ICU dimensions show deficits in attentional orienting to negative stimuli on a dot-probe task that are consistent across race/ethnicity. Results from a predominately Latino sample of incarcerated male adolescents (N = 156) showed that aggression moderated the association between CU traits and facilitation to distress stimuli. That is, aggressive boys high on CU traits or the Uncaring dimension showed deficient attentional orienting; a finding that was consistent across racial/ethnic minority groups. Results are consistent with prior research suggesting that the combination of high CU traits and aggression defines a unique subgroup of antisocial individuals that more closely fits with the construct of psychopathy than the presence of CU traits alone.     

Further evidence in favor of prior entry from endogenous attention to a location in space

Titchener’s (1908) law of prior entry states that “the object of attention comes to consciousness more quickly than the objects which we are not attending to,” or otherwise, that attended stimuli are perceived earlier than unattended stimuli. Shore, Spence, and Klein (Psychological Science, 12, 205–212. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00337, 2001) showed that endogenous visuospatial orienting does in fact elicit prior-entry effects, albeit to a smaller degree than does exogenous visuospatial orienting. In disagreement with this finding, Schneider and Bavelier (Cognitive Psychology, 47, 333–366. doi: 10.1016/S0010-0285(03)00035-5, 2003) found no effect of their instruction to attend. They concluded that nonattentional effects could masquerade as prior entry, which could account for findings such as those in Shore et al.’s endogenous condition. We investigated this empirical and theoretical discord by replicating the temporal-order judgment task used by Shore, Spence, and Klein, while manipulating and measuring endogenous orienting by way of an orthogonal color probe task. We showed evidence of prior entry as a consequence of endogenous orienting, supporting the conclusions of Shore, Spence, and Klein.     

Neurophysical substrates of arousal and attention

The study of arousal and attention could be of prominent importance for elucidating both fundamental and practical aspects of the mind–brain puzzle. Defined as “general activation of mind” (Kahnemann in Attention and effort. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1973), or “general operation of consciousness” (Thacher and John in Functional neuroscience: foundations of cognitive processing. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, 1977), arousal can be considered as a starting point of fundamental research on consciousness. Similar role could be assigned to attention, which can be defined by substituting the attributes “general” with “focused”. Concerning the practical applications, the empirically established correlation between neuronal oscillations and arousal/attention levels is widely used in research and clinics, including neurofeedback, brain–computer communication, etc. However, the neurophysical mechanism underlying this correlation is still not clear enough. In this paper, after reviewing some present classical and quantum approaches, a transition probability concept of arousal based on field–dipole quantum interactions and information entropy is elaborated. The obtained analytical expressions and numerical values correspond to classical empirical results for arousal and attention, including the characteristic frequency dependence and intervals. Simultaneously, the fundamental (substrate) role of EEG spectrum has been enlightened, whereby the attention appears to be a bridge between arousal and the content of consciousness. Finally, some clinical implications, including the brain-rate parameter as an indicator of arousal and attention levels, are provided.     

Mental Illness Publications in Major Pastoral Care Journals from 1950 to 2003

The issue of mental illness has been of considerable interest to both of us over the past several years. The first author has taught a course on the subject for a decade, and his recent publications on the subject include several articles on John Nash (Capps, 2003b, 2004a,b, 2005b), a book on mental illness for pastoral care professionals (2005a), and an article on whether William James was a patient at McLean Hospital (2007). The second author has had experience with the mentally ill through his pastoral work at Trenton Psychiatrist Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, a mental hospital with a rather checkered history (see Scull, 2005), and in Scotland and has also written an article on John Nash (Carlin, 2006). This shared interest, together with evidence that serious mental illness in America has been steadily increasing (Torrey &; Miller, 2001, pp. 295–299), caused us to wonder what sort of attention mental illness has received in our major journals of pastoral care from 1950 to the present. Specifically, has this attention kept pace with the increase in mental illness?     

The personal and the subpersonal in the theory of mind debate

It is a widely accepted assumption within the philosophy of mind and psychology that our ability for complex social interaction is based on the mastery of a common folk psychology, that is to say that social cognition consists in reasoning about the mental states of others in order to predict and explain their behavior. This, in turn, requires the possession of mental-state concepts, such as the concepts belief and desire. In recent years, this standard conception of social cognition has been called into question by proponents of so-called ‘direct-perception’ approaches to social cognition (e.g., Gallagher 2001, 2005, 2007, 2012; Gallagher and Hutto 2008; Zahavi 2005, 2011) and by those who argue that the ‘received view’ implies a degree of computational complexity that is implausible (e.g., Bermúdez 2003; Apperly and Butterfill 2009). In response, it has been argued that these attacks on the classical view of social cognition have no bite at the subpersonal level of explanation, and that it is the latter which is at issue in the debate in question (e.g., Herschbach 2008; Spaulding 2010, 2015). In this paper, I critically examine this response by considering in more detail the distinction between personal and subpersonal level explanations. There are two main ways in which the distinction has been developed (Drayson 2014). I will argue that on either of these, the response proposed by defenders of the received view is unconvincing. This shows that the dispute between the standard conception and alternative approaches to mindreading is a dispute concerning personal-level explanations - what is at stake in the debate between proponents of the classical view of social cognition and their critics is how we, as persons, navigate our social world. I will conclude by proposing a pluralistic approach to social cognition, which is better able to do justice to the multi-faceted nature of our social interactions as well as being able to account for recent empirical findings regarding the social cognitive abilities of young infants.     

Identity Change Among Ethno-Religious Border Crossers: The Case of the Former Amish

The present study explores identity among the former Amish. While sociologists of religion have long been interested in religious identity, there has been less attention to religious identities among those who cross religious borders. Much of the literature suggests that individuals abandon former religious identities, including ethno-religious ones, when they join a new religious denomination (e.g., Sandomirsky and Wilson in Soc Forces 68:1211–1229, 1990; Sherkat and Wilson in Soc Forces 73:993–1026, 1995). While scholarship on the Jewish case challenges this assumption (e.g., Phillips and Kelner in Soc Relig 67:507–524, 2006; Sharot in Contemp Jew 18:25–43, 1997), research on other religious groups has largely overlooked these insights. This study extend insights from the Jewish case by examining holdover identities among the former Amish and comparing them with the former Ultra-Orthodox Jewish case, making use of Davidman’s (Becoming un-orthodox: stories of ex-Hasidic Jews, Oxford University Press, New York, 2014) research. Analysis of in-depth interviews with 59 former Amish adults reveals that, while those who have left the Amish no longer define themselves as religiously Amish, they do not abandon their Amish identities entirely. Instead, they reconstruct the meanings of their Amishness in varied ways in their non-Amish contexts. Comparison of these patterns with former Ultra-Orthodox Jews illuminates contextual factors, including the Amish practice of adult baptism and differing normative conceptions of Amish and Jewish identities, that contribute to variation in holdover identities across these cases. Altogether, these results suggest that ethno-religious identities are not mutually exclusive of other denominational identities and support the conceptualization of religious identities as complex, multilayered, and constructed in particular contexts in interaction with existing notions about religious groups.     

Solving Smullyan Puzzles with Formal Systems

Solving numeric, logic and language puzzles and paradoxes is common within a wide community of high school and university students, fact witnessed by the increasing number of books published by mathematicians such as Martin Gardner (popular books as old as Gardner in Aha! insight. W. H. Freeman & Co., London, 1978, Wheels, life and other mathematical amusements. W H Freeman & Co., London, 1985), Douglas Hofstadter [in one of the best popular science books on paradoxes (Hofstadter in Godel, escher, bach: an eternal golden braid, Penguin, London, 2000)], inspired by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems), Patrick Hughes and George Brecht (see Hughes and Brecht in Vicious circles and infinity, an anthology of paradoxes. Penguin Books, London, 1993) and Raymond M. Smullyan (the most well known being Smullyan in Forever undecided, puzzle guide to godel. Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford 1988, To Mock a Mockingbird and other logic puzzles. Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford 2000, The lady or the tiger? And other logic puzzles. Dover Publications Inc., Mineola 2009), inter alia. Books by Smullyan (such as Smullyan 1988, 2000) are, however, much more involved, since they introduce learning trajectories and strategies across several subjects of mathematical logic, as difficult as combinatorial logic (see, e.g., Smullyan 2000), computability theory (see Smullyan 1988), and proof theory (see Smullyan 1988, 2009). These books provide solutions to their suggested exercises. Both statements and their solutions are written in the natural language, introducing some informal algorithms. As an exercise in Mathematics we wonder if an easy proof system could be devised to solve the amusing equations proposed by Smullyan in his books. Moreover, university students of logic could well train themselves in constructing deductive systems to solve puzzles instead of a non-uniform treatment one by one. In this paper, addressing students, we introduce one such formal systems, a tableaux approach able to provide the solutions to the puzzles involving either propositional logic, first order logic, or aspect logic. Let the reader amuse herself or himself!     

Working memory training improves visual short-term memory capacity

Since antiquity, philosophers, theologians, and scientists have been interested in human memory. However, researchers today are still working to understand the capabilities, boundaries, and architecture. While the storage capabilities of long-term memory are seemingly unlimited (Bahrick, J Exp Psychol 113:1–2, 1984), working memory, or the ability to maintain and manipulate information held in memory, seems to have stringent capacity limits (e.g., Cowan, Behav Brain Sci 24:87–185, 2001). Individual differences, however, do exist and these differences can often predict performance on a wide variety of tasks (cf. Engle What is working-memory capacity? 297–314, 2001). Recently, researchers have promoted the enticing possibility that simple behavioral training can expand the limits of working memory which indeed may also lead to improvements on other cognitive processes as well (cf. Morrison and Chein, Psychol Bull Rev 18:46–60 2011). However, initial investigations across a wide variety of cognitive functions have produced mixed results regarding the transferability of training-related improvements. Across two experiments, the present research focuses on the benefit of working memory training on visual short-term memory capacity—a cognitive process that has received little attention in the training literature. Data reveal training-related improvement of global measures of visual short-term memory as well as of measures of the independent sub-processes that contribute to capacity (Awh et al., Psychol Sci 18(7):622–628, 2007). These results suggest that the ability to inhibit irrelevant information within and between trials is enhanced via n-back training allowing for selective improvement on untrained tasks. Additionally, we highlight a potential limitation of the standard adaptive training procedure and propose a modified design to ensure variability in the training environment.     

The influence of attention on value integration

People often have to make decisions based on many pieces of information. Previous work has found that people are able to integrate values presented in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream to make informed judgements on the overall stream value (Tsetsos et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(24), 9659–9664, 2012). It is also well known that attentional mechanisms influence how people process information. However, it is unknown how attentional factors impact value judgements of integrated material. The current study is the first of its kind to investigate whether value judgements are influenced by attentional processes when assimilating information. Experiments 1–3 examined whether the attentional salience of an item within an RSVP stream affected judgements of overall stream value. The results showed that the presence of an irrelevant high or low value salient item biased people to judge the stream as having a higher or lower overall mean value, respectively. Experiments 4–7 directly tested Tsetsos et al.’s (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(24), 9659–9664, 2012) theory examining whether extreme values in an RSVP stream become over-weighted, thereby capturing attention more than other values in the stream. The results showed that the presence of both a high (Experiments 4, 6 and 7) and a low (Experiment 5) value outlier captures attention leading to less accurate report of subsequent items in the stream. Taken together, the results showed that valuations can be influenced by attentional processes, and can lead to less accurate subjective judgements.     

Filtering visual onsets via habituation: A context-specific long-term memory of irrelevant stimuli

The fact that we are often immediately attracted by sudden visual onsets provides a clear advantage for our survival. However, how can we resist from being continuously distracted by irrelevant repetitive onsets? Since the seminal work of Sokolov (1963), habituation of the orienting of attention has long been proposed to be a possible filtering mechanism. Here, in two experiments, we provide novel evidence showing that (a) habituation of capture of focused visual attention relies on a stored representation of the distractor onsets in relation to their context, and (b) that once formed such representation endures unchanged for weeks without any further exposure to the distractors. In agreement with the proposal of Wagner (1979) concerning the associative nature of habituation, the results of Experiment 1 suggest that habituation of attentional capture is context specific. Furthermore, the results of Experiment 2 show that to filter visual distractors our cognitive system uses long-lasting memories of the irrelevant information. Although distractor filtering can be implemented via top-down inhibitory control, neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying habituation provide a straightforward explanation for the reduced distraction obtained with training, thus working like an automatic filter that prevents irrelevant recurring stimuli from gaining access to higher stages of analysis.     

How Linearity and Structural Complexity Interact and Affect the Recognition of Italian Derived Words

The majority of words in most languages consist of derived poly-morphemic words but a cross-linguistic review of the literature (Amenta and Crepaldi in Front Psychol 3:232–243, 2012) shows a contradictory picture with respect to how such words are represented and processed. The current study examined the effects of linearity and structural complexity on the processing of Italian derived words. Participants performed a lexical decision task on three types of prefixed and suffixed words and nonwords differing in the complexity of their internal structure. The processing of these words was indeed found to vary according to the nature of the affixes, the order in which they appear, and the type of information the affix encodes. The results thus indicate that derived words are not a uniform class and the best account of these findings appears to be a constraint-based or probabilistic multi-route processing model (e.g., Kuperman et al. in Lang Cogn Process 23:1089–1132, 2008; J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 35:876–895, 2009; J Mem Lang 62:83–97, 2010).     

Incorporating Jewish Texts with REBT in the Treatment of Clinical Anger

Although there are some major philosophical differences between the underpinnings of REBT and religion, REBT has still been used effectively with religious clients (DiGiuseppe et al. in A practitioner’s guide to rational-emotive behavior therapy, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014). To date, most of the literature on using REBT with religious clients has focused on Christians and Christianity (e.g. Johnson in Cognit Behav Pract 8(1):39–47, 2002; Nielsen in Cognit Behav Pract 8(1):34–39, 2002; Ellis in Prof Psychol Res Pract 31(1):29–33, 2000; amongst others), with less attention given to other religions. This paper provides examples for the therapeutic use of Jewish texts from Biblical and Rabbinic literature to help religious Jewish clients who present with clinical anger. The texts are used to highlight and accompany disputations and other REBT therapeutic techniques. Before offering the disputes and the techniques, a brief history of REBT and religion is presented, followed by general ethical guidelines for treating religious clients. A review of different Jewish denominations and a background to Biblical and Rabbinic sources are described as well.     

Migration Flows and Quality of Life in a Metropolitan Area: the Case of Barcelona-Spain

The phenomenon of human migration is certainly not new and it has been studied from a variety of perspectives. Yet, the attention on human migration and its determinant has not been fading over time as confirmed by recent contributions (see for instance Cushing and Poot 2004 and Rebhun and Raveh 2006). In this paper we combine the recent theoretical contributions by Douglas (1997) and Wall (2001) with the methodological advancements of Guimarães et al. (2000, 2003) to model inter-municipal migration flows in the Barcelona area. In order to do that, we employ two different types of count models, i.e. the Poisson and negative binomial and compare the estimations obtained. Our results show that, even after controlling for the traditional migration factors, QoL (measured with a Composite Index which includes numerous aspects and also using a list of individual variables) is an important determinant of short distance migration movements in the Barcelona area.     

Do gray wolves (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis lupus</Emphasis>) support pack mates during aggressive inter-pack interactions?

For group-living mammals, social coordination increases success in everything from hunting and foraging (Crofoot and Wrangham in Mind the Gap, Springer, Berlin, 2010; Bailey et al. in Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67:1–17, 2013) to agonism (Mosser and Packer in Anim Behav 78:359–370, 2009; Wilson et al. in Anim Behav 83:277–291, 2012; Cassidy et al. in Behav Ecol 26:1352–1360, 2015). Cooperation is found in many species and, due to its low costs, likely is a determining factor in the evolution of living in social groups (Smith in Anim Behav 92:291–304, 2014). Beyond cooperation, many mammals perform costly behaviors for the benefit of group mates (e.g., parental care, food sharing, grooming). Altruism is considered the most extreme case of cooperation where the altruist increases the fitness of the recipient while decreasing its own fitness (Bell in Selection: the mechanism of evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008). Gray wolf life history requires intra-pack familiarity, communication, and cooperation in order to succeed in hunting (MacNulty et al. in Behav Ecol doi: 10.1093/beheco/arr159 2011) and protecting group resources (Stahler et al. in J Anim Ecol 82: 222–234, 2013; Cassidy et al. in Behav Ecol 26:1352–1360, 2015). Here, we report 121 territorial aggressive inter-pack interactions in Yellowstone National Park between 1 April 1995 and 1 April 2011 (>5300 days of observation) and examine each interaction where one wolf interferes when its pack mate is being attacked by a rival group. This behavior was recorded six times (17.6 % of interactions involving an attack) and often occurred between dyads of closely related individuals. We discuss this behavior as it relates to the evolution of cooperation, sociality, and altruism.     

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.     

Overcoming Functional Fixedness in Naming Traditions: A Commentary on Pilcher’s Names and “Doing Gender”

Because people’s names are central to everyday life, their role in the gender system is often overlooked. In the target article, Pilcher (2017) brings novel attention to the ways in which naming traditions allow individuals to enact gender in their lives. In this commentary, I expand on Pilcher’s argument that naming traditions merit more attention than they currently receive. Specifically, I begin by discussing links between forenaming and the gender binary. I then describe the ways in which the marital surname tradition reflects gendered power dynamics. In an effort to spur additional scholarly attention to naming traditions, I also delineate fruitful areas for future research. These future directions primarily focus on identifying why and how individuals “do gender differently” through their naming practices.     

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.