Illusory inferences with quantifiers

The psychological study of reasoning with quantifiers has predominantly focused on inference patterns studied by Aristotle about two millennia ago. Modern logic has shown a wealth of inference patterns involving quantifiers that are far beyond the expressive power of Aristotelian syllogisms, and whose psychology should be explored. We bring to light a novel class of fallacious inference patterns, some of which are so attractive that they are tantamount to cognitive illusions. In tandem with recent insights from linguistics that quantifiers like “some” are treated as wh-questions, these illusory inferences are predicted by the erotetic theory of reasoning, which postulates that a process akin to question asking and answering is behind human inference making.     

The co-occurrence of multisensory competition and facilitation

Previous studies of multisensory integration have often stressed the beneficial effects that may arise when information concerning an event arrives via different sensory modalities at the same time, as, for example, exemplified by research on the redundant target effect (RTE). By contrast, studies of the Colavita visual dominance effect (e.g., [Colavita, F. B. (1974). Human sensory dominance. Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 409–412]) highlight the inhibitory consequences of the competition between signals presented simultaneously in different sensory modalities instead. Although both the RTE and the Colavita effect are thought to occur at early sensory levels and the stimulus conditions under which they are typically observed are very similar, the interplay between these two opposing behavioural phenomena (facilitation vs. competition) has yet to be addressed empirically. We hypothesized that the dissociation may reflect two of the fundamentally different ways in which humans can perceive concurrent auditory and visual stimuli. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated both multisensory facilitation (RTE) and the Colavita visual dominance effect using exactly the same audiovisual displays, by simply changing the task from a speeded detection task to a speeded modality discrimination task. Meanwhile, in Experiment 2, the participants exhibited multisensory facilitation when responding to visual targets and multisensory inhibition when responding to auditory targets while keeping the task constant. These results therefore indicate that both multisensory facilitation and inhibition can be demonstrated in reaction to the same bimodal event.     

When and how do differences matter? An exploration of perceived similarity in teams

In this paper, we directly assess perceived similarity—the degree to which members view themselves as having few differences—because we want to understand when teams notice diversity on various member characteristics and how they interpret it. Our results indicate social category diversity was related to initial estimates of both perceived social category similarity (SCS) and perceived work style similarity (WSS). And, whereas perceived SCS did not change over time, perceived WSS decreased significantly over the period of our study. We suggest this change in perceived WSS can be explained by an information-processing/decision-making framework. We found informational diversity was positively related to conflict in teams, and in turn conflict was negatively related to subsequent estimates of perceived WSS. However, informational diversity was positively related to information sharing in teams, which in turn was positively related to subsequent estimates of perceived WSS. Finally, these updated estimates of perceived WSS affected subgroup formation and team process effectiveness. We discuss how our research explores the subjective experience of diversity by team members, provides a dynamic view of the relationship between diversity and team outcomes, and informs emerging theory about the activation of faultlines in teams.     

Hearing lips in a second language: visual articulatory information enables the perception of second language sounds

We investigated the effects of visual speech information (articulatory gestures) on the perception of second language (L2) sounds. Previous studies have demonstrated that listeners often fail to hear the difference between certain non-native phonemic contrasts, such as in the case of Spanish native speakers regarding the Catalan sounds /ɛ/ and /e/. Here, we tested whether adding visual information about the articulatory gestures (i.e., lip movements) could enhance this perceptual ability. We found that, for auditory-only presentations, Spanish-dominant bilinguals failed to show sensitivity to the /ɛ/–/e/ contrast, whereas Catalan-dominant bilinguals did. Yet, when the same speech events were presented audiovisually, Spanish-dominants (as well as Catalan-dominants) were sensitive to the phonemic contrast. Finally, when the stimuli were presented only visually (in the absence of sound), none of the two groups presented clear signs of discrimination. Our results suggest that visual speech gestures enhance second language perception at the level of phonological processing especially by way of multisensory integration.     

Visual dominance and attention: the Colavita effect revisited

Under many conditions, humans display a robust tendency to rely more on visual information than on other forms of sensory information. Colavita (1974) illustrated this visual dominance effect by showing that naive observers typically fail to respond to clearly suprathreshold tones if these are presented simultaneously with a visual target flash. In the present study, we demonstrate that visual dominance influences performance under more complex stimulation conditions and address the role played by attention in mediating this effect. In Experiment 1, we show the Colavita effect in the simple speeded detection of line drawings and naturalistic sounds, whereas in Experiment 2 we demonstrate visual dominance when the task targets (auditory, visual, or bimodal combinations) are embedded among continuous streams of irrelevant distractors. In Experiments 3-5, we address the consequences of varying the probability of occurrence of targets in each sensory modality. In Experiment 6, we further investigate the role played by attention on visual dominance by manipulating perceptual load in either the visual or the auditory modality. Our results demonstrate that selective attention to a particular sensory modality can modulate--although not completely reverse--visual dominance as illustrated by the Colavita effect.     

How low does ethical leadership flow? Test of a trickle-down model

This research examines the relationships between top management and supervisory ethical leadership and group-level outcomes (e.g., deviance, OCB) and suggests that ethical leadership flows from one organizational level to the next. Drawing on social learning theory [Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.; Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.] and social exchange theory [Blau, p. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York: John Wiley.], the results support our theoretical model using a sample of 904 employees and 195 managers in 195 departments. We find a direct negative relationship between both top management and supervisory ethical leadership and group-level deviance, and a positive relationship with group-level OCB. Finally, consistent with the proposed trickle-down model, the effects of top management ethical leadership on group-level deviance and OCB are mediated by supervisory ethical leadership.