Cognitive Science[JOURNAL]
Sun
200 papers
Parsing Interactive Social Cognition: Mentalizing Accuracy and Propensity in Dyadic Contexts.
Pradhan L, Warnell KR
Cogn Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41696933 · Full text
Successful social interaction requires attending to and accurately processing others' thoughts and feelings, a social cognitive skill known as mentalizing. To date, however, mentalizing has most frequently been assessed...
Successful social interaction requires attending to and accurately processing others' thoughts and feelings, a social cognitive skill known as mentalizing. To date, however, mentalizing has most frequently been assessed in nondyadic contexts, leaving open questions as to whether variability in real-world interactive social cognitive performance is due to trait-level differences or to properties of particular interactions. The current study examined mentalizing about one's social partner in both close social dyads (n = 50 dyads) and stranger dyads (n = 52 dyads). Within these dyadic contexts, we measured empathic accuracy-or the ability to accurately infer another's thoughts and feelings-and mind-mindedness, the propensity to spontaneously discuss another's mental states. We found that for both pre-existing close dyads and stranger dyads, the empathic accuracy of one partner significantly correlated with the empathic accuracy of the other partner, suggesting that empathic accuracy may be better conceptualized as a property of the specific social interaction rather than solely an individual trait. In contrast, across both dyad types, one partner's level of mind-mindedness did not relate to their partner's mind-mindedness. Further, a noninteractive measure of mentalizing accuracy did not show dyadic concordance. Individual levels of empathic accuracy, mind-mindedness, and noninteractive mentalizing accuracy were also uncorrelated. These findings underscore the importance of taking a multifaceted approach to measuring social cognition that considers the role of social context.
Dynamics of Inhibitory Control Processes in a Simon-Switch Task: A Mouse Tracking Study.
Ye W, Li X, Chen J … +2 more , Qiu J, Damian MF
Cogn Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41696922 · Publisher ↗
The processes and mechanisms underlying inhibitory control have been explored for decades. The current study investigated the inhibitory control processes in response to complex conflict types within trials. A novel task...
The processes and mechanisms underlying inhibitory control have been explored for decades. The current study investigated the inhibitory control processes in response to complex conflict types within trials. A novel task combined a spatial Simon manipulation with a color-shape task switching paradigm, using a "mouse tracking" technique which captured dynamic responses. Simon compatibility and task-rule congruency effects clearly emerged in performance and exerted an additive influence on movement trajectories. A time-course analysis showed a very early and fast-acting Simon effect, but a task congruency effect which emerged later. No interaction was observed between Simon compatibility and task-rule congruency. The results suggest that cognitive control can be flexibly and independently evoked by different conflict types within a short time period, but that very different mental processes underlie Simon and congruency effects. Our findings are in agreement with the view that different conflict types are managed by distinct cognitive control mechanisms.
Do Great Apes Use Iconic Gestures?
Perlman M
Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci · 2026 · PMID 41656559 · Full text
Many researchers in cognitive science and linguistics now recognize that iconicity-perceived resemblance between the form and meaning of a signal (e.g., a word, sign, or gesture)-is an essential property of language, pla...
Many researchers in cognitive science and linguistics now recognize that iconicity-perceived resemblance between the form and meaning of a signal (e.g., a word, sign, or gesture)-is an essential property of language, playing vital roles in its processing, learning, and historical development. Iconicity is also fundamental to the human ability to create meaningful new signals without reliance on convention. This iconic turn raises a critical question for the study of language origins: Do great apes use iconic gestures? Apes are well documented to use a flexible and wide-ranging repertoire of gestures, and many appear to be iconic representations of actions, including directive touches, visual directives, and pantomimed actions. However, the most widely accepted theories-ontogenetic ritualization and biological inheritance through phylogenetic ritualization-argue that this apparent form-meaning resemblance is not psychologically real to the apes using the gestures. They argue instead that effective actions are channeled into gestures through repeated use, either through an individual's experience or over generations of evolution. Yet, it is increasingly recognized that these theories cannot account for the variability and contextual tuning of ape gestures. Alternatively, reasoning from cognitive theories of human gesture and iconicity as rooted in sensorimotor simulation and mental imagery, apes may use a range of gestures that appear homologous to the iconic gestures of humans, even if comparatively restricted in imaginative scope and anchored heavily in a here-and-now context. This fundamental capacity for iconic gesturing may have been a critical precursor to the evolution of language.
Thickness Is More Than Affective Valence: Evaluative Language Through the Lenses of Psycholinguistics.
Cassani G, Colombo M
Cogn Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41622771 · Full text
Thick terms like "courageous," "smart," and "tasty" combine description and evaluation, contrasting with purely evaluative terms like "good" and "bad," and descriptive terms like "Italian" and "green." Thick terms intuit...
Thick terms like "courageous," "smart," and "tasty" combine description and evaluation, contrasting with purely evaluative terms like "good" and "bad," and descriptive terms like "Italian" and "green." Thick terms intuitively constitute a special class of evaluative language; but we currently do not know whether the psycholinguistic effects of these terms are reducible to known semantic dimensions. Here, we start to systematically explore this question by comparing the behavior of thick terms and non-thick descriptive terms with similar affective valence, which is a strong candidate semantic dimension to account for differences between evaluative and non-evaluative language. We study thick terms from English, Dutch, and Italian, combining behavioral data from the cancellability task, Cloze task, and free association networks, with natural language processing methods and psycholinguistic ratings of word valence. We find that thick and non-thick descriptive terms are associated with different psycholinguistic effects, even when carefully matched for valence, suggesting that valence is insufficient to account for the difference between thick and non-thick terms. Instead, we find no reliable difference between positive and negative thick terms, and between moral, epistemic, and aesthetic thick terms. Our findings indicate that thick terms form a homogeneous class of evaluative language whose psycholingusitic effects cannot be explained only in terms of affective valence.
No Evidence for Agent-Patient Role Attribution in Human Infants, Human Adults, and Guinea Baboons (Papio papio).
Meewis F, Barezzi I, Hababou-Bernson M … +3 more , Fagot J, Claidière N, Dautriche I
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41589912 · Publisher ↗
Languages describe "who is doing what to whom" by distinguishing the event roles of agent (doer) and patient (undergoer), but it is debated whether they result from nonlinguistic representations that may already exist in...
Languages describe "who is doing what to whom" by distinguishing the event roles of agent (doer) and patient (undergoer), but it is debated whether they result from nonlinguistic representations that may already exist in preverbal infants and nonhuman animals. The phenomenon of causal perception, where the subsequent movements of two objects A and B evoke the impression of A launching B, is a simple depiction of an agent-patient relation. The seminal study by Leslie and Keeble from 1987 proposed that infants of 6 months old may be able to attribute agent and patient roles to such causal displays, after they demonstrated the infants' dishabituation upon seeing a launching event that was reversed. They introduced the idea that a role reversal had taken place upon reversing the direction of the launching event (launcher becoming launchee), but not in a noncausal temporal gap event where the agent and patient roles were not present. The present study tested this hypothesis in three different populations: 6-month-old human infants, human adults, and Guinea baboons (Papio papio). For the human infants, we applied a habituation-dishabituation design, and for the human adults and baboons, a conditional match-to-sample task. We were unable to replicate the findings of Leslie and Keeble in human infants. Similarly, we did not find evidence for an effect specific to reversing launching events in human adults and baboons. Inconsistent results across different studies call into question the role reversal paradigm for Michottean launches to study event role attribution.
The Influence of Grammatical Gender on Object Conceptualization Is Weak and Language-Dependent.
Xiao H, Cremers A, Straboni C … +2 more , Strickland B, Peperkamp S
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41589911 · Publisher ↗
Do we make gendered associations with objects whose linguistic labels have masculine/feminine grammatical gender? This question derives from the neo-Whorfian view that language shapes our conceptualizations of the world....
Do we make gendered associations with objects whose linguistic labels have masculine/feminine grammatical gender? This question derives from the neo-Whorfian view that language shapes our conceptualizations of the world. Previous research has provided mixed answers. Here, we present three experiments where we tested for the gender effect on object conceptualization using a word association approach: a first group of participants generated adjectives for nouns referring to objects, and a second group subsequently rated those adjectives for masculinity/femininity. In Experiment 1, with native French speakers, we tested semantically related object nouns that have opposite grammatical gender (masculine vs. feminine) in French; in Experiment 2, with native French and German speakers, we tested translation equivalents having opposite grammatical gender in the two languages. Results from both experiments showed the absence of a gender effect in French, while a small gender effect was found in German. In both experiments, nouns had been presented with a gender-marked determiner. In Experiment 3, we tested a new group of German participants on the same items, which were now presented without a determiner; we again observed a small gender effect. Consistent with previous findings, we also found that people ascribe more feminine qualities to natural entities and masculine qualities to artificial entities. Taken together, we conclude that the influence of grammatical gender on object conceptualization is weak and dependent on language.
Bayesians Commit the Gambler's Fallacy.
Dorst K
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41589877 · Publisher ↗
The gambler's fallacy is the tendency to expect random processes to switch more often than they actually do-for example, to assign a higher probability to heads after a streak of tails. It's often taken to be evidence fo...
The gambler's fallacy is the tendency to expect random processes to switch more often than they actually do-for example, to assign a higher probability to heads after a streak of tails. It's often taken to be evidence for irrationality. It isn't. Rather, it's to be expected from a group of Bayesians who begin with causal uncertainty, and then observe unbiased data from an (in fact) statistically independent process. Although they increase their confidence that the outcomes are independent, they do so in an asymmetric way-ruling out "streaky" hypotheses more quickly than "switchy" ones. Their expectations depend on this balance of uncertainty; as a result, the majority (and the average) exhibit the gambler's fallacy, expecting a heads after a string of tails. If they have limited memory, this tendency persists even with arbitrarily-large amounts of data. In fact, such Bayesians exhibit a variety of the empirical trends found in studies of the gambler's fallacy. They expect switches after short streaks but continuations after long ones; these nonlinear expectations vary with their familiarity with the causal system; their predictions depend on the sequence they've just seen; they produce sequences that are too switchy; and they exhibit greater rates of the gambler's fallacy in binary predictions than in probability estimates. In short: what's been thought to be evidence for irrationality may instead be rational responses to limited data and memory.
Do We Appeal to the Knowledge of Our Political Rivals?
Molnar AC, Rupchandani VA, Sloman S
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41587395 · Publisher ↗
Categorical explanations involve the use of labels to account for various properties of the explanandum. Prior research shows that the degree to which a label is perceived to be entrenched in society impacts the judged q...
Categorical explanations involve the use of labels to account for various properties of the explanandum. Prior research shows that the degree to which a label is perceived to be entrenched in society impacts the judged quality of the categorical explanation that invokes it regardless of how informative the explanation actually is. The aim of the present paper is to investigate whether the label entrenchment effect persists even when the label is said to be entrenched only in a particular community (rather than in society at large) and whether one's relationship to the entrenching community mediates the effect. Across five online behavioral experiments, we show that US partisans (Democrats and Republicans) rated the informativeness of a circular categorical explanation as higher when the label it invokes is entrenched in their own political community than when it is entrenched in the rival political community. However, being entrenched in the rival political community led to higher informativeness judgments than not being entrenched at all. Finally, we show that the effect does not occur when the label is entrenched in an epistemically suspect community, the Flat Earth Society.
How We Share, Meta-Cognitively.
Shteynberg G
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41569230 · Publisher ↗
I argue that the emerging field of collective cognition lacks consensus as to how a psychological state can be shared. Whereas much is known about the basic sensorimotor and cognitive mechanisms of social alignment, repr...
I argue that the emerging field of collective cognition lacks consensus as to how a psychological state can be shared. Whereas much is known about the basic sensorimotor and cognitive mechanisms of social alignment, representations of "sharedness" at the meta-cognitive level remain unclear. One reason for this lack of clarity is the genuine difficulties involved in attending to the attention of multiple individual minds. As an alternative, I argue that individuals can use collective meta-attention, or attention to the attention of collective minds, as a cognitively frugal and epistemically robust way to track the presence of a shared experience. I also discuss the implications of the proposal for other shared mental states such as shared emotions, attitudes, beliefs, and goals.
Enhancing Flexible Transfer of Fractions: The Role of Sequential and Simultaneous Games With Multiple Representations.
Begolli KN, Guo S, Acevedo-Farag LM … +10 more , Sanchez G, Yu X, Kim Y, Vu M, Heranandez L, Ahn J, Bailey D, Bustamante AS, Rhodes K, Richland L
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41569229 · Publisher ↗
We codesigned and evaluated a brief intervention combining two fraction games: Fraction Ball (played on a basketball court) and Bottle Caps Bonanza (played on a tabletop shuffleboard). Using participatory design principl...
We codesigned and evaluated a brief intervention combining two fraction games: Fraction Ball (played on a basketball court) and Bottle Caps Bonanza (played on a tabletop shuffleboard). Using participatory design principles, we engaged teachers and students in codesigning playful learning experiences aimed at improving knowledge transfer and adding fractions with unlike denominators. Students were randomly assigned within seven treatment classrooms to practice fractions with different denominators on one board simultaneously (N = 87) versus practicing on separate boards sequentially (N = 79). Three comparison classrooms (N = 75) only took the pretest and posttest. Our preregistered models suggested significant impacts on multiple aspects of fraction knowledge, including far transfer and overall fraction knowledge, when comparing both treatment groups to the comparison group. The simultaneous condition performed higher on untimed fraction addition with unequal denominators, though this difference was not statistically significant (b = 0.21, p = .05). Furthermore, students with higher prior knowledge benefited more from the simultaneous condition. We conclude that this playful and accessible intervention can effectively improve students' fraction knowledge.
Revisiting Age-Related Changes in Statistical Learning: The Importance of Longitudinal Evidence.
Németh D, Tóth-Fáber E, Farkas B … +1 more , Janacsek K
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41569146 · Publisher ↗
In a recent article in Cognitive Science, Rogachev et al. (2025) presented a cross-sectional investigation of visual statistical learning (SL) in children aged 3-9 years and concluded that implicit SL remains stable acro...
In a recent article in Cognitive Science, Rogachev et al. (2025) presented a cross-sectional investigation of visual statistical learning (SL) in children aged 3-9 years and concluded that implicit SL remains stable across early childhood. They cited our longitudinal study (Tóth-Fáber et al., 2024) as supporting this conclusion. Here, we clarify that this interpretation is incorrect. Using a longitudinal design tracking the same individuals from ages 7 to 14, we demonstrated a reliable developmental decline in implicit SL, along with substantial interindividual variability. We further showed that executive functions measured at age 14 predict individual developmental trajectories of SL, indicating a dynamic reorganization of learning systems with maturation. Importantly, tasks used to measure SL inevitably recruit multiple cognitive processes, and differences in these task demands can substantially influence observed developmental trajectories. We argue that longitudinal and cross-sectional designs yield qualitatively different evidence about developmental change. Longitudinal evidence and relatively process-pure measures are, therefore, essential for accurately characterizing developmental dynamics in SL.
The Inverted U: Exploring the Interconnectedness of Movement and Cognitive Function Across the Lifespan.
Leisman G, Alfasi R, Meiron O … +1 more , D'Angiulli A
Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci · 2026 · PMID 41566633 · Full text
The "inverted U" relationship between movement and cognition throughout the human lifespan highlights the intricate interplay between physical activity and cognitive function. This relationship posits that an optimal lev...
The "inverted U" relationship between movement and cognition throughout the human lifespan highlights the intricate interplay between physical activity and cognitive function. This relationship posits that an optimal level of physical activity maximizes cognitive function, while insufficient activity can lead to suboptimal cognitive outcomes. This phenomenon is observed from fetal development to old age, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a balance in physical activity for overall well-being. During fetal development, maternal physical activity positively influences fetal brain growth, laying the foundation for future cognitive and physical functioning. As the child develops, regular physical activity supports improvements in key cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and executive function abilities essential for learning and academic success. In adulthood, maintaining an active lifestyle continues to play a central role in preserving cognitive abilities and reducing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. The inverted U model suggests that optimal cognitive functioning is achieved at moderate levels of physical activity, while too little activity can be detrimental. In older adulthood, regular physical activity is vital for maintaining cognitive function, slowing cognitive decline, and improving quality of life. In summary, understanding the balance between physical activity and cognition across the lifespan is essential for promoting cognitive resilience and sustained well-being. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development Psychology > Development and Aging Psychology > Learning.
When Generosity Backfires: Children's Evaluation of Sharing With Negative Social Consequences.
Qi Y, Chai Q, He J
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41562389 · Publisher ↗
Generosity is widely regarded as one of the most praiseworthy virtues. However, when individuals engage in generous acts, such behavior can sometimes lead to unintended consequences, such as overshadowing the reputations...
Generosity is widely regarded as one of the most praiseworthy virtues. However, when individuals engage in generous acts, such behavior can sometimes lead to unintended consequences, such as overshadowing the reputations of others. Across two studies (N = 512), we examined how 8- to 12-year-old children and adults evaluate generous sharing when it undermines a peer's reputation, and whether this evaluation is moderated by the social relationship between the individuals involved. Participants were presented with a vignette in which an actor shared more than a peer-who was either a friend or a stranger-resulting in the peer's reputation being either harmed or not. Results showed that children evaluated the actor's sharing more negatively and were less willing to befriend with the actor when it harmed the peer's reputation compared to when it did not, and this effect was not influenced by the social relationship between the actor and the peer (Study 1a). Further studies, which modified the materials and included a larger sample encompassing adults, consistently found that social relationship did not affect children's or adults' evaluations of reputation-harming sharing (Studies 1b and 2). The findings demonstrate that children in middle childhood evaluate sharing behavior with attention not only to the act's generosity, but also to the broader social implications it may carry.
Quantifying What Is Efficacious Yet Not Observable: Cognitive Neuroscience's Measurement Problem Has a Solution.
Froese T
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41562365 · Publisher ↗
Cognitive neuroscience faces a measurement problem: core features of the human mind cannot be directly observed in the brain. For example, intentions are efficacious in behavior generation yet cannot be reduced to the su...
Cognitive neuroscience faces a measurement problem: core features of the human mind cannot be directly observed in the brain. For example, intentions are efficacious in behavior generation yet cannot be reduced to the sub-personal quantities of neural activity without losing their purpose-driven, normative character. This instrumental limitation is fundamental yet remains insufficiently recognized. To bring this issue to the forefront and reorient the field toward a solution, this brief commentary argues that theories of the mind-brain relation must meet the "Participation Criterion": they must specify what measurable difference the presence of mental efficacy produces compared to its absence. When the Participation Criterion is accepted alongside the measurement problem, a feasible solution arises: the dynamical relevance of unobservable mental efficacy may manifest indirectly as increased unpredictability of observable brain activity, quantifiable via information-theoretic entropy. The concept of "irruption" is introduced to specifically formalize this efficacy-derived part of unexplained variability, thereby reframing context-dependent "noise" in the brain as a key signature of the intentional mind at work. The theoretical proposal offers new avenues for research in cognitive science and clinical interventions.
The (Un)Conscious Learner: How Meta-Awareness Influences Self-Regulated Learning and Mitigates Task-Unrelated Thoughts.
Ebbert D, Mills C, Winne PH … +4 more , Wilson N, Mirriahi N, Joksimovic S, Dawson S
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41560460 · Publisher ↗
This theoretical article examines the relationship between self-regulated learning and task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) through the lens of metacognition. Grounded in Winne's COPES (conditions, operations, products, evalua...
This theoretical article examines the relationship between self-regulated learning and task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) through the lens of metacognition. Grounded in Winne's COPES (conditions, operations, products, evaluations, and standards) model of self-regulated learning, we propose an interaction model emphasizing metacognitive monitoring and control. This model suggests the metacognitive cycle inherent to self-regulated learning can increase meta-awareness and mitigate prolonged experiences of TUTs. Learners can potentially redirect their focus by engaging in iterative cycles of metacognitive monitoring and control when thoughts inevitably drift toward TUTs. Foundational concepts explored include metacognition, meta-awareness, and the COPES facets. By synthesizing theoretical connections, processes are proposed through which learners' self-regulatory capacities may influence TUT experiences via enhanced meta-awareness. This lays the groundwork to guide future inquiries on self-regulation dynamics underlying effective learning. Empirical research is recommended to investigate the viability of this theorized mechanism linking self-regulation processes to experiences of TUT and research agendas following from this theoretical framework are outlined.
Event Knowledge Modulates Real-Time Mental Representations of Object State-Change.
Lee SH, Kaiser E
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41560439 · Full text
The present study examines how real-world event knowledge and grammatical aspect guide event comprehension. Specifically, we tested whether real-world knowledge about the likelihood of state-change (e.g., wine glasses us...
The present study examines how real-world event knowledge and grammatical aspect guide event comprehension. Specifically, we tested whether real-world knowledge about the likelihood of state-change (e.g., wine glasses usually crack when dropped but plastic cups do not) modulates the object state representations that people construct while reading perfective and imperfective sentences. Participants read "rebus" sentences in perfective and imperfective aspect, presented one word at a time, self-paced. In each sentence, the object was replaced by an image of the object that is either likely or unlikely to undergo state-change (e.g., Carlos was dropping/dropped a *wine glass*/*plastic cup* …), depicted in their initial (intact) or end (changed) states. Reaction times to images indicate that real-world knowledge about the likelihood of state-change is recruited when comprehenders construct mental models of events described as completed (perfective aspect, e.g., dropped) as well as events described as ongoing (imperfective aspect, e.g., was dropping). Results also indicate that perfective aspect increases the accessibility of both the initial and end states of objects, compared to imperfective aspect. Overall, these results demonstrate that both non-linguistic information grounded in real-world event knowledge as well as linguistic cues about the temporal structure of events guide how comprehenders dynamically update mental representations of object states in real-time.
Asymmetric Anticipatory Emotions and Economic Preferences: Dread, Savoring, Risk, and Time.
Dawson C, Johnson SGB
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41557469 · Full text
We are often preoccupied with the future, experiencing dread at the thought of future misery and savoring the thought of future pleasure. Prior lab studies have found that these anticipatory emotions influence decision-m...
We are often preoccupied with the future, experiencing dread at the thought of future misery and savoring the thought of future pleasure. Prior lab studies have found that these anticipatory emotions influence decision-making. In this article, using economic survey data to estimate individual differences in anticipatory emotions, we find that the tendency to feel displeasure from anticipating future losses outweighs the pleasure from anticipating equal gains. We then relate asymmetries in anticipatory emotions to key economic preferences, finding that people with more strongly asymmetric anticipatory emotions are more risk-avoidant (because they obtain more disutility from contemplating downside risk) and more impatient (because they want to minimize the time spent contemplating risks). We conclude by considering how asymmetries in anticipatory emotions may be linked to a range of intertemporal and risky choice phenomena. Overall, our framework explains why risk-avoidance and impatience are linked, and we provide suggestive evidence for this explanation.
A Data-Limit Account of Release From Masking During Speech-on-Speech Listening.
Knight S, Zheng Y, Maher G … +2 more , McGarrigle R, Mattys S
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41553830 · Full text
Speech-on-speech listening involves selectively attending to a target talker while ignoring a simultaneous competing talker. Spatially separating the talkers improves performance, a phenomenon known as spatial release fr...
Speech-on-speech listening involves selectively attending to a target talker while ignoring a simultaneous competing talker. Spatially separating the talkers improves performance, a phenomenon known as spatial release from masking (spatial RM). The same is true of spectral separation, that is, filtering the talkers into non-overlapping frequency bands (spectral RM). The relative benefit of spatial versus spectral RM is currently unknown. Furthermore, it is unclear how listeners' ability to exploit spatial versus spectral cues is related to individual differences in cognition. The resource-limit account suggests that cognitive resources are required to support the processing of degraded speech, implying the strongest cognition/performance relationship when RM is limited or absent. However, an alternative claim, referred to as the data-limit account, suggests that cognitive resources cease to be useful when the target is severely degraded. In this study, participants (N = 240) completed a selective listening task in which they transcribed the speech of one of two simultaneously presented talkers. The speech was filtered into interleaved or overlapping frequency bands (spectral RM vs. no spectral RM) and presented dichotically or collocated (a proxy for spatial RM vs. no spatial RM). A battery of cognitive tasks was administered to assess working memory/attention. Spectral RM provided at least as much benefit as spatial RM, with the best performance when both RM types were present. Cognitive scores were significantly positively correlated with RM benefits. However, the weakest correlation between cognitive scores and performance was observed in the no-RM condition. The results therefore support an account of speech-on-speech listening that lies on a continuum from data-limited to resource-limited processing as a function of the quality of the target speech signal.
The Rhetoric of Disenchantment: Ghost Belief and Secular Critique in Early Twentieth-Century China.
Hong Z, Chen Y
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41553787 · Full text
This study presents the first large-scale empirical analysis of how ghosts and spirits were debated during China's early twentieth-century secular transformation. Using a novel dataset of over 2000 digitized texts-includ...
This study presents the first large-scale empirical analysis of how ghosts and spirits were debated during China's early twentieth-century secular transformation. Using a novel dataset of over 2000 digitized texts-including newspapers, periodicals, and essays from 1890 to 1949-we combine close reading, AI-assisted annotation, and statistical modeling to examine rhetorical strategies surrounding supernatural belief. We find a clear asymmetry: critics emphasized theoretical arguments (e.g., science, rationality, education), while defenders relied more on empirical or anecdotal evidence. These patterns reflect broader institutional and cognitive shifts, including the rise of science as a dominant epistemology and the increasing use of psychological explanations to pathologize belief. While reformist elites often cast ghost belief as superstition, we also identify agnostic, cautious, and reconciliatory positions. By situating these debates within the broader context of Chinese cultural modernization, the study sheds new light on how supernatural belief became a contested domain and offers fresh tools for studying the cultural evolution of religious cognition.
Dwell Times Reveal Effects of Abstract Event Type on Attention Allocation.
Yuen J, Lee SH, Papafragou A
Cogn Sci · 2026 Jan · PMID 41553768 · Full text
The human mind can segment continuous streams of activity in the world into meaningful, discrete units known as events. However, not all events are created equal. We draw a distinction between bounded events (e.g., foldi...
The human mind can segment continuous streams of activity in the world into meaningful, discrete units known as events. However, not all events are created equal. We draw a distinction between bounded events (e.g., folding a handkerchief) that have a predictable structure that develops in distinct stages (i.e., a beginning, middle, and end) and a well-defined endpoint, and unbounded events (e.g., waving a handkerchief) that lack such a well-defined structure and endpoint. We predict that event boundedness affects attention allocation patterns over the course of the event. Here, we tested this prediction using a dwell time paradigm by measuring the time participants spent on each still frame of an activity. We found that event endpoints attracted increased attention compared to midpoints; importantly, this increase was significantly greater when people viewed bounded events compared to unbounded events. In addition, event endpoints attracted increased attention compared to event beginnings, but this pattern also interacted with event boundedness (Experiment 1). These results replicated even when a linguistic preview of the events was introduced (Experiment 2). We conclude that abstract internal event structure (specifically, event boundedness) affects attention allocation during online event apprehension.
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