Perceptual averaging on relevant and irrelevant featural dimensions.

Here we report four experiments that explore the nature of perceptual averaging. We examine the evidence that participants recover and store a representation of the mean value of a set of perceptual features that are distributed across the optic array. The extant evidence shows that participants are particularly accurate in estimating the relevant mean value, but we ask whether this might be due to processes that reflect assessing featural similarity rather than computing an average.

Psychological value theory: predicting health-seeking behavior from symptom perception.

We recruit Psychological Value Theory (PVT) to understand how symptom value influences health-seeking decisions. Estimates of the Psychological Value of relief from a particular symptom were previously collected and used to predict the speed of participants' decision and the choice they make in three discrete choice experiments. Experiment 1 presented participants with a scenario and asked them to identify which of two symptoms they would seek healthcare services to treat.

Testosterone, gender identity and gender-stereotyped personality attributes.

Sex/gender differences in personality associated with gender stereotyped behavior are widely studied in psychology yet remain a subject of ongoing debate. Exposure to testosterone during developmental periods is considered to be a primary mediator of many sex/gender differences in behavior. Extensions of this research has led to both lay beliefs and initial research about individual differences in basal testosterone in adulthood relating to "masculine" personality.

Psychological value theory: A computational cognitive model of charitable giving.

Charitable giving involves a complex economic and social decision because the giver expends resources for goods or services they will never receive. Although psychologists have identified numerous factors that influence charitable giving, there currently exists no unifying computational model of charitable choice. Here, we submit one such model, based within the strictures of Psychological Value Theory (PVT).

The pandemic not only increased depression and PTSD in college students, but also changed how they categorize emotions.

In March 2020, the emergence of COVID-19 as a pandemic prompted large scale, social lockdowns internationally. Here, we compared the mental health symptoms and social functioning of pre-pandemic college students collected during the Spring 2020 semester to those of a pandemic group collected during the Fall 2020 semester. Results reveal that students assessed during the pandemic reported more severe symptoms of posttraumatic stress and depression, yet no difference in anxiety symptoms, relative to students assessed before the pandemic.

Mirror numbers activate quantity representations, but show no SNARC effect: A working memory explanation.

The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Code (SNARC) effect refers to the finding that people respond to small numbers faster with the left hand and to large numbers faster with the right hand. This effect is often explained by hypothesizing that the mental representation of quantities has a spatial component: left to right in ascending order (Mental Number Line). Here we assess the relation between quantity and spatial representation by investigating mirror numbers.

In Vision It Is Groups, Rather Than Maps, That Determine How We Perceive the World.

This paper presents the results of a study that used a speeded counting task to adjudicate between two competing theories of how perceptual representations of visual objects are derived. Boolean map (BM) theory assumes that there are strict limits on conscious awareness, such that we only have serial access to features on the same dimension (e.g.

Psychological value theory: The psychological value of human lives and economic goods.

Here, we present a strong test of the hypothesis that sacrificial moral dilemmas are solved using the same value-based decision mechanism that operates on decisions concerning economic goods. To test this hypothesis, we developed Psychological Value Theory. Psychological Value Theory is an expansion and generalization of Cohen and Ahn's (2016) Theory of Subjective Utilitarianism.

Further insights into the operation of the Chinese number system: Competing effects of Arabic and Mandarin number formats.

Here we report the results of a speeded relative quantity task with Chinese participants. On each trial a single numeral (the probe) was presented and the instructions were to respond as to whether it signified a quantity less than or greater than five (the standard). In separate blocks of trials, the numerals were presented either in Mandarin or in Arabic number formats.

Experimental bias in number-line tasks and how to avoid them: Comment on Kim and Opfer (2017) and the introduction of the Cohen Ray number-line task.

Kim and Opfer (2017) report data that demonstrate children produce a negatively accelerating (e.g., logarithmic) response pattern in the unbounded number-line task.

Limited-capacity identity processing of multiple integers.

The architecture of the numerical cognition system is currently not well understood, but at a general level, assumptions are made about two core components: a quantity processor and an identity processor. The quantity processor is concerned with accessing and using the stored magnitude denoted by a given digit, and the identity processor is concerned with recovery of the corresponding digit's identity. Blanc-Goldhammer and Cohen (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 1389-1403, 2014) established that the recovery and use of quantity information operates in an unlimited-capacity fashion.

A Mathematical Model of How People Solve Most Variants of the Number-Line Task.

Current understanding of the development of quantity representations is based primarily on performance in the number-line task. We posit that the data from number-line tasks reflect the observer's underlying representation of quantity, together with the cognitive strategies and skills required to equate line length and quantity. Here, we specify a unified theory linking the underlying psychological representation of quantity and the associated strategies in four variations of the number-line task: the production and estimation variations of the bounded and unbounded number-line tasks.

The processing of images of biological threats in visual short-term memory.

The idea that there is enhanced memory for negatively, emotionally charged pictures was examined. Performance was measured under rapid, serial visual presentation (RSVP) conditions in which, on every trial, a sequence of six photo-images was presented. Briefly after the offset of the sequence, two alternative images (a target and a foil) were presented and participants attempted to choose which image had occurred in the sequence.

A standardized list of affect-related life events.

In experimental contexts, affect-related word lists have been widely applied when examining how cognitive processes interact with emotional processes. These lists, however, present limitations when studying the relation between emotion and cognitive processes such as time and number processing because affective words do not inherently contain time or quantity information. Live events, in contrast, are experienced by an observer and therefore inherently carry affect information.

The log-linear response function of the bounded number-line task is unrelated to the psychological representation of quantity.

The bounded number-line task has been used extensively to assess the numerical competence of both children and adults. One consistent finding has been that young children display a logarithmic response function, whereas older children and adults display a more linear response function. Traditionally, these log-linear functions have been interpreted as providing a transparent window onto the nature of the participants' psychological representations of quantity (termed here a direct response strategy).

How numbers mean: Comparing random walk models of numerical cognition varying both encoding processes and underlying quantity representations.

How do people derive meaning from numbers? Here, we instantiate the primary theories of numerical representation in computational models and compare simulated performance to human data. Specifically, we fit simulated data to the distributions for correct and incorrect responses, as well as the pattern of errors made, in a traditional "relative quantity" task. The results reveal that no current theory of numerical representation can adequately account for the data without additional assumptions.

The precategorical nature of visual short-term memory.

We conducted a series of recognition experiments that assessed whether visual short-term memory (VSTM) is sensitive to shared category membership of to-be-remembered (tbr) images of common objects. In Experiment 1 some of the tbr items shared the same basic level category (e.g.

A subjective utilitarian theory of moral judgment.

Current theories hypothesize that moral judgments are difficult because rational and emotional decision processes compete. We present a fundamentally different theory of moral judgment: the Subjective Utilitarian Theory of moral judgment. The Subjective Utilitarian Theory posits that people try to identify and save the competing item with the greatest "personal value.

Observational drawing biases are predicted by biases in perception: Empirical support of the misperception hypothesis of drawing accuracy with respect to two angle illusions.

We tested the misperception hypothesis of drawing errors, which states that drawing accuracy is strongly influenced by the perceptual encoding of a to-be-drawn stimulus. We used a highly controlled experimental paradigm in which nonartist participants made perceptual judgements and drawings of angles under identical stimulus exposure conditions. Experiment 1 examined the isosceles/scalene triangle angle illusion; congruent patterns of bias in the perception and drawing tasks were found for 40 and 60° angles, but not for 20 or 80° angles, providing mixed support for the misperception hypothesis.

Unlimited capacity parallel quantity comparison of multiple integers.

Research has shown that integer comparison is quick and efficient. This efficiency may be a function of the structure of the integer comparison system. The present study tests whether integers are compared with an unlimited capacity system or a limited capacity system.

Children's number-line estimation shows development of measurement skills (not number representations).

Children's understanding of numbers is often assessed using a number-line task, where the child is shown a line labeled with 0 at one end and a higher number (e.g., 100) at the other end.

Cross-format physical similarity effects and their implications for the numerical cognition architecture.

The sound |faɪv| is visually depicted as a written number word "five" and as an Arabic digit "5." Here, we present four experiments--two quantity same/different experiments and two magnitude comparison experiments--that assess whether auditory number words (|faɪv|), written number words ("five"), and Arabic digits ("5") directly activate one another and/or their associated quantity. The quantity same/different experiments reveal that the auditory number words, written number words, and Arabic digits directly activate one another without activating their associated quantity.

On the relativity of relative frequencies.

The most prominent models of numerical representation posit that numerical symbols are converted into a single internal, abstract representation prior to estimation and comparison processing. Here, we (1) provide a mathematical analysis of the predictions of the abstract-representation hypothesis, assuming the validity of the analog-representation hypothesis, (2) run a simulation to assess the patterns of data that result from our mathematical analysis, and (3) conduct two experiments to test the predictions of our model, using relative frequencies as inputs. We assess relative frequencies in a typical numerical distance task, whereby participants are presented with two relative frequencies and asked to identify the one that represents the larger quantity.

Grouping and binding in visual short-term memory.

Findings of 2 experiments are reported that challenge the current understanding of visual short-term memory (VSTM). In both experiments, a single study display, containing 6 colored shapes, was presented briefly and then probed with a single colored shape. At stake is how VSTM retains a record of different objects that share common features: In the 1st experiment, 2 study items sometimes shared a common feature (either a shape or a color).

Numerical bias in bounded and unbounded number line tasks.

The number line task is often used to assess children's and adults' underlying representations of integers. Traditional bounded number line tasks, however, have limitations that can lead to misinterpretation. Here we present a new task, an unbounded number line task, that overcomes these limitations.