Visual attention shift to printed words during spoken word recognition in Chinese: The role of phonological information

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which phonological information mediates the visual attention shift to printed Chinese words in spoken word recognition by using an eye-movement technique with a printed-word paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are visually presented with four printed words on a computer screen, which include a target word, a phonological competitor, and two distractors. Participants are then required to select the target word using a computer mouse, and the eye movements are recorded. In Experiment 1, phonological information was manipulated at the full-phonological overlap; in Experiment 2, phonological information at the partial-phonological overlap was manipulated; and in Experiment 3, the phonological competitors were manipulated to share either fulloverlap or partial-overlap with targets directly. Results of the three experiments showed that the phonological competitor effects were observed at both the full-phonological overlap and partial-phonological overlap conditions. That is, phonological competitors attracted more fixations than distractors, which suggested that phonological information mediates the visual attention shift during spoken word recognition. More importantly, we found that the mediating role of phonological information varies as a function of the phonological similarity between target words and phonological competitors.     

Collaboration facilitates abstract category learning

We examined the effects of collaboration (dyads vs. individuals) and category structure (coherent vs. incoherent) on learning and transfer. Working in dyads or individually, participants classified examples from either an abstract coherent category, the features of which are not fixed but relate in a meaningful way, or an incoherent category, the features of which do not relate meaningfully. All participants were then tested individually. We hypothesized that dyads would benefit more from classifying the coherent category structure because past work has shown that collaboration is more beneficial for tasks that build on shared prior knowledge and provide opportunities for explanation and abstraction. Results showed that dyads improved more than individuals during the classification task regardless of category coherence, but learning in a dyad improved inference-test performance only for participants who learned coherent categories. Although participants in the coherent categories performed better on a transfer test, there was no effect of collaboration.     

Defending and reducing belief in memories: An experimental laboratory analogue

When receiving disconfirmatory social feedback about recollected events, people sometimes defend and sometimes reduce their belief that the event genuinely occurred. To improve estimates of the rates of memory defense and reduction, and of the magnitude of the change in belief in occurrence that results, in the present studies we examined the effect of disconfirmatory social challenges made to correctly recalled memories for actions performed in the lab. Adult participants performed, imagined, or heard action statements and imagined some of the initial actions multiple times. One week later, they completed a source-monitoring test and rated the actions on belief in their occurrence, recollection, visual detail, vividness, and reexperiencing. Four of the correctly recalled performed actions were challenged either prior to making the ratings during the test (Study 1, N = 44) or after making initial ratings after completing the test, following which the ratings were taken again (Study 2, N = 85). Across both studies, challenges were associated with lower belief-in-occurrence and recollection ratings on average than for control items, and belief in occurrence was affected to a greater extent than recollective features. Challenges that occurred during the test produced more instances of defense, whereas challenges that occurred after the test produced more instances of reduction. A closer analysis showed that some participants always defended, some always reduced, and some both defended and reduced belief. Responses to the first challenge positively predicted the responses to subsequent challenges. In addition, the procedure in Study 2 produced a variety of types of nonbelieved memories.     

No evidence for unethical amnesia for imagined actions: A failed replication and extension

In a recent study, Kouchaki and Gino (2016) suggest that memory for unethical actions is impaired, regardless of whether such actions are real or imagined. However, as we argue in the current study, their claim that people develop “unethical amnesia” confuses two distinct and dissociable memory deficits: one affecting the phenomenology of remembering and another affecting memory accuracy. To further investigate whether unethical amnesia affects memory accuracy, we conducted three studies exploring unethical amnesia for imagined ethical violations. The first study (N = 228) attempts to directly replicate the only study from Kouchaki and Gino (2016) that includes a measure of memory accuracy. The second study (N = 232) attempts again to replicate these accuracy effects from Kouchaki and Gino (2016), while including several additional variables meant to potentially help in finding the effect. The third study (N = 228) is an attempted conceptual replication using the same paradigm as Kouchaki and Gino (2016), but with a new vignette describing a different moral violation. We did not find an unethical amnesia effect involving memory accuracy in any of our three studies. These results cast doubt upon the claim that memory accuracy is impaired for imagined unethical actions. Suggestions for further ways to study memory for moral and immoral actions are discussed.     

The mere exposure effect for visual image

Mere exposure effect refers to a phenomenon in which repeated stimuli are evaluated more positively than novel stimuli. We investigated whether this effect occurs for internally generated visual representations (i.e., visual images). In an exposure phase, a 5 × 5 dot array was presented, and a pair of dots corresponding to the neighboring vertices of an invisible polygon was sequentially flashed (in red), creating an invisible polygon. In Experiments 1, 2, and 4, participants visualized and memorized the shapes of invisible polygons based on different sequences of flashed dots, whereas in Experiment 3, participants only memorized positions of these dots. In a subsequent rating phase, participants visualized the shape of the invisible polygon from allocations of numerical characters on its vertices, and then rated their preference for invisible polygons (Experiments 1, 2, and 3). In contrast, in Experiment 4, participants rated the preference for visible polygons. Results showed that the mere exposure effect appeared only when participants visualized the shape of invisible polygons in both the exposure and rating phases (Experiments 1 and 2), suggesting that the mere exposure effect occurred for internalized visual images. This implies that the sensory inputs from repeated stimuli play a minor role in the mere exposure effect. Absence of the mere exposure effect in Experiment 4 suggests that the consistency of processing between exposure and rating phases plays an important role in the mere exposure effect.     

Long-term associative learning predicts verbal short-term memory performance

Studies using tests such as digit span and nonword repetition have implicated short-term memory across a range of developmental domains. Such tests ostensibly assess specialized processes for the short-term manipulation and maintenance of information that are often argued to enable long-term learning. However, there is considerable evidence for an influence of long-term linguistic learning on performance in short-term memory tasks that brings into question the role of a specialized short-term memory system separate from long-term knowledge. Using natural language corpora, we show experimentally and computationally that performance on three widely used measures of short-term memory (digit span, nonword repetition, and sentence recall) can be predicted from simple associative learning operating on the linguistic environment to which a typical child may have been exposed. The findings support the broad view that short-term verbal memory performance reflects the application of long-term language knowledge to the experimental setting.     

Does neighborhood size really cause the word length effect?

In short-term serial recall, it is well-known that short words are remembered better than long words. This word length effect has been the cornerstone of the working memory model and a benchmark effect that all models of immediate memory should account for. Currently, there is no consensus as to what determines the word length effect. Jalbert and colleagues (Jalbert, Neath, Bireta, & Surprenant, 2011a; Jalbert, Neath, & Surprenant, 2011b) suggested that neighborhood size is one causal factor. In six experiments we systematically examined their suggestion. In Experiment 1, with an immediate serial recall task, multiple word lengths, and a large pool of words controlled for neighborhood size, the typical word length effect was present. In Experiments 2 and 3, with an order reconstruction task and words with either many or few neighbors, we observed the typical word length effect. In Experiment 4 we tested the hypothesis that the previous abolition of the word length effect when neighborhood size was controlled was due to a confounded factor: frequency of orthographic structure. As predicted, we reversed the word length effect when using short words with less frequent orthographic structures than the long words, as was done in both of Jalbert et al.’s studies. In Experiments 5 and 6, we again observed the typical word length effect, even if we controlled for neighborhood size and frequency of orthographic structure. Overall, the results were not consistent with the predictions of Jalbert et al. and clearly showed a large and reliable word length effect after controlling for neighborhood size.     

Does practice in category learning increase rule use or exemplar use—or both?

Categorization research has demonstrated the use of both rules and remembered exemplars in classification, although there is disagreement over whether learners shift from one to the other or use both strategies simultaneously. Theoretical arguments can motivate predictions for both rule use and exemplar use increasing with more practice. We describe a single large experiment (n = 190) that manipulated the number of training items (category size), the number of presentations of each training item, and the similarity between the training and the transfer stimuli in order to discover when rules and exemplars are most likely to be used. Results showed that rules and exemplars both influenced classification and that exemplars were used more often with smaller categories, with more training on items, and when test items were similar to training items. There was no consistent evidence of a shift from rule-based to exemplar-based categorization with more learning. Importantly, we found a number of conditions in which rules and exemplars were both used, even within individual participants. We discuss our results in terms of hybrid models of classification.     

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.