Working memory (WM) removal serves the critical function of freeing up limited capacity to accommodate task-relevant information. While previous research has primarily focused on the removal of entire objects, it remains unclear whether all features within an object share a common fate during removal. In particular, given the privileged status of spatial location across various cognitive processes, it is an open question whether location information is treated differently during removal. To address this issue, we tested the stubborn-location hypothesis that spatial location would show lower removal effectiveness than non-spatial features. The alternative possibilities were that location would show either comparable or greater removal effectiveness relative to non-spatial features. Across two experiments (N = 197), participants first encoded both the spatial location and color of four items. Following a retro-cue, they were instructed to remove three items from memory. On valid trials, either the location or the color of the remaining item was tested. Critically, in low-prevalence trials, either feature of one of the removed items was tested. Results consistently supported the stubborn-location hypothesis, showing that spatial location had lower removal effectiveness in WM than color. Specifically, removal effectiveness – defined as the accuracy drop from valid to low-prevalence trials – was lower for location than for color. Furthermore, location memory remained above chance accuracy on the first low-prevalence (surprise) trials, whereas color did not. These findings were robust across both simultaneous (Experiment 1; position cue) and sequential (Experiment 2; order cue) presentation formats. Our results highlight the privileged status of location in WM removal.
The study of multitasking provides a unique window into the interaction of cognitive processes and systems and as such, into the cognitive architecture of the human mind. Previous studies reported that when participants speak and do something else at the same time, task performance often suffers. In the present study, we examine the mechanisms leading to such interference in multitasking in an ecological setting. We compare speaking performance across easy and difficult driving tasks and track measures of speech fluency and driving efficiency throughout the experiment. Interference is observed only under difficult driving conditions. Moreover, fluctuations in speaking performance predict fluctuations in driving performance and vice versa. When speaking efficiency decreases, so does driving efficiency. These findings have a straightforward explanation in accounts of dual-task interference, in which interference arises when task demands exceed available cognitive resources. They further suggest that when this limit is reached, the system downregulates resources on both tasks.
Van Aert and Van Assen (2026) introduced a novel method called p-uniform* for estimating average effect size in meta-analyses subject to publication bias. They characterized the method as a distinct, more parsimonious model than the well-known three-parameter selection model (3PSM) of Hedges (1992). I argue that p-uniform* is not a distinct model, but rather a different estimator of the average effect size and heterogeneity parameters of the 3PSM. The p-uniform* estimator coincides with the maximum likelihood estimator of the 3PSM when all included effects have identical sampling variances; otherwise, the estimators differ. Before p-uniform* is used in applications, its theoretical rationale should be clarified, and its empirical performance should be more thoroughly explored through simulations under realistic data-generating processes, especially ones involving primary studies that vary in sample size.
While the self-prioritization effect (SPE) – the enhanced processing of self-relevant stimuli – is well established, current models typically treat the self as a monolithic entity, overlooking the cognitive dynamics between different self-representations. This study investigated whether the true self, conceptualized as the central core of identity, commands a distinct processing advantage. Across three experiments using a shape–label matching paradigm, we documented a robust true self-prioritization effect (TSPE). Crucially, we observed a pattern of competitive dynamics: while the general self showed prioritization when presented in isolation (Experiment 2), its processing advantage was abolished in the presence of the true self (Experiment 1), a finding shown to be distinct from conceptual ambiguity (Experiment 3). Computational analyses using the hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) revealed that these effects were primarily driven by differences in the rate of evidence accumulation (drift rate). These findings are consistent with a hierarchical account, in which the self-concept is not cognitively flat but hierarchically organized, with the true self functioning as a salient contextual anchor that marginalizes peripheral self-aspects to optimize decision making.
One of the fundamental issues in the cognitive sciences concerns the question of how language attains meaning. The current study investigated how the extent to which language statistics and symbol grounding reduce uncertainty about word meaning can be quantified. Using Shannon’s information theory, conditional entropy of the valence of a word was quantified without grounding (baseline), with minimal symbol grounding and with full grounding. By using a mini lexicon as a principled illustration, later extended to a full lexicon, the entropy of phonological cues, frequency cues, and word embeddings were compared to a symbol-grounding case when predicting word valence. Phonology and frequency provided small but measurable reductions in uncertainty, which word embeddings propagated through a lexical network, particularly once only a few seed words were grounded. The results show that minimal grounding, combined with language-statistical structure, can substantially reduce uncertainty about word valence. The evidence of minimal symbol grounding sheds light on the symbol-grounding problem and encourages new and quantifiable perspectives on past and present theories on language and cognition.
The ability to forgo an immediate reward in favor of a larger, later one is central to healthy decision-making–—yet some people struggle to delay gratification. A prominent theory proposes that people with faster internal clocks experience delays as subjectively longer and more costly, leading them to discount future rewards more steeply. Here, we test this theory’s central prediction by asking whether individual differences in time perception can explain individual differences in temporal decision-making. We recruited 226 participants to complete tasks measuring time perception and delay sensitivity across experiential and hypothetical decisions. We found no relationship between time perception and temporal decision-making. We also found that survey and task-based measures of temporal discounting are unrelated and that neither measure predicts real-world timing-related behaviors. Our findings indicate that time perception and temporal decision-making derive from dissociable cognitive processes and that standard laboratory measures of discounting have limited ecological validity. We suggest that foraging paradigms, which embed time–reward trade-offs in naturalistic behavioral contexts offer a promising path toward more ecologically valid and mechanistically tractable approaches to understanding how the brain trades off time and reward during decision-making.
The most important stimuli we perceive may be other agents, given their effects on our fitness. Accordingly, perception may be specialized for processing agents, and one of the best-studied examples is biological motion: displays of surprisingly few moving dots (“point-light walkers”; PLWs) nevertheless give rise to rich percepts of locomoting agents. Is this a complex instance of general motion perception, such that PLWs simply inherit the lower thresholds of general motion perception? Or might biological motion have a distinct lower “speed limit”? Observers viewed PLWs moving in place, always embedded in noise (with extra irrelevant moving dots). PLWs moved at typical speeds or at speeds that were (a) considerably slower than has been previously tested, but (b) still far above motion perception thresholds – always testing displays that were both duration-matched (with less overall motion) and cycle-matched (simply lasting longer). Across eight experiments, observers reported spontaneous percepts, or had to discriminate various properties – such as facing direction, apparent gender, or even whether a PLW was present in the first place. We always obtained the same results (which were also apparent as powerful phenomenological demonstrations): spontaneous impressions of biological motion were markedly diminished in slow displays, and discrimination of each of these aspects of biological motion in noise was greatly impaired in slower displays, although the motion was still readily visible. These explorations of “slow visual cognition” support the characterization of biological motion perception as psychophysically distinct from general motion perception.
Motion can be implied in static images through the explicit depiction of kinematic and dynamic cues. An unresolved question is whether the perception of implied motion can emerge solely from observers' prior expectations when explicit visual motion cues are ambiguous. We employed human actions to resolve this as, while static depictions of biological motion often imply movement through articulated joint positions, the causes of such motion are the hidden mental states of the agent. Across two experiments participants heard an agent state either "I'll take it" or "I'll leave it" and observed them either reach for or withdraw from an object, or remain motionless. The hand disappeared and participants touched the screen coordinates of the last seen position. In Experiment 1, static hands were perceived nearer to the object if reaches were more likely than if withdrawals were more likely. In Experiment 2, static hands were perceived nearer the object if the agent had stated, "I'll take it" than if they had stated, "I'll leave it". Crucially, the static stimulus was the same, and directionally ambiguous in all conditions, suggesting that prior expectations based on the likelihood of the agent's behaviour, and their intentions, imply motion when explicit visual cues are uninformative.
Research on Bayesian reasoning has been shaped by two productive traditions: ecological rationality, which explains why natural frequencies facilitate inference, and nested sets accounts, which show how transparent set relations support analytic reasoning. Together, these approaches have generated a rich empirical literature on representational facilitation. Yet a broader pattern has emerged: Bayesian reasoning accuracy improves with training and visualisation, varies systematically with numeracy and domain knowledge, and can be high among mathematically trained reasoners even in probability formats. These findings suggest that Bayesian competence is not reducible to a privileged input format but reflects the acquisition and deployment of multiple inferential tools. Building on prior integrative contributions, we propose that Gigerenzer’s adaptive toolbox, combined with principles from expertise research, provides a productive theoretical framework and research agenda. From this perspective, natural frequencies and nested set representations function as scaffolds that make particular tools easier for novices to access, rather than as the sole route to success. An expertise-based interpretation helps explain how inferential tools are learned, automatised, and selected through experience, why tool use varies across individuals and tasks, and how accurate Bayesian reasoning can be achieved across representational formats. We further argue that expert–novice comparisons and process-tracing methods provide a powerful approach to identifying the tools that support probabilistic inference and to guiding the design of more generalisable training interventions. This framework links representational facilitation to learning and strategy selection, shifting the focus of Bayesian reasoning research from which formats work best to how people become capable of Bayesian reasoning at all.
The English language has recently expanded its pronoun system to include the use of singular they when referring to a person whose pronouns are they/them. What cognitive mechanism accounts for increasing fluency in the use of this form? We examine whether hearing someone use singular they increases the rate and accuracy of using this form through a priming mechanism, despite prior failures to find such an effect. We show that it does for both college students (Experiment 1) and a community sample of adults (aged 30–70 years). We further ask what linguistic representations are activated with priming from singular they. Priming from hearing they increased the use of both singular they and he and she, suggesting activation of the class of third-person pronouns. But it had a stronger priming effect on they and also reduced errors for singular they, suggesting that it also specifically activates representations related to singular they.
Digit separators are widely used in Hindu-Arabic numbers to group digits into readable triads, yet their influence on multi-digit number processing has been rarely studied. We examined whether digit separators affect how large numbers (millions or greater) are processed, beyond the effect of number length. In two experiments, participants compared pairs of large multi-digit numbers presented with or without digit separators between groups. The numbers differed in their leftmost digit, numeric scale (i.e., number length), or both, yielding four left-digit-scale compatibility conditions: compatible (e.g., 5,000,000,000 vs. 2,000,000), incompatible (e.g., 2,000,000,000 vs. 5,000,000), same left-digit (e.g., 2,000,000,000 vs. 2,000,000), and same scale (e.g., 5,000,000 vs. 2,000,000). In Experiment 1, participants selected the numerically larger number; in Experiment 2, they judged which number was longer, or whether both were equal in length. In Experiment 1, the presence of digit separators slowed responses, contrary to the expectation that it would facilitate processing. In both experiments, participants showed sensitivity to leftmost digit values: when the leftmost digit and numeric scale pointed to different responses (incompatible condition), responses were slower than when they agreed (compatible condition), producing a left-digit-scale compatibility effect. In Experiment 2, where digit values were task-irrelevant, the left-digit-scale compatibility effect emerged only in the presence of digit separators. These findings demonstrate that digit separators activate semantic processing of digit values, even when visual appearance alone could guide the task, revealing that syntactic formatting actively shapes numerical magnitude perception.
Several studies have characterized the bouba–kiki effect as a cross-modal correspondence between spoken sounds and shapes. Although the effect is consistent across languages, some studies have indicated that it may be influenced by the visual resemblance between alphabetic letters and figures. Since the bouba–kiki effect is a cross-linguistic phenomenon, the orthographical bouba–kiki effect should be investigated in nonalphabetic letters. Here, the term “orthographical” refers to the visual shapes of characters and letters. However, no study on the orthographical bouba–kiki effect has focused on the difference between the two Japanese phonograms with the same sound but different orthographical appearances: hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is orthographically rounded, while katakana is square. Therefore, this study investigated whether hiragana and katakana are associated with rounded and spiky figures, respectively. In the experiment, native Japanese participants rated the appropriateness of nonsense words as the names of abstract figures on a scale from 0 to 100. The results showed that katakana and spiky figures were likely to be associated. Our findings suggest that orthographical similarity between specific character types (i.e., square characters) and spiky figures strengthens the word–shape association, revealing an asymmetrical orthographical effect.
Metacognitive monitoring, or the capacity to assess and regulate one’s cognitive activities, is essential for maintaining optimal mental functioning. Metacognitive monitoring may be particularly important for individuals as they age, fostering self-awareness of cognitive strengths and limitations, guiding strategy selection to enhance performance, compensating for age-related changes to cognitive abilities, and identifying the earliest cognitive symptoms of disease. By evaluating one’s own understanding, individuals can align their confidence with actual ability, promoting better decision making and behavioral control. This review synthesizes the current literature on age-related differences in the accuracy of metacognitive monitoring across different types of metacognitive judgments, including judgments of learning, feelings of knowing, and post-decision confidence. We begin by discussing two key components of metacognitive monitoring: metacognitive sensitivity and metacognitive calibration. Then, we examine existing studies to address two main questions: whether age-related differences in one component (e.g., metacognitive calibration) can be explained by variations in the other (e.g., metacognitive sensitivity), and whether these differences can be attributed to age-related changes in underlying cognitive or perceptual processes. We find that the current literature does not provide definitive evidence for or against the decline of metacognitive monitoring in older adults. Rather, findings suggest that aging may differentially affect metacognitive accuracy depending on the type of judgment and task demands, with some domains showing preserved or even enhanced performance. These mixed findings underscore the conceptual and methodological complexity of studying metacognition in aging. We conclude by outlining key theoretical and empirical directions to clarify mechanisms and advance the field.
This paper examines the trade-off between remembering and online evaluation in retrospective judgments. In two experiments, we compared conditions where participants performed only one task (evaluation or recall) versus both tasks, with task expectancy manipulated through pre-cueing or post-cueing. Participants (N=139 and N=262) viewed sequences of numbers representing monetary values and were asked to either recall the numbers or evaluate the sequence through willingness-to-pay judgments. Results showed that when both tasks were potential (Experiment 1) or actual (Experiment 2) candidates to be cued, one or the other task showed a decrement in performance, indicative of some dual-task cost. Strikingly, simulations revealed that participants would have performed better had they focused solely on memory encoding during presentation rather than attempting dual-task processing. These findings suggest that people do not optimally allocate cognitive resources between competing processes during retrospective evaluation, and may attempt to deploy multiple specialized strategies even where a memory-based strategy would be effective overall.
Punishment raises a basic question for human cognition: Do agents suppress actions because they represent the negative consequences those actions produce? Everyday deterrence, from parental reprimands to legal sanctions, assumes that people regulate behavior by learning what their actions cause and by evaluating those consequences negatively. However, in spite of this widely held assumption, experimental evidence that punished instrumental behavior is controlled by the current value of the punisher is currently lacking. To test this idea, we applied an outcome revaluation procedure to instrumental punishment in rats. Rats first learned to press two levers for food. One lever was then additionally punished by response-contingent footshock, whereas the other remained unpunished. The aversiveness of the shock was subsequently reduced by pairing it with food in the absence of the levers. To test whether the punisher’s value was part of the animals’ representation of the consequences of their actions, responding was tested in extinction, with no shock delivered. We found that revaluation of the shock selectively abolished the suppression of the punished response. Thus, punishment was not a fixed process controlled by the prior occurrence of shock but rather depended on the shock’s current value. Our results show that instrumental punishment can be controlled by a value-sensitive representation of the aversive consequence produced by the action and is, in this sense, structured in the same manner as canonical goal-directed reward seeking.
Selective attention can momentarily alter visual appearance, but can such effects be learned? We tested whether training attention under sustained sensory competition produces learned changes in perceived contrast. Across 7 days, participants trained on an orientation discrimination task in which the target appeared at a fixed spatial location, either with or without a salient distractor in the opposite hemifield. Before and after training, we measured perceived contrast using psychophysical estimates of the point of subjective equality. Training under competition produced a reliable opponent shift in relative perceived contrast between the two tested locations: lower physical contrast was required for stimuli at the trained location, whereas higher physical contrast was required for stimuli at the opposite/untrained location, to appear equivalent to the standard. In contrast, training without distractors improved discrimination accuracy but did not alter appearance. These shifts were observed at post-test, replicated across judgment formats designed to minimize response bias, and generalized partially to stimuli differing in orientation and contrast. Together, the findings demonstrate that repeatedly resolving attentional competition does not merely enhance performance but recalibrates the perceptual weighting of visual information, altering how the visual world is experienced.
The distinction between verbatim and gist traces has been central to various fields of cognitive research, especially false memory, judgment and decision-making, cognitive development, and aging. The conjoint-recognition paradigm was developed to quantify the contributions of verbatim and gist traces to various tasks in those fields. A simplified version of the original paradigm has been devised and has been implemented in several recent studies. However, the validity of this methodology and the memory processes it measures remain uncertain. To address the problem, we first conducted factor analyses at the level of experiment conditions and then a posterior factor analysis to determine whether the simplified paradigm decomposes verbatim and gist traces in the same manner as the full paradigm. Second, we evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of verbatim and gist parameters to a series of experimental manipulations to examine whether the simplified model satisfies convergent and discriminant validity criteria. Two conclusions emerged. On the one hand, the simplified conjoint-recognition paradigm is a reliable and valid method of separating the contributions of verbatim and gist memory in the tasks to which it has been applied. On the other hand, the specific test format increases the difficulty of recollection rejection.
Spatial memory research has traditionally focused on how environmental features shape the use of egocentric and allocentric reference frames, with little attention to the role of the objects themselves. Here, using two datasets collected with a virtual reality object-location memory task, we investigated whether the biological relevance of objects modulates spatial memory performance depending on the reference frame used at retrieval. Participants encoded the positions of biological entities and artifacts and retrieved them using either egocentric or allocentric recall cues. In Study 1, young adults (N = 37) showed a significant interaction between object category and recall cue: biological entities were recalled more accurately under allocentric than egocentric retrieval, while artifacts showed the opposite pattern, though the category difference was significant only under allocentric retrieval. In Study 2, older adults and patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (N = 80) showed a preserved biological advantage in overall spatial performance, whereas the interaction with recall cue was no longer observed, a pattern consistent with the reduced allocentric contribution typically associated with aging. These findings provide initial evidence that object categories may shape the retrieval of spatial locations.
Recent evidence suggests that ideomotor effect anticipations rely on transitions rather than end-states. That is, humans generate motor actions not by anticipating a desired end-state, but by anticipating the change from the current situation to that desired end-state. Here, we tested whether ideomotor learning mechanisms mirror this sensitivity to transitions. To this end, we conducted three preregistered experiments employing a prime-probe design. In the prime, an action produced a visual effect. In the subsequent probe, the stimulus always either matched or mismatched this previously produced end-state. Crucially, the probe stimulus either involved the same transition of producing a novel stimulus (onset stimuli) or, alternatively, it involved only the same end-state, but a different transition resulting in that end-state (offset stimuli). Evidence for action-effect binding as a precursor of ideomotor learning emerged only when the probe transition repeated the prime transition. This suggests that ideomotor learning is mainly sensitive to transitions rather than end-states.
Psychological research frequently relies on statistical tests targeting single distributional parameters, typically means, despite empirical data often differing in variance, skewness, or overall shape. We introduce the ζ _ov test, a permutation-based inferential procedure built on the Overlapping Index, an effect size quantifying similarity between empirical distributions. The proposed approach evaluates global distributional differences without relying on parametric assumptions. Through simulations manipulating mean, variance, skewness, and sample size, we examine the ζ _ov test alongside commonly used tests (t, Welch, Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney, Kolmogorov–Smirnov, and variance tests), while acknowledging that these tests address different null hypotheses. Results indicate that the ζ _ov test maintains adequate Type I error control under the simulated scenarios and shows comparatively high sensitivity to distributional differences, particularly when these involve more than a single parameter. An applied example using reaction-time data shows how distributional overlap detects differences missed by mean-based analyses. Rather than replacing traditional tests, the method provides a theoretically aligned global assessment that encourages distribution-aware inference and integration of visualization and descriptive analysis into statistical workflows. The ζ _ov framework supports ongoing methodological shifts in the psychological sciences toward robust, assumption-light, and interpretable statistical reasoning.
