The “BIG BIRD” of the “YELLOW YOUNG” man: Do nontarget properties cascade?

This study investigated whether in speech production object properties flow in a cascaded manner or whether cascaded processing is restricted to the object's identity. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants saw pictured objects and had to state either their size (GRAND or PETIT—meaning big and small) or their name. The size of the objects varied as a function of the way they were presented on the computer screen (Experiment 1) or their real size in the world (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, faces of young and old men were coloured in yellow or in green. The task was to name either the colour (JAUNE or VERT, meaning yellow and green, respectively) or the age (JEUNE or VIEUX, meaning young and old, respectively) of the face. In Experiments 1 and 2, no reliable effects of phonological relatedness (“GORILLE–grand”—a big gorilla) were found on the object-naming latencies. However, size-naming latencies were shorter when the adjective shared the initial phoneme of the picture name (i.e., “GRAND–gorille”) than when it did not (i.e., “GRAND–dinosaure”—saying “big” in response to a big dinosaur). In Experiment 3, phonological overlap did not affect colour naming latencies, or age naming latencies. Overall, these findings strongly suggest that cascaded processing is restricted to the object's identity in conceptually driven naming tasks.     

Conceptual information about size of objects in nouns

Two experiments provide evidence that information about the real-life size of objects is elicited by nouns. A priming paradigm was used with a category membership verification task. The results showed that targets were responded to faster when preceded by a same-size prime, and that large entities were processed faster than small ones. Overall, our results significantly extend previous work on perceptual information elicited by concepts (e.g., Zwaan & Yaxley, 2004) and, in particular, on size information (e.g., Rubinstein & Henik, 2002) by means of a size-unrelated paradigm.     

The mental representation of integers: an abstract-to-concrete shift in the understanding of mathematical concepts

Mathematics has a level of structure that transcends untutored intuition. What is the cognitive representation of abstract mathematical concepts that makes them meaningful? We consider this question in the context of the integers, which extend the natural numbers with zero and negative numbers. Participants made greater and lesser judgments of pairs of integers. Experiment 1 demonstrated an inverse distance effect: When comparing numbers across the zero boundary, people are faster when the numbers are near together (e.g., −1 vs. 2) than when they are far apart (e.g., −1 vs. 7). This result conflicts with a straightforward symbolic or analog magnitude representation of integers. We therefore propose an analog-x hypothesis: Mastering a new symbol system restructures the existing magnitude representation to encode its unique properties. We instantiate analog-x in a reflection model: The mental negative number line is a reflection of the positive number line. Experiment 2 replicated the inverse distance effect and corroborated the model. Experiment 3 confirmed a developmental prediction: Children, who have yet to restructure their magnitude representation to include negative magnitudes, use rules to compare negative numbers. Taken together, the experiments suggest an abstract-to-concrete shift: Symbolic manipulation can transform an existing magnitude representation so that it incorporates additional perceptual-motor structure, in this case symmetry about a boundary. We conclude with a second symbolic-magnitude model that instantiates analog-x using a feature-based representation, and that begins to explain the restructuring process.     

Supersize My Chances: Promotional Lotteries Impact Product Size Choices

Promotional lotteries offer consumers a chance to win one of many prizes along with their purchase. Critically, as is often the case, these campaigns not only include an assortment of prizes but also an assortment of offerings that one can buy to enter the lottery—such as a small or an extra‐large coffee. While companies regularly advertise that the objective odds of winning do not vary by the size of their product offerings, recent anecdotal evidence suggest that consumers behave as if it does. The net result is that consumers seem to be supersizing during promotional lotteries, and thus purchasing larger sized items. Eight studies (four core and four supplementary in Supporting information ) and a single‐paper meta‐analysis confirm that the supersizing phenomenon is indeed real and provides evidence that this behavior is the manifestation of consumers elevating their sense of control. Specifically, supersizing serves to gain psychological control over the pursuit of a desirable, but seemingly unobtainable, outcome.     

Ethnic differences in BMI, weight concerns, and eating behaviors: comparison of Native American, White, and Hispanic adolescents

Evidence suggests that substantial proportions of adolescents, regardless of ethnicity or gender, are engaged in excessive weight control behaviors. Crago and Shisslak (2003), however, have noted that small samples and poorly validated instruments have limited the value of previous ethnic difference studies. Using the McKnight Risk Factor Survey, we compared Native American, White, and Hispanic adolescents. Native students were divided into groups with one (NA-mixed) or two (NA) Native American biological parents. Surveys were completed by 5th through 10th grade students. BMI z-scores were significantly higher for boys and girls in the NA group, and boys in this group were significantly more engaged in weight control behaviors, including purging. A higher percentage of Native and Hispanic girls preferred a larger body size. BMI was positively correlated with weight and shape concerns and with weight control behaviors, regardless of ethnicity or gender. Overweight among Native adolescents may put them at greater risk for eating problems than their White peers.     

The Numerical Stroop Effect in Primary School Children: A Comparison of Low,Normal, and High Achievers

Sixty-six primary school children were selected, of which 21 scored low on a standardized math achievement test, 23 were normal, and 22 high achievers. In a numerical Stroop experiment, children were asked to make numerical and physical size comparisons on digit pairs. The effects of congruity and numerical distance were determined. All children exhibited congruity and distance effects in the numerical comparison. In the physical comparison, children of all performance groups showed Stroop effects when the numerical distance between the digits was large but failed to show them when the distance was small. Numerical distance effects depended on the congruity condition, with a typical effect of distance in the congruent, and a reversed distance effect in the incongruent condition. Our results are hard to reconcile with theories that suggest that deficits in the automaticity of numerical processing can be related to differential math achievement levels. Immaturity in the precision of mappings between numbers and their numerical magnitudes might be better suited to explain the Stroop effects in children. However, as the results for the high achievers demonstrate, in addition to numerical processing capacity per se, domain-general functions might play a crucial role in Stroop performance, too.     

My face through the looking-glass: the effect of mirror reversal on reflection size estimation

People tend to grossly overestimate the size of their mirror-reflected face. Although this overestimation bias is robust, not much is known about its relationships to self-face perception. In two experiments, we investigated the overestimation bias as a function of the presentation of the own face (left–right reversed – as in a mirror – or nonreversed – as in a photograph), the identity of the seen face, and prior exposure to a real mirror. For this we developed a computerized task requiring size estimations of displayed faces. We replicated the observation that people overestimate the size of their mirror-reflected face and showed that the overestimation can be reduced following a brief mirror exposure. We also found that left–right reversal modulates the overestimation bias, depending on the perceived face’s identity. These data underline the enhanced familiarity of left–right reversed self-faces and the importance of size perception for understanding mirror reflection processing.     

A colorful walk on the mental number line: Striving for the right direction

Verguts and Van Opstal [Verguts, T., & Van Opstal, F. (2008). A colorful walk, but is it on the mental number line? Reply to Cohen Kadosh, Tzelgov, and Henik, Cognition, 106, 558-563] cleverly explained the results of Cohen Kadosh, Tzelgov, and Henik [Cohen Kadosh, R., Tzelgov, J., & Henik, A. (2008). A synesthetic walk on the mental number line: The size effect, Cognition, 106, 548-557] as a result of different association strength between the size of a number and its color in synesthesia. Here we present three challenges to their alternative explanation, and support our original suggestion.     

Electrophysiological evidence for size invariance in masked picture repetition priming

This experiment examined invariance in object representations through measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) to pictures in a masked repetition priming paradigm. Pairs of pictures were presented where the prime was either the same size or half the size of the target object and the target was either presented in a normal orientation or was a normal sized mirror reflection of the prime object. Previous masked repetition priming studies have found a cascade of priming effect sensitive to perceptual (N190/P190) and semantic (N400) properties of the stimulus. This experiment found that both early (N190/P190 effects) and later effects (N400) were invariant to size, whereas only the N190/P190 effect was invariant to mirror reflection. The combination of a small prime and a mirror reflected target led to no significant priming effects. Taken together, the results of this set of experiments suggests that object recognition, more specifically, activating an object representation, occurs in a hierarchical fashion where overlapping perceptual information between the prime and target is necessary, although not always sufficient, to activate a higher level semantic representation.     

Local rather than global processing of visual arrays in numerosity discrimination by pigeons (Columba livia)

A series of experiments investigated which stimulus properties pigeons use when they discriminate pairs of visual arrays that differ in numerosity. Transfer tests with novel stimuli confirmed that the birds’ choices were based on relative differences in numerosity. However, pigeons differed from other species in the non-numerical cues that affected their choices. In human and non-human primates, numerical discrimination is often influenced by continuous variables such as surface area or overall stimulus brightness. Pigeons showed little evidence of using those cues, even when summed area and brightness had been correlated with numerosity differences and reward outcome. But when array-element sizes were asymmetrically distributed across numerosities, the birds readily utilized information about item sizes as an additional discriminative cue. These novel results are discussed in relation to pigeons’ tendency to focus on local, rather than global dimensions when they process other non-numerical complex visual stimuli. The findings suggest there may be inter-specific differences in the type of perceptual information that provides the input stage for mechanisms underlying numerical processing. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.