Different answers to different audiences: effects of social context on the accuracy-informativeness trade-off

Research on conversational exchanges shows that people attempt to optimise their responses’ relevance when they definitely know the correct answer (e.g., “What time is it?”). However, such certainty is often unavailable while speakers may still be under social pressure to provide an answer. We investigated how social context influences the informativeness level when answering questions under uncertainty. In three experiments, participants answered difficult general-knowledge questions placed in different social contexts (formal vs. informal). Participants generated their answers, then they were presented with a given context, and decided on the number of alternative responses they wanted to provide (single, with one alternative vs. plural, with several alternatives) and whether the answer should be reported or withheld (report option). Participants reported more answers in the informal context. In the formal context, single answers were preferred, and they were more frequently reported. We conclude that social context influences the level of informativeness in a conversation, affecting achievable accuracy. Our results also show the joint influence of the confidence and the social context on willingness to share information.     

Random word generation reveals spatial encoding of syllabic word length

Existing random number generation studies demonstrate the presence of an embodied attentional bias in spontaneous number production corresponding to the horizontal Mental Number Line: Larger numbers are produced on right-hand turns and smaller numbers on left-hand turns (Loetscher et al.,2008, Curr. Biol., 18, R60). Furthermore, other concepts were also shown to rely on horizontal attentional displacement (Di Bono and Zorzi, 2013, Quart. J. Exp. Psychol., 66, 2348). In two experiments, we used a novel random word generation paradigm combined with two different ways to orient attention in horizontal space: Participants randomly generated words on left and right head turns (Experiment 1) or following left and right key presses (Experiment 2). In both studies, syllabically longer words were generated on right-hand head turns and following right key strokes. Importantly, variables related to semantic magnitude or cardinality (whether the generated words were plural-marked, referred to uncountable concepts, or were associated with largeness) were not affected by lateral manipulations. We discuss our data in terms of the ATOM (Walsh, 2015, The Oxford handbook of numerical cognition, 552) which suggests a general magnitude mechanism shared by different conceptual domains.     

Flux-driven nucleation at interfaces during reactive diffusion

Nucleation of intermetallic compounds and of voids at interfaces during reactive diffusion is treated with account of influence of the flux divergence in the nucleation regions of the real space as an additional term for drift in the size space (in Fokker–Planck equation for nucleation). Such approach enables the construction of effective Gibbs nucleation barrier which may (in the broad region of parameters) increase to infinity meaning the full suppression of nucleation, or, by the contrast, decrease assisting the nucleation. The introduced effective nucleation barriers depend on kinetic factors – on the ratio of diffusivities in nucleating and in neighboring phases. Thus, the competition of stable and metastable phases is reconsidered, as well as nucleation of Kirkendall/Frenkel voids at the interfaces.