Cross-linguistic phonotactic competition and cognitive control in bilinguals

The current study examines the relation between cognitive control and linguistic competition resolution at the sublexical level in bilinguals. Twenty-one Spanish–English bilinguals and 23 English monolinguals completed a non-linguistic Stroop task (indexing inhibitory control) and a linguistic priming/lexical decision task (indexing Spanish phonotactic-constraint competition during English comprehension). More efficient Stroop performance (i.e. a smaller Stroop effect) in bilinguals was associated with decreased competition from Spanish phonotactic constraints during English comprehension. This relation was observed when nonword targets overlapped in phonotactic constraints and phonological form with preceding cognate primes (e.g. prime: stable (Spanish: estable)/target: esteriors). Findings suggest a link between non-linguistic cognitive control and co-activation of linguistic structures at the sublexical level in bilinguals.     

What we want to do versus what we think we should do: an empirical investigation of intrapersonal conflict

People often feel torn between what they want to do and what they believe they should do. As a result, they experience intrapersonal conflict. For example, people know that they should avoid credit card debt, but they want to splurge on just one more purchase. Following Loewenstein's ( 1996 ) temporal perspective to understanding internal conflict and inconsistency, we offer three studies that empirically demonstrate (1) a distinction between the want self and the should self, (2) that behavior is more closely linked to the want self, (3) that the want self is the self that is temporally inconsistent, and (4) that adopting a want versus should perspective can have a significant impact on actual behavior. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Practical Reason,Sympathy and Reactive Attitudes

This paper has three aims. First, I defend, in its most radical form, Hume's scepticism about practical reason, as it applies to purely self‐regarding matters. It's not always irrational to discount the future, to be inconstant in one's preferences, to have incompatible desires, to not pursue the means to one's ends, or to fail to maximize one's own good. Second, I explain how our response to the “irrational” agent should be understood as an expression of frustrated sympathy, in Adam Smith's sense of sympathy, rather than a genuine judgement about Reason. We judge these people because we cannot imaginatively identify with their desires and attitudes, and this is frustrating. Third, compared to the standard cognitive view, my account better explains the nature of our criticism of the “irrational,” and, by portraying “irrationality” as a cause of upset to other people, provides a better normative basis for being “rational.”     

Information Retrieval in Tip of the Tongue States: New Data and Methodological Advances

Research on Tip of the Tongue (ToT) states has been used to determine whether access to syntactic information precedes access to phonological information. This paper argues that previous studies have used insufficient analyses when investigating the nature of seriality of access. In the first part of this paper, these complex issues are discussed and suitable analyses proposed. In the second part, new experimental data are presented. In Experiment 1, English speakers were asked to give information about mass/count status and initial phoneme of nouns, when in a ToT state. In Experiment 2, German speakers were asked to report grammatical gender and initial phoneme of nouns, when in a ToT state. Evidence that syntactic and phonological information are accessed independently was obtained for both languages. Implications for models of language production and further methodological issues in ToT research are discussed.     

Nameless + harmless = blameless: When seemingly irrelevant factors influence judgment of (un)ethical behavior

People often make judgments about the ethicality of others’ behaviors and then decide how harshly to punish such behaviors. When they make these judgments and decisions, sometimes the victims of the unethical behavior are identifiable, and sometimes they are not. In addition, in our uncertain world, sometimes an unethical action causes harm, and sometimes it does not. We argue that a rational assessment of ethicality should not depend on the identifiability of the victim of wrongdoing or the actual harm caused if the judge and the decision maker have the same information. Yet in five laboratory studies, we show that these factors have a systematic effect on how people judge the ethicality of the perpetrator of an unethical action. Our studies show that people judge behavior as more unethical when: (1) identifiable vs. unidentifiable victims are involved and (2) the behavior leads to a negative rather than a positive outcome. We also find that people’s willingness to punish wrongdoers is consistent with their judgments, and we offer preliminary evidence on how to reduce these biases.