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Publications in this journal

• Scientific knowledge suppresses but does not supplant earlier intuitions.

  Authors: Andrew Shtulman, Joshua Valcarcel

  Cognition.

  When students learn scientific theories that conflict with their earlier, naïve theories, what happens to the earlier theories? Are they overwritten or merely suppressed? We investigated thisWhen students learn scientific theories that conflict with their earlier, naïve theories, what happens to the earlier theories? Are they overwritten or merely suppressed? We investigated this question by devising and implementing a novel speeded-reasoning task. Adults with many years of science education verified two types of statements as quickly as possible: statements whose truth value was the same across both naïve and scientific theories of a particular phenomenon (e.g., "The moon revolves around the Earth") and statements involving the same conceptual relations but whose truth value differed across those theories (e.g., "The Earth revolves around the sun"). Participants verified the latter significantly more slowly and less accurately than the former across 10 domains of knowledge (astronomy, evolution, fractions, genetics, germs, matter, mechanics, physiology, thermodynamics, and waves), suggesting that naïve theories survive the acquisition of a mutually incompatible scientific theory, coexisting with that theory for many years to follow.

• Acquiring ownership and the attribution of responsibility.

  Authors: Max Palamar, Doan T Le, Ori Friedman

  Cognition.

  How is ownership established over non-owned things? We suggest that people may view ownership as a kind of credit given to agents responsible for making possession of a non-owned object possible. OnHow is ownership established over non-owned things? We suggest that people may view ownership as a kind of credit given to agents responsible for making possession of a non-owned object possible. On this view, judgments about the establishment of ownership depend on attributions of responsibility. We report three experiments showing that people's judgments about the establishment of ownership are influenced by an agent's intent and control in bringing about an outcome, factors that also affect attributions of responsibility. These findings demonstrate that people do not just consider who was first to possess an object in judging who owns it, and are broadly consistent with the view that ownership is acquired through labor. The findings also suggest that rather than exclusively being the product of social conventions, judgments about the establishment of ownership over non-owned things also depend on the psychological processes underlying the attribution of responsibility.

• Categorization is modulated by transcranial direct current stimulation over left prefrontal cortex.

  Authors: Gary Lupyan, Daniel Mirman, Roy Hamilton, Sharon L Thompson-Schill

  Cognition.

  Humans have an unparalleled ability to represent objects as members of multiple categories. A given object, such as a pillow may be-depending on current task demands-represented as an instance ofHumans have an unparalleled ability to represent objects as members of multiple categories. A given object, such as a pillow may be-depending on current task demands-represented as an instance of something that is soft, as something that contains feathers, as something that is found in bedrooms, or something that is larger than a toaster. This type of processing requires the individual to dynamically highlight task-relevant properties and abstract over or suppress object properties that, although salient, are not relevant to the task at hand. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological evidence suggests that this ability may depend on cognitive control processes associated with the left inferior prefrontal gyrus. Here, we show that stimulating the left inferior frontal cortex using transcranial direct current stimulation alters performance of healthy subjects on a simple categorization task. Our task required subjects to select pictures matching a description, e.g., "click on all the round things." Cathodal stimulation led to poorer performance on classification trials requiring attention to specific dimensions such as color or shape as opposed to trials that required selecting items belonging to a more thematic category such as objects that hold water. A polarity reversal (anodal stimulation) lowered the threshold for selecting items that were more weakly associated with the target category. These results illustrate the role of frontally-mediated control processes in categorization and suggest potential interactions between categorization, cognitive control, and language.

• First language acquisition differs from second language acquisition in prelingually deaf signers: Evidence from sensitivity to grammaticality judgement in British Sign Language.

  Authors: Kearsy Cormier, Adam Schembri, David Vinson, Eleni Orfanidou

  Cognition.

  Age of acquisition (AoA) effects have been used to support the notion of a critical period for first language acquisition. In this study, we examine AoA effects in deaf British Sign Language (BSL)Age of acquisition (AoA) effects have been used to support the notion of a critical period for first language acquisition. In this study, we examine AoA effects in deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users via a grammaticality judgment task. When English reading performance and nonverbal IQ are factored out, results show that accuracy of grammaticality judgement decreases as AoA increases, until around age 8, thus showing the unique effect of AoA on grammatical judgement in early learners. No such effects were found in those who acquired BSL after age 8. These late learners appear to have first language proficiency in English instead, which may have been used to scaffold learning of BSL as a second language later in life.

• Are we good at detecting conflict during reasoning?

  Authors: Gordon Pennycook, Jonathan A Fugelsang, Derek J Koehler

  Cognition.

  Recent evidence suggests that people are highly efficient at detecting conflicting outputs produced by competing intuitive and analytic reasoning processes. Specifically, De Neys and Glumicic (2008)Recent evidence suggests that people are highly efficient at detecting conflicting outputs produced by competing intuitive and analytic reasoning processes. Specifically, De Neys and Glumicic (2008) demonstrated that participants reason longer about problems that are characterized by conflict (as opposed to agreement) between stereotypical personality descriptions and base-rate probabilities of group membership. However, this finding comes from problems involving probabilities much more extreme than those used in traditional studies of base-rate neglect. To test the degree to which these findings depend on such extreme probabilities, we varied base-rate probabilities over five experiments and compared participants' response time for conflict problems with non-conflict problems. Longer response times for stereotypical responses to conflict versus non-conflict problems were found only in the presence of extreme probabilities. Our results suggest that humans may not be consistently efficient at detecting conflicts during reasoning.

• Cross cultural differences in unconscious knowledge.

  Authors: Sachiko Kiyokawa, Zoltán Dienes, Daisuke Tanaka, Ayumi Yamada, Louise Crowe

  Cognition.

  Previous studies have indicated cross cultural differences in conscious processes, such that Asians have a global preference and Westerners a more analytical one. We investigated whether these biasesPrevious studies have indicated cross cultural differences in conscious processes, such that Asians have a global preference and Westerners a more analytical one. We investigated whether these biases also apply to unconscious knowledge. In Experiment 1, Japanese and UK participants memorized strings of large (global) letters made out of small (local) letters. The strings constituted one sequence of letters at a global level and a different sequence at a local level. Implicit learning occurred at the global and not the local level for the Japanese but equally at both levels for the English. In Experiment 2, the Japanese preference for global over local processing persisted even when structure existed only at the local but not global level. In Experiment 3, Japanese and UK participants were asked to attend to just one of the levels, global or local. Now the cultural groups performed similarly, indicating that the bias largely reflects preference rather than ability (although the data left room for residual ability differences). In Experiment 4, the greater global advantage of Japanese rather English was confirmed for strings made of Japanese kana rather than Roman letters. That is, the cultural difference is not due to familiarity of the sequence elements. In sum, we show for the first time that cultural biases strongly affect the type of unconscious knowledge people acquire.

• When two sources of fluency meet one cognitive mindset.

  Authors: Niv Reggev, Ran R Hassin, Anat Maril

  Cognition.

  Fluency, the subjective experience of ease associated with information processing, has been shown to affect a host of judgments. Previous research has typically focused on specific factors thatFluency, the subjective experience of ease associated with information processing, has been shown to affect a host of judgments. Previous research has typically focused on specific factors that affect the use of a single, specific fluency source. In the present study we examine how cognitive mindsets, or processing modes, moderate fluency emanating from two simultaneous sources of fluency. As a cognitive mindset manipulation, participants performed Jacoby's process dissociation paradigm. Subsequently, participants engaged in a metamemory task that incorporates (and can separately measure the influence of) two simultaneous sources of fluency: familiarity and accessibility. Our results confirmed that our content-unrelated mindset procedure had affected the use of fluency. Moreover, the use of both fluency sources was attenuated, demonstrating the generality of the effect. The findings highlight the causal dependency of fluency on a complex, cognitively-rich environment.

• Parent or community: Where do 20-month-olds exposed to two accents acquire their representation of words?

  Authors: Caroline Floccia, Claire Delle Luche, Samantha Durrant, Joseph Butler, Jeremy Goslin

  Cognition.

  The recognition of familiar words was evaluated in 20-month-old children raised in a rhotic accent environment to parents that had either rhotic or non-rhotic accents. Using an IntermodalThe recognition of familiar words was evaluated in 20-month-old children raised in a rhotic accent environment to parents that had either rhotic or non-rhotic accents. Using an Intermodal Preferential Looking task children were presented with familiar objects (e.g. 'bird') named in their rhotic or non-rhotic form. Children were only able to identify familiar words pronounced in a rhotic accent, irrespective of their parents' accent. This suggests that it is the local community rather than parental input that determines accent preference in the early stages of acquisition. Consequences for the architecture of the early lexicon and for models of word learning are discussed.

• Contours of time: Topographic construals of past, present, and future in the Yupno valley of Papua New Guinea.

  Authors: Rafael Núñez, Kensy Cooperrider, D Doan, Jürg Wassmann

  Cognition.

  Time, an everyday yet fundamentally abstract domain, is conceptualized in terms of space throughout the world's cultures. Linguists and psychologists have presented evidence of a widespread patternTime, an everyday yet fundamentally abstract domain, is conceptualized in terms of space throughout the world's cultures. Linguists and psychologists have presented evidence of a widespread pattern in which deictic time-past, present, and future-is construed along the front/back axis, a construal that is linear and ego-based. To investigate the universality of this pattern, we studied the construal of deictic time among the Yupno, an indigenous group from the mountains of Papua New Guinea, whose language makes extensive use of allocentric topographic (uphill/downhill) terms for describing spatial relations. We measured the pointing direction of Yupno speakers' gestures-produced naturally and without prompting-as they explained common expressions related to the past, present, and future. Results show that the Yupno spontaneously construe deictic time spatially in terms of allocentric topography: the past is construed as downhill, the present as co-located with the speaker, and the future as uphill. Moreover, the Yupno construal is not linear, but exhibits a particular geometry that appears to reflect the local terrain. The findings shed light on how, our universal human embodiment notwithstanding, linguistic, cultural, and environmental pressures come to shape abstract concepts.

• The role of intuition and deliberative thinking in experts' superior tactical decision-making.

  Authors: Jerad H Moxley, K Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Ralf T Krampe

  Cognition.

  Current theories argue that human decision making is largely based on quick, automatic, and intuitive processes that are occasionally supplemented by slow controlled deliberation. Researchers,Current theories argue that human decision making is largely based on quick, automatic, and intuitive processes that are occasionally supplemented by slow controlled deliberation. Researchers, therefore, predominantly studied the heuristics of the automatic system in everyday decision making. Our study examines the role of slow deliberation for experts who exhibit superior decision-making outcomes in tactical chess problems with clear best moves. Our study uses advanced computer software to measure the objective value of actions preferred at the start versus the conclusion of decision making. It finds that both experts and less skilled individuals benefit significantly from extra deliberation regardless of whether the problem is easy or difficult. Our findings have important implications for the role of training for increasing decision making accuracy in many domains of expertise.

• Decision makers calibrate behavioral persistence on the basis of time-interval experience.

  Authors: Joseph T McGuire, Joseph W Kable

  Cognition.

  A central question in intertemporal decision making is why people reverse their own past choices. Someone who initially prefers a long-run outcome might fail to maintain that preference for longA central question in intertemporal decision making is why people reverse their own past choices. Someone who initially prefers a long-run outcome might fail to maintain that preference for long enough to see the outcome realized. Such behavior is usually understood as reflecting preference instability or self-control failure. However, if a decision maker is unsure exactly how long an awaited outcome will be delayed, a reversal can constitute the rational, utility-maximizing course of action. In the present behavioral experiments, we placed participants in timing environments where persistence toward delayed rewards was either productive or counterproductive. Our results show that human decision makers are responsive to statistical timing cues, modulating their level of persistence according to the distribution of delay durations they encounter. We conclude that temporal expectations act as a powerful and adaptive influence on people's tendency to sustain patient decisions.

• Predicted errors in children's early sentence comprehension.

  Authors: Yael Gertner, Cynthia Fisher

  Cognition.

  Children use syntax to interpret sentences and learn verbs; this is syntactic bootstrapping. The structure-mapping account of early syntactic bootstrapping proposes that a partial representation ofChildren use syntax to interpret sentences and learn verbs; this is syntactic bootstrapping. The structure-mapping account of early syntactic bootstrapping proposes that a partial representation of sentence structure, the set of nouns occurring with the verb, guides initial interpretation and provides an abstract format for new learning. This account predicts early successes, but also telltale errors: Toddlers should be unable to tell transitive sentences from other sentences containing two nouns. In testing this prediction, we capitalized on evidence that 21-month-olds use what they have learned about noun order in English sentences to understand new transitive verbs. In two experiments, 21-month-olds applied this noun-order knowledge to two-noun intransitive sentences, mistakenly assigning different interpretations to "The boy and the girl are gorping!" and "The girl and the boy are gorping!". This suggests that toddlers exploit partial representations of sentence structure to guide sentence interpretation; these sparse representations are useful, but error-prone.

• Finding words in a language that allows words without vowels.

  Authors: Abder El Aissati, James M McQueen, Anne Cutler

  Cognition.

  Across many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition fromAcross many languages from unrelated families, spoken-word recognition is subject to a constraint whereby potential word candidates must contain a vowel. This constraint minimizes competition from embedded words (e.g., in English, disfavoring win in twin because t cannot be a word). However, the constraint would be counter-productive in certain languages that allow stand-alone vowelless open-class words. One such language is Berber (where t is indeed a word). Berber listeners here detected words affixed to nonsense contexts with or without vowels. Length effects seen in other languages replicated in Berber, but in contrast to prior findings, word detection was not hindered by vowelless contexts. When words can be vowelless, otherwise universal constraints disfavoring vowelless words do not feature in spoken-word recognition.

• Evaluating ritual efficacy: Evidence from the supernatural.

  Authors: Cristine H Legare, André L Souza

  Cognition.

  Rituals pose a cognitive paradox: although widely used to treat problems, rituals are causally opaque (i.e., they lack a causal explanation for their effects). How is the efficacy of ritual actionRituals pose a cognitive paradox: although widely used to treat problems, rituals are causally opaque (i.e., they lack a causal explanation for their effects). How is the efficacy of ritual action evaluated in the absence of causal information? To examine this question using ecologically valid content, three studies (N=162) were conducted in Brazil, a cultural context in which rituals called simpatias are used to treat a great variety of problems ranging from asthma to infidelity. Using content from existing simpatias, experimental simpatias were designed to manipulate the kinds of information that influences perceptions of efficacy. A fourth study (N=68) with identical stimuli was conducted with a US sample to assess the generalizability of the findings across two different cultural contexts. The results provide evidence that information reflecting intuitive causal principles (i.e., repetition of procedures, number of procedural steps) and transcendental influence (i.e., presence of religious icons) affects how people evaluate ritual efficacy.

• Learning individual talkers' structural preferences.

  Authors: Yuki Kamide

  Cognition.

  Listeners are often capable of adjusting to the variability contained in individual talkers' (speakers') speech. The vast majority of findings on talker adaptation are concerned with learning theListeners are often capable of adjusting to the variability contained in individual talkers' (speakers') speech. The vast majority of findings on talker adaptation are concerned with learning the contingency between phonological characteristics and talker identity. In contrast, the present study investigates representations at a more abstract level - the contingency between syntactic attachment style and talker identity. In a 'visual-world' experiment, participants were exposed to semi-realistic scenes depicting several objects (e.g., an adult man, a young girl, a motorbike, a carousel, and other objects) accompanied by a spoken sentence with a structurally ambiguous relative clause (e.g., 'The uncle of the girl who will ride the motorbike/carousel is from France.' In the context of the scene, 'motorbike' suggested the uncle as the agent of the riding, whereas 'carousel' suggested the girl as the agent). For half the experimental items, one version of the sentence was read by one talker, who always uttered sentences that resolved, pragmatically, to the high attachment (the uncle as the agent), and the other by another talker, who always uttered sentences resolving to the low attachment (the girl as the agent). For the other half of the experimental items, both versions were read by a third talker who produced both high and low attachments. It was found that, after exposure to these stimuli, and for new sentences not heard previously, participants learnt to anticipate the 'appropriate' attachment depending on talker identity (with no attachment preference for the talker who produced both attachment types). The data suggest that listeners can learn the relationship between talker identity and abstract, structural, properties of their speech, and that syntactic attachment decisions in comprehension can reflect sensitivity to talker-specific syntactic style.

• Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief.

  Authors: Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Paul Seli, Derek J Koehler, Jonathan A Fugelsang

  Cognition.

  An analytic cognitive style denotes a propensity to set aside highly salient intuitions when engaging in problem solving. We assess the hypothesis that an analytic cognitive style is associated withAn analytic cognitive style denotes a propensity to set aside highly salient intuitions when engaging in problem solving. We assess the hypothesis that an analytic cognitive style is associated with a history of questioning, altering, and rejecting (i.e., unbelieving) supernatural claims, both religious and paranormal. In two studies, we examined associations of God beliefs, religious engagement (attendance at religious services, praying, etc.), conventional religious beliefs (heaven, miracles, etc.) and paranormal beliefs (extrasensory perception, levitation, etc.) with performance measures of cognitive ability and analytic cognitive style. An analytic cognitive style negatively predicted both religious and paranormal beliefs when controlling for cognitive ability as well as religious engagement, sex, age, political ideology, and education. Participants more willing to engage in analytic reasoning were less likely to endorse supernatural beliefs. Further, an association between analytic cognitive style and religious engagement was mediated by religious beliefs, suggesting that an analytic cognitive style negatively affects religious engagement via lower acceptance of conventional religious beliefs. Results for types of God belief indicate that the association between an analytic cognitive style and God beliefs is more nuanced than mere acceptance and rejection, but also includes adopting less conventional God beliefs, such as Pantheism or Deism. Our data are consistent with the idea that two people who share the same cognitive ability, education, political ideology, sex, age and level of religious engagement can acquire very different sets of beliefs about the world if they differ in their propensity to think analytically.

• The time course of argument reactivation revealed: Using the visual world paradigm.

  Authors: Loes Koring, Pim Mak, Eric Reuland

  Cognition.

  Previous research has found that the single argument of unaccusative verbs (such as fall) is reactivated during sentence processing, but the argument of agentive verbs (such as jump) is not (Bever &Previous research has found that the single argument of unaccusative verbs (such as fall) is reactivated during sentence processing, but the argument of agentive verbs (such as jump) is not (Bever & Sanz, 1997; Friedmann, Taranto, Shapiro, & Swinney, 2008). An open question so far was whether this difference in processing is caused by a difference in thematic roles the verbs assign, or a difference in the underlying syntactic structure. In the present study we tease apart these two potential sources. In order to achieve this, we included a set of verbs (like sparkle) which are equal to unaccusative verbs in the thematic role they assign to their argument, but equal to agentive verbs in the syntactic status of their argument (henceforth mixed verbs). As a method we used the visual world paradigm as this enables us to measure processing of the sentences continuously. This method also allowed us to test another hypothesis, namely the hypothesis that not only the argument of unaccusative verbs is reactivated during processing, but also the argument of agentive verbs. This reactivation is expected as the result of integrating the verb and its argument into one representation. In our experiment, participants listened to sentences including one of the three types of verbs. While listening, they viewed a visual display in which one of four objects was strongly related to the argument of the verb (wood-saw). The gaze record showed that the eyes moved to the related object (saw) upon presentation of the argument (wood). More interestingly, the eyes moved back to the related object upon presentation of the verb (fell). We found that looks to the related object increase only late after verb offset for unaccusative verbs, replicating the findings of previous research. We also found a rise in looks to the related object in agentive verbs, but this rise took place much earlier, starting slightly after verb onset. Finally, we found that mixed verbs pattern in processing with agentive verbs. We conclude that the argument of the verb is always reactivated, independent of verb type. In addition, the timing of integration differs per verb type and depends on the syntactic status of the argument and not on the thematic role that is assigned to the argument.

• Time course of free-choice priming effects explained by a simple accumulator model.

  Authors: Uwe Mattler, Simon Palmer

  Cognition.

  Unconscious visual stimuli can be processed by human observers and modulate their behavior. This has been shown for masked prime stimuli that influence motor responses to subsequent target stimuli.Unconscious visual stimuli can be processed by human observers and modulate their behavior. This has been shown for masked prime stimuli that influence motor responses to subsequent target stimuli. Beyond this, masked stimuli can also affect participants' behavior when they are free to choose one of two response alternatives. This finding demonstrates that an apparently free-choice between alternative behaviors can be subject to influences that are outside of awareness. We report three experiments which exhibit that the temporal dynamic of free-choice priming effects corresponds to that of forced-choice priming effects. Forced-choice priming effects were relatively robust against variations of prime stimuli but sensitive to physical features of target stimuli. Free-choice priming effects, in contrast, depended largely on the stimulus-response compatibility of the prime. A simple accumulator model which accounts for forced-choice response priming can also explain free-choice priming effects by the assumption that unconscious stimuli can initiate motor responses when participants are engaged in a speeded choice-reaction time task. According to our analyses free-choice priming results from a response selection mechanism which integrates conscious and unconscious information from external, stimulus driven sources and also from internal sources.

• Overnight lexical consolidation revealed by speech segmentation.

  Authors: Nicolas Dumay, M Gareth Gaskell

  Cognition. 123(1):119-32.

  Two experiments explored the consolidation of spoken words, and assessed whether post-sleep novel competitor effects truly reflect engagement of these novel words in competition for lexicalTwo experiments explored the consolidation of spoken words, and assessed whether post-sleep novel competitor effects truly reflect engagement of these novel words in competition for lexical segmentation. Two types of competitor relationships were contrasted: the onset-aligned case (such as "frenzylk"), where the novel word is a close variant of the existing word: they start at the same time point and overlap on most of their segments; and the fully embedding case (such as "lirmucktoze"), where the existing word corresponds to a smaller embedded portion of its novel competitor and is thus less noticeable. Experiment 1 (pause detection) revealed a similar performance for both cases, with no competitor effect immediately after exposure, but significant inhibition after 24h and seven days. Experiment 2 (word spotting) produced exactly the same pattern; however, as is the case with existing word carriers (cf. McQueen, Norris, & Cutler, 1994), the inhibition was much stronger for fully embedded than for onset-aligned targets (e.g., "lirmuckt" vs. "frenzyl"). Meanwhile, explicit measures of learning, i.e., free recall and recognition, improved over time. These results cannot be explained by either consolidation of episodic traces or acquisition of new phonological/dialectal variants. We argue instead that they reflect a general trait of vocabulary learning and consolidation.

• Symbolic representation of probabilistic worlds.

  Authors: Jacob Feldman

  Cognition. 123(1):61-83.

  Symbolic representation of environmental variables is a ubiquitous and often debated component of cognitive science. Yet notwithstanding centuries of philosophical discussion, the efficacy, scope,Symbolic representation of environmental variables is a ubiquitous and often debated component of cognitive science. Yet notwithstanding centuries of philosophical discussion, the efficacy, scope, and validity of such representation has rarely been given direct consideration from a mathematical point of view. This paper introduces a quantitative measure of the effectiveness of symbolic representation, and develops formal constraints under which such representation is in fact warranted. The effectiveness of symbolic representation hinges on the probabilistic structure of the environment that is to be represented. For arbitrary probability distributions (i.e., environments), symbolic representation is generally not warranted. But in modal environments, defined here as those that consist of mixtures of component distributions that are narrow ("spiky") relative to their spreads, symbolic representation can be shown to represent the environment with a relatively negligible loss of information. Modal environments support propositional forms, logical relations, and other familiar features of symbolic representation. Hence the assumption that our environment is, in fact, modal is a key tacit assumption underlying the use of symbols in cognitive science.

• The emergence of frequency effects in eye movements.

  Authors: Polina M Vanyukov, Tessa Warren, Mark E Wheeler, Erik D Reichle

  Cognition. 123(1):185-9.

  A visual search experiment employed strings of Landolt Cs to examine how the gap size of and frequency of exposure to distractor strings affected eye movements. Increases in gap size were associatedA visual search experiment employed strings of Landolt Cs to examine how the gap size of and frequency of exposure to distractor strings affected eye movements. Increases in gap size were associated with shorter first-fixation durations, gaze durations, and total times, as well as fewer fixations. Importantly, both the number and duration of fixations decreased with repeated exposures. The findings provide evidence for the role of cognition in guiding eye-movements, and a potential explanation for word-frequency effects observed in reading.

• Found and missed: Failing to recognize a search target despite moving it.

  Authors: Grayden J F Solman, J Allan Cheyne, Daniel Smilek

  Cognition. 123(1):100-18.

  We present results from five search experiments using a novel 'unpacking' paradigm in which participants use a mouse to sort through random heaps of distractors to locate the target. We report thatWe present results from five search experiments using a novel 'unpacking' paradigm in which participants use a mouse to sort through random heaps of distractors to locate the target. We report that during this task participants often fail to recognize the target despite moving it, and despite having looked at the item. Additionally, the missed target item appears to have been processed as evidenced by post-error slowing of individual moves within a trial. The rate of this 'unpacking error' was minimally affected by set size and dual task manipulations, but was strongly influenced by perceptual difficulty and perceptual load. We suggest that the error occurs because of a dissociation between perception for action and perception for identification, providing further evidence that these processes may operate relatively independently even in naturalistic contexts, and even in settings like search where they should be expected to act in close coordination.

• A funny thing happened on the way to articulation: N400 attenuation despite behavioral interference in picture naming.

  Authors: Trevor Blackford, Phillip J Holcomb, Jonathan Grainger, Gina R Kuperberg

  Cognition. 123(1):84-99.

  We measured Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) and naming times to picture targets preceded by masked words (stimulus onset asynchrony: 80ms) that shared one of three different types of relationshipWe measured Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) and naming times to picture targets preceded by masked words (stimulus onset asynchrony: 80ms) that shared one of three different types of relationship with the names of the pictures: (1) Identity related, in which the prime was the name of the picture ("socks" - ), (2) Phonemic Onset related, in which the initial segment of the prime was the same as the name of the picture ("log" - ), and (3) Semantically related in which the prime was a co-category exemplar and associated with the name of the picture ("cake" - ). Each type of related picture target was contrasted with an Unrelated picture target, resulting in a 3×2 design that crossed Relationship Type between the word and the target picture (Identity, Phonemic Onset and Semantic) with Relatedness (Related and Unrelated). Modulation of the N400 component to related (versus unrelated) pictures was taken to reflect semantic processing at the interface between the picture's conceptual features and its lemma, while naming times reflected the end product of all stages of processing. Both attenuation of the N400 and shorter naming times were observed to pictures preceded by Identity related (versus Unrelated) words. No ERP effects within 600ms, but shorter naming times, were observed to pictures preceded by Phonemic Onset related (versus Unrelated) words. An attenuated N400 (electrophysiological semantic priming) but longer naming times (behavioral semantic interference) were observed to pictures preceded by Semantically related (versus Unrelated) words. These dissociations between ERP modulation and naming times suggest that (a) phonemic onset priming occurred late, during encoding of the articulatory response, and (b) semantic behavioral interference was not driven by competition at the lemma level of representation, but rather occurred at a later stage of production.

• Comparing pluralities.

  Authors: Gregory Scontras, Peter Graff, Noah D Goodman

  Cognition. 123(1):190-7.

  What does it mean to compare sets of objects along a scale, for example by saying "the men are taller than the women"? We explore comparison of pluralities in two experiments, eliciting comparisonWhat does it mean to compare sets of objects along a scale, for example by saying "the men are taller than the women"? We explore comparison of pluralities in two experiments, eliciting comparison judgments while varying the properties of the members of each set. We find that a plurality is judged as "bigger" when the mean size of its members is larger than the mean size of the competing plurality. These results are incompatible with previous accounts, in which plural comparison is inferred from many instances of singular comparison between the members of the sets (Matushansky & Ruys, 2006). Our results suggest the need for a type of predication that ascribes properties to plural entities, not just individuals, based on aggregate statistics of their members. More generally, these results support the idea that sets and their properties are actively represented as single units.

• Centre-embedded structures are a by-product of associative learning and working memory constraints: Evidence from baboons (Papio Papio).

  Authors: Arnaud Rey, Pierre Perruchet, Joël Fagot

  Cognition. 123(1):180-4.

  Influential theories have claimed that the ability for recursion forms the computational core of human language faculty distinguishing our communication system from that of other animals (Hauser,Influential theories have claimed that the ability for recursion forms the computational core of human language faculty distinguishing our communication system from that of other animals (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002). In the present study, we consider an alternative view on recursion by studying the contribution of associative and working memory processes. After an intensive paired-associate training with visual shapes, we observed that baboons spontaneously ordered their responses in keeping with a recursive, centre-embedded structure. This result suggests that the human ability for recursion might partly if not entirely originate from fundamental processing constraints already present in nonhuman primates and that the critical distinction between animal communication and human language should more likely be found in working memory capacities than in an ability to produce recursive structures per se.

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