Differential effects of a visual illusion on online visual guidance in a stable environment and online adjustments to perturbations

In the reported, experiment participants hit a ball to aim at the vertex of a Müller–Lyer configuration. This configuration either remained stable, changed its shaft length or the orientation of the tails during movement execution. A significant illusion bias was observed in all perturbation conditions, but not in the stationary condition. The illusion bias emerged for perturbations shortly after movement onset and for perturbations during execution, the latter of which allowed only a minimum of time for making adjustments (i.e., approx.170 ms). These findings indicate that allocentric information is exploited for online control when people make rapid adjustments in response to a sudden change in the environment and not when people guide their limb movements to interact with a stable environment.     

Domain effects in lexical development: learning words for foods and toys

We investigated 3-year-olds’ and adults’ use of domain cues in learning words for solid and nonsolid material entities. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants heard a novel neutral noun (e.g., “my X”) for a standard solid or nonsolid entity described as either a toy or a food. They then were asked to extend the word to one of two other entities. Both options matched the standard in solidity; but one differed from it in an object-relevant property (shape) and the other in a substance-relevant property (color, texture, or smell). Both children and adults were more likely to select the same-shaped entity if the standard was (1) solid than if it was nonsolid, and (2) described as a toy than if it was described as a food. Their interpretations of novel words for material entities were thus affected not only by perceptual information (about solidity) but also by conceptual information (about domain). In Experiment 3, the novel noun was presented in a syntactic context that suggested the solid entity should be interpreted as an object (e.g., “an X”) and that the nonsolid entity should be interpreted as a substance (e.g., “some X”). For adults, these changes largely eliminated the effect of the entity’s domain (toy, food) on interpretation. We interpret these findings in terms of the proposal that domain cues, like solidity cues, furnish information about whether an entity’s structure should be thought of as arbitrary or nonarbitrary and, hence, about whether a word should be interpreted as naming an object or a substance construal.     

Erroneous gambling-related beliefs emerge from broader beliefs during problem-solving: a critical review and classification scheme

Abstract

Erroneous gambling-related beliefs (EGRBs) can be defined as beliefs that imply a failure to recognise how commercial gambling activities are designed to generate a guaranteed loss to players. In theorising about how EGRBs develop, previous reviews have proposed that EGRBs are extensions of decision-making heuristics and associated biases. We propose an alternative generative mechanism: one in which gambling games make substantial wins seem possible through problem-solving and eventual correct strategic action. EGRBs are then beliefs in the possibility of correct strategic action (illusions of control) that develop as players trial candidate strategies—strategies selected based on various broader beliefs. We further propose that EGRBs can be classified based on what is theorised in cognitive science about categories of general human beliefs about the world. For example, it has been theorised that human beliefs about supernatural forces and randomness have certain similarities across cultures, and so we propose that there exists a category of supernatural EGRBs, as well as a category of EGRBs based on broader beliefs about the nature of randomness. We review evidence for this classification scheme and discuss how it can be applied in researching and treating gambling disorder.