What determines the quality of human memory? Recent studies suggest that memory success depends on an intrinsic property of stimuli-memorability, which has predominantly been examined in item recognition tests. However, memory is an integrated system that involves not only individual elements but also the relational contexts in which they are embedded, an aspect that has been largely overlooked. In the present study, we investigate the impact of memorability on both item memory and relational memory. Through three experiments with 90 adult participants, we demonstrate that the memorability of stimuli not only facilitates item memory but also profoundly boosts their relational memory, encompassing temporal, spatial, and item-item binding memory. These findings provide robust evidence that memorability is a systematic phenomenon that goes beyond the stimulus itself, highlighting the broader relational nature of memorability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Natural environments are filled with salient yet task-irrelevant information that constantly competes for attentional resources. Effectively suppressing such distracting information is critical for the attentional control system to minimize interference with ongoing cognitive processes and maintain goal-directed behavior. Using the capture-probe paradigm, this study investigated whether the visual system can suppress distractors defined by local feature discontinuities (second-order suppression) and whether such suppression operates proactively. Experiment 1 found that when the singleton distractor had a fixed color (first-order suppression), probe recall accuracy was significantly impaired at the singleton location at both 0-ms and 200-ms array-to-probe stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), indicating proactive suppression. However, when the singleton distractor varied in color across trials-using either three (Experiment 2) or 12 (Experiment 3) possible colors-reliable probe suppression effects emerged only at 200-ms SOA, with no effect at 0-ms SOA. To rule out the confound of target feature enhancement, Experiment 4 employed a multiframe letter probe paradigm in which both targets and distractors varied in color across frames, and the target color in one frame could serve as the distractor color in another. Consistent with Experiments 2 and 3, probe suppression effects were observed only when probes appeared in the final frame but not the first. Together, these findings demonstrate that second-order suppression is possible but does not operate proactively; instead, it requires additional time to develop. Furthermore, this suppression operates independently of target feature enhancement. The results underscore the flexibility and context sensitivity of attentional suppression mechanisms in dynamic environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Inattentional blindness is often attributed to limited attentional resources. In principle, tasks that are more effortful, those that place greater demands on attention, should result in less noticing of unexpected objects. But that load on attention can take different forms, including both perceptual and cognitive components. Increasing the perceptual load by making selective attention more difficult typically increases inattentional blindness for unexpected objects, but the evidence for an effect of increased cognitive load on noticing has been more limited and mixed. In a set of five inattentional blindness studies (approximately N = 100/condition), we varied both perceptual and cognitive load. Higher perceptual load resulted in far less noticing of unexpected objects but only in the absence of an additional cognitive load task. Adding a cognitive load task lowered the overall noticing rate and reduced or eliminated the effect of perceptual load on noticing. But the amount of cognitive load (remembering 1 vs. 3 letters) made little difference. This interaction between the effects of cognitive and perceptual load might help to explain inconsistencies in evidence for an effect of cognitive load on inattentional blindness as well as the lack of a relationship between individual differences in cognitive ability measures and noticing of unexpected objects. All data and materials for this research are available at https://osf.io/gw49q. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Remembering where an object is requires binding its identity and location into a coherent memory. Object-related and spatial factors have been studied separately, but how they interact in shaping object-location memory remains unclear. We investigated how object nameability, the presence of surrounding context, and the nature of object placements affect episodic memory for object locations. In Experiment 1, participants memorized easy-to-name and difficult-to-name objects presented at the top, bottom, left, or right of the screen. Surrounding context was varied by presenting the objects either individually or in groups of four. After a filler task, they were presented again centrally, and participants indicated each object's original location. Results revealed a substantial location-memory advantage for easily nameable objects. Surrounding context had no effect. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings and additionally varied the objects' placements by presenting them either in a diamond array as in Experiment 1 or in a square array. Location memory was better for the former, but only for easily nameable objects. In Experiment 3, we manipulated the opportunity for verbalization with an articulatory suppression task, which reduced the memory advantage of easily nameable objects. We conclude that easily nameable objects profit from the ease of verbal encoding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Understanding the forgetting mechanisms in working memory is a considerable challenge for cognitive psychologists. Traditional views attribute forgetting in working memory to interference and decay, but whether verbal working memory undergoes spontaneous decay is still debated. In the present study, we examined this issue by asking participants to simultaneously memorize visual and verbal items, but requiring them to prioritize the visual materials. If spontaneous decay occurs in verbal working memory, and if the potential antiforgetting mechanisms (e.g., attentional refreshing) are primarily engaged in slowing the decay of visual information, then we should see a gradual decline in performance on verbal memory tasks over the retention interval, even in the absence of any new interfering stimuli during the retention interval (note, interference alone would not predict performance change over time). In Experiment 1, participants prioritized memorizing handwriting styles while retaining two Chinese names. Results showed a time-based decline in name recall accuracy. Experiment 2 replaced names with alphanumeric strings and manipulated the visual memory load. A spontaneous decline in verbal memory performance was found again. In addition, by isolating the influence of item errors and binding errors on task performance, the results of Experiment 2 additionally reveal an attentional mechanism capable of specifically counteracting the decay of binding strength. Experiment 3 further ruled out insufficient consolidation time as the cause of the declines. These results provide evidence for spontaneous decay in verbal working memory, modulated by attentional resource allocation, supporting the dynamic balance view between decay and active antidecay mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Object-based attention enhances processing of attended relative to unattended objects across categories, but how selection functions within a category, where visual features are similar and confusable, remains less well understood. For simple, low-level features, research has shown that attention can bias similar representations away from each other to exaggerate perceptual differences. We investigated how attention operates when selecting visually similar objects from the same category-a face among other similar faces. Participants performed visual search to identify a unique target face among similar or distinct distractors that differed only in their emotional expression. Following search, we probed the perceptual representation of the target face using a two-alternative forced choice task where participants indicated the target's emotional expression. Participants consistently reported the target's emotion as more distinct from distractors when target-distractor search similarity was high. These findings demonstrate that attention can bias representations of complex, high-level stimuli to increase the perceptual distinctiveness between targets and similar distractors in support of selection, mirroring attentional repulsion effects that have previously been reported for simple, low-level features. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Humans continuously adapt their behavior to ambient temperature, yet little is known about how they integrate distributed thermal sensations into a unified perception. This study investigates how people perceive changes in whole-body thermal environments, particularly under extreme conditions. In a between-subjects design conducted between November 2023 and April 2024, 51 participants compared the temperature felt in four independently controlled climate chambers. To generate meaningful perceptual contrasts, the temperatures varied dynamically within specific ranges: the mild condition involved a cool session (18 ± 1 °C) and a warm session (28 ± 1 °C), whereas the extreme condition involved a cold session (8 ± 2 °C) and a hot one (38 ± 2 °C). Results revealed that thermal sensitivity declined under thermal extremes (p < .001), with larger just noticeable difference in cold (0.95 °C) and hot (0.80 °C) compared with cool (0.39 °C) and warm (0.45 °C) sessions. These findings suggest that whole-body thermal sensitivity is disrupted in extreme environments, potentially due to altered sensory integration or perceptual bias, despite the absence of correlation with the physiological states. This dissociation highlights the behavioral limits of human thermoregulation and calls for further investigation into how distributed bodily signals are integrated into unified thermal experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Speech perception entails the integration of multiple acoustic cues that unfold asynchronously. Although conventional work posits that listeners immediately update higher level interpretations as cues become available, emerging evidence suggests that processing of certain speech sounds (voiceless sibilant fricatives) may be buffered, with categorical judgments withheld until subsequent cues (such as the following vocoid) arrive. This study examined mechanisms underlying this buffered integration, testing whether its release is triggered by specific properties of the signal or by a fixed temporal threshold. In addition, we examined potential sources of this effect. Using the Visual World Paradigm (VWP), we manipulated frication duration for /s/ and /ʃ/ to canonical, doubled, and tripled lengths. Participants (n = 56) completed this and a Visual Analog Scaling (VAS) task to assess categorization profiles and whether these predict individual differences in buffering. The VWP results replicated prior findings: for canonical-length fricatives, listeners delayed processing until frication offset. For double-length fricatives, buffering extended until the entire fricative elapsed. When frication was tripled, partial commitment emerged during the frication period, yet final decisions remained contingent on later cues. These results suggest that buffering is governed by the availability of acoustic information, although listeners may integrate partial information at extreme durations. VAS results revealed that listeners with greater sensitivity to secondary cues showed faster recognition. Together, these findings underscore the flexible nature of speech perception, highlighting how listeners strategically modulate processing to optimize cue integration. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
In free visual search, individuals move their eyes around a scene and search for targets with a "functional visual field" (FVF) surrounding the current point of fixation. Items could be sampled in series, one after the other within the FVF or the entire FVF might be processed in parallel. In either case, processing could be uniform, on average, across the FVF or, alternatively, some items or regions in the FVF might be systematically processed more successfully than others. To assess this, we had observers fixate at a point and then flashed a ring of eight items around fixation. We examined the distribution of errors as a function of the angular position around fixation. We found, as might be expected, that, on average, fewer errors were made on the horizontal than on the vertical meridian. Interestingly, we found reliable, idiosyncratic deviations from this average pattern. Observers tended to have specific angular positions that were consistently better or worse than average. These biases in search performance might be related to the production of otherwise apparently random false negative errors in visual search. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Social event cognition draws on both higher level semantic processes and lower level mechanisms in visual perception. However, the interaction between these levels has not yet been precisely characterized. The present article investigates whether the visual perception of social events is encapsulated from the direct, top-down influence of semantic information. To test this, we leverage a phenomenon reflecting the visual perception of social relations: the two-body inversion effect. Across a series of experiments conducted on French-speaking participants (N = 373), we identified a novel semantic priming effect: Verbs (as opposed to nouns) selectively enhance responses to socially relevant stimuli. However, the two-body inversion effect itself was not influenced by this priming effect, suggesting that the visual perception of social events is encapsulated from higher level semantic processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Maltese, a Semitic language spoken on the Mediterranean island of Malta, is experiencing a rhotic sound change from an alveolar trill to an alveolar approximant. In word onset position, approximants and trills appear with a similar frequency, which enables the investigation of allophonic effects in the absence of a frequency bias. Given claims that the trill is the most prototypical exemplar of the rhotic category (e.g., Ladefoged & Maddieson, 1996), we hypothesized that the trills lead to faster word recognition. This was tested in two visual-world eye-tracking experiments. The first experiment used images and focused on word recognition in reasonably predictable sentences. The second experiment used printed words to also investigate competition effects, with the hypothesis that the phonetic similarity between the rhotic allophone and other segments modulates the amount of activation of similar words. Over the two experiments, an advantage for the trill variant was only found in the second experiment. Both studies also tested the prediction from gestural theories of speech perception that listeners should more easily recognize words that match their own productions. This was not observed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
People automatically imitate each other, which is known to elicit feelings of affiliation. Previous research on mimicry has mainly studied dyadic interactions and thereby neglected that many social interactions are often observed by others. This raises the question of how observers perceive individuals who mimic or are mimicked. Based on previous research, we formulated two competing hypotheses about how third-party observers perceive people who initiate actions and people who mimic the actions along the Big Two dimensions (i.e., agency vs. communion). We tested these hypotheses against each other in eight experiments. The results strongly support the "Agency Hypothesis" according to which people who initiate actions are perceived as more agentic than people who mimic the actions. Our experiments also find some support for the "Communion Hypothesis" indicating that people who mimic actions are perceived as more communal than people who initiate the actions. Interestingly, support for the Agency Hypothesis was very robust, whereas the effect on perceived communion was more variable and dependent on the stimuli used. When investigating downstream consequences of the link between observed mimicry and ascriptions along the Big Two dimensions, we find that both ascribed agency and communion predict donation behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
How does the sensorimotor system control ultrarapid interceptive actions that must be completed within a few hundred milliseconds under high temporal pressure and spatial uncertainty? Such actions, as exemplified by baseball batting, require sophisticated coordination of perceptual and motor processes. The present experiment examined how these ultrafast interceptive movements are controlled by means of predictive and online processes as temporal constraints and spatial uncertainty were systematically varied. Eighteen skilled collegiate batters performed a high-fidelity virtual reality batting task in which time-to-contact (TTC: 500-375 ms) and spatial uncertainty (high/low) were orthogonally manipulated. Hitting performance (contact rate) remained stable at longer TTCs but declined once the available time fell below ∼425-400 ms, identifying a temporal boundary. As temporal urgency increased, swing initiation occurred earlier while swing duration remained constant, indicating predictive timing adjustments. However, timing error increased sharply near this boundary. Nevertheless, bat-head trajectories continued to diverge according to pitch location, and trial-by-trial variability increased at shorter TTCs, revealing within-swing online adjustments. Together, these findings demonstrate that the sensorimotor system coordinates predictive planning and online visual-motor adjustment within a narrow temporal window, suggesting that predictive and online control are integrated in a hybrid manner in temporal-urgency interception. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Congruency precues rarely produce benefits on incongruent trials in four-choice conflict tasks, raising questions about people's ability to heighten cognitive control on demand. The motivational hypothesis posits that benefits may be elusive because people are insufficiently motivated to engage effortful control in response to precues signaling an incongruent trial. We conducted three preregistered experiments using performance incentives to systematically test the motivational hypothesis in a condition where incongruent trial precue benefits previously were not found, namely, when preparation time was short. We observed precue benefits for reward and, surprisingly, no-reward trials in Experiment 1 (within-block incentive manipulation) and Experiment 2 (between-block incentive manipulation), suggesting a possible carryover effect of motivation. When incentives were manipulated between subjects (Experiment 3), a precue benefit was selective to the reward group. Although this pattern lends support to the motivational hypothesis, in all experiments, the difference in precue benefits between reward and no-reward conditions was nonsignificant. Collectively, the findings suggest that the effects of motivation on precue benefits are not robust, at least when preparation time is short. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
To dissociate density-based and number-based explanations of the aftereffects affecting visually perceived numerosity, a preregistered psychophysical experiment was conducted with 60 participants. The experiment was designed to address a recent report claiming that numerosity aftereffects could not be explained by density adaptation. Each participant was adapted to either high- or low-density adapters that were either larger or the same size as the standard test patch. During separate measurement blocks, the perceived density, numerosity, and size of the test patch were each assessed using comparison stimuli that varied along all three dimensions, so that the intended test dimension was dissociable from the other two. The primary results showed that numerosity aftereffects were fully accounted for by a mixture of size and density adaptation, whereas density aftereffects were solely dependent on adapter density and unaffected by adapter size or number. Exploratory analyses found that large aftereffects in numerosity were correlated with measured aftereffects of patch size and density, whereas density and patch-size aftereffects showed no significant correlation with each other. Taken together, these results suggest that density and patch size are normally perceptual precursors of numerosity and that numerosity perception occurs at a later stage of processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Language is inherently multimodal in nature. However, the extent to which verbal and gestural information are integrated to form a coherent meaning is still not fully understood. Although previous research has focused on iconic gestures, the present study investigates the integration of emblematic gestures-culturally specific gestures with direct verbal translations. Specifically, we examine how basic verbal and gestural affirmative and negative responses to polar questions are processed, both in isolation and in combination. Negation processing is known to be particularly demanding, making it an ideal test case for the multimodality-for-compensation hypothesis, which posits that multimodal cues are especially beneficial under increased processing difficulty. Across three experiments, participants responded to simple yes-no questions answered by either unimodal, compatible, or incompatible multimodal responses ("yes"/"no" in combination with head nods/shakes and thumbs up/down gestures). The results demonstrated consistent integration effects between verbal and gestural information, with stronger integration effects for affirmative compared with negative responses. The implications of these findings for theories of multimodal language processing are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
The human visual system naturally organizes complex visual scenes by grouping elements based on their spatial proximity, a phenomenon known as the perceptual grouping by proximity principle. This study examined whether the proximity principle adheres to Weber's law and how orientation biases modulate this relationship. Rectangular dot lattices were used to generate the stimulus set at four different scales. The method of limits was used to extract psychophysical difference thresholds for proximity grouping and to derive Weber curves, including the point of subjective equality, just noticeable difference (JND), and Weber fraction. To achieve this, the perceptual shift between different grouping percepts was induced by gradually varying interdot distances along one direction in ascending and descending sequences, whereas distances in the other direction were held constant. Twenty-four right-handed individuals (13 women, 11 men) participated in the experiment. Linear mixed-effects models were used to analyze the collected data. The results revealed a strong preference for vertical orientation and a slight tendency toward a 135° orientation. More importantly, a linear increase in the JND and a constant Weber fraction were observed across lattice scales. These findings indicate that the proximity principle adheres to Weber's law in both axis orientations. However, the vertical bias resulted in decreased sensitivity and resolution in detecting stimulus changes along the orthogonal axis, as evidenced by a higher JND slope and Weber fraction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Since the 1980s, the power law has been the dominant view of the trajectory of skill acquisition. More recent research has challenged this "law," suggesting other models may better capture individual-level data. Furthermore, the motor learning and recovery literature suggests dynamical models might better capture nonmonotonic behavior and the effect of feedback. This study compares the fits of six models on data from two mirror-tracing experiments with different feedback metrics delivered through haptics. This includes two power models, the exponential model, a hybrid power and exponential model, and two more recent dynamical models that allow for nonmonotonic learning curves and can incorporate the role of feedback. Like others before, these results show that the "power law" model is not necessarily the best way to describe individual learning. However, none of the models examined showed a clear advantage in fitting individual-level data, and we discuss multiple reasons why this might be the case. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Dynamic touch allows individuals to perceive object properties such as weight and length through movement-based exploration. This study examined how subthreshold vibrotactile stimulation influences heaviness perception by leveraging the principles of stochastic resonance, which suggests that adding structured noise can enhance weak sensory signals. Specifically, we tested whether pink-noise stimulation (which mimics natural movement variability) improves perceptual accuracy more effectively than white noise or no stimulation. Ten participants completed wielding tasks while blindfolded, estimating the weight of objects under different noise conditions. Movement dynamics were analyzed using autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average modeling to assess the presence of long-range correlations (LRCs), a hallmark of fractal variability in biological systems. Results confirmed the presence of LRCs in wielding movements but revealed no consistent benefit of pink-noise stimulation on perceptual accuracy. Instead, we observed a complex interaction between noise type and object mass, with white noise increasing perceptual error at heavier weights. Contrary to expectations, stronger LRCs in wielding movements did not correlate with improved perception, suggesting that movement complexity alone does not guarantee perceptual accuracy. These findings challenge existing assumptions about the role of fractal dynamics in sensorimotor function and highlight the need for context-dependent models of stochastic resonance. Future research should explore how individual differences, task constraints, and stimulation intensity shape the effects of subthreshold noise on perception, with implications for sensory augmentation and rehabilitation strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Facial expression and body posture provide rich information about other people's emotional states. Visual information about body posture rapidly and automatically influences perception of facial emotion. Even images of isolated hands carry rich information about emotion, but it is unknown whether this local information is automatically integrated with perception of facial emotion. We created composite stimuli in which facial emotional expressions (anger or fear) were superimposed onto bodies expressing either the same or a different emotion. We manipulated whether the full-body context was shown, or only the hands. Participants judged the emotion of the face, ignoring the bodily context. Consistent with previous findings, whole-body context exerted clear influence on the accuracy and speed judgments of facial emotion judgments. Critically, similar effects were found for faces presented in the context of isolated hands. This demonstrates that emotion from hands is automatically integrated with facial emotion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
