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We investigated small temporal nonalignments between the two eyes’ fixations in the reading of English and Chinese. We define nine different patterns of asynchrony and report their spatial distribution across the screen of text. We interpret them in terms of their implications for ocular prevalence—prioritizing the input from one eye over the input from the other eye in higher perception/cognition, even when binocular fusion has occurred. The data are strikingly similar across the two very different orthographies. Asynchronies, in which one eye begins the fixation earlier and/or ends it later, occur most frequently in the hemifield corresponding to that eye. We propose that such small asynchronies cue higher processing to prioritize the input from that eye, during and after binocular fusion.

Attribute-framing bias reflects people's tendency to evaluate positively framed objects more favorably than the same objects framed negatively. Most theoretical accounts of this bias emphasized the role of positive- and negative-framing valence in the message, disregarding the quantitative information that typically accompanies it. To examine the role of both framing valence and detailed quantitative information in attribute-framing bias, we applied the distinction between gist and verbatim representations, as proposed by fuzzy-trace theory. We hypothesized that gist representations retain the framing valence used in the scenario, consequently eliciting biased positive or negative evaluations, whereas verbatim representations retain detailed quantitative information that allows for fine-tuning of the evaluations reflective of the magnitude of the target attribute. In 2 experiments, we compared precise presentations of different magnitudes using percentages and pie charts with vague presentations using verbal descriptions. A substantial attribute-framing bias was found for both the precise and vague presentation conditions, consistent with the hypothesis that the framing bias is driven by coarse and imprecise gist representation. Critically, however, the findings reveal higher correlations between evaluations and the magnitude of the target attribute in the precise presentation conditions (percentages and pie charts) compared with the vague verbal presentation. This finding suggests a process of fine-tuning of the evaluations when a detailed verbatim representation of the quantitative information is available. We discuss the findings in view of the distinction between gist and verbatim representations and propose future research to examine similar cognitive mechanisms accounting for biases in judgment and decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Attribute-framing bias (AFB) refers to addressees' bias in evaluating positively framed objects (80% success) more favorably than negatively framed ones (20% failure), although they are logically equivalent. The novelty of the current study is in examining conditions in which AFB occurs or does not occur. Typically, AFB is examined for favorable outcomes (e.g., 80% success / 20% failure); the current study extended the examination to unfavorable outcomes (e.g., 80% failure / 20% success). According to fuzzy-trace theory, information is encoded both as a detailed verbatim representation and as a fuzzy gist representation, and AFB is elicited by the vague gist representations that maintain either the positive or the negative valence of the message. The current study offers a novel insight into the relationship between gist and verbatim representations in AFB by examining how it is moderated by the favorability of the outcomes. In three experiments, we focused on the perceived reliability of news items. As fake news has become an issue of major concern, some news media publish truthfulness evaluations; however, the framing of such evaluations may bias the perceived reliability of news. Hence, we examined to what extent the favorability of the outcomes moderated AFB in perceived news reliability. The results showed that attribute framing biased the perceived reliability of news when truthfulness outcomes were favorable (80% true / 20% fake) but not when outcomes were unfavorable (20% true / 80% fake). We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings to the understanding of AFB and their practical implications concerning the perceived reliability of news. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

This review aims at clarifying the concept of first language attrition by tracing its limits, identifying its phenomenological and contextual constraints, discussing controversies associated with its definition, and suggesting potential directions for future research. We start by reviewing different definitions of attrition as well as associated inconsistencies. We then discuss the underlying mechanisms of first language attrition and review available evidence supporting different background hypotheses. Finally, we attempt to provide the groundwork to build a unified theoretical framework allowing for generalizable results. To this end, we suggest the deployment of a rigorous neuroscientific approach, in search of neural markers of first language attrition in different linguistic domains, putting forward hypothetical experimental ways to identify attrition’s neural traces and formulating predictions for each of the proposed experimental paradigms.

Bilinguals routinely shift between their languages, changing languages between communicative settings. To test the consequences of such changes in language use, 48 Arabic–Hebrew bilinguals named pictures in Arabic (L1) before and after a brief exposure manipulation, including either reading a list of Hebrew (L2) words aloud or performing a nonlinguistic task. Half of the items post-exposure were new and half were translation equivalents of the words presented during the L2 exposure task. Further, half of the items were very low-frequency L1 words, typically replaced by borrowed L2 words. Results show that across word types bilinguals were less accurate and produced more L2 cross-language errors in their dominant L1 following brief L2 exposure. Error rates were comparable for translation equivalents and new items, but more cross-language errors were observed post-exposure on translation equivalents. These findings demonstrate the engagement of both global whole-language control mechanisms and item-based competitive processes, and highlight the importance of language context and the dynamic nature of bilingual performance.

Attribute-framing bias (AFB) refers to bias in evaluating positively framed objects more favourably than the same objects framed negatively. In most AFB studies, framing is manipulated by contrasting the positive and negative outcomes, using the corresponding positive (success) or negative (failure) labels as descriptors. This study examined the unique contributions of the outcomes of the scenario and the labels describing these outcomes by manipulating them orthogonally. In three experiments, framing scenarios were presented to participants with either positive outcomes rendered with positive (65% passed) or negative (65% didn’t fail) descriptors, or negative outcomes rendered with positive (35% didn’t pass) or negative (35% failed) descriptors. All experiments revealed a strong effect for the outcome with a weaker effect for the descriptor valence, suggesting that outcomes have a stronger influence on AFB than do descriptors. We discuss the results within a theoretical framework that maps the outcome effects onto attention mechanisms and descriptor effects onto association-activation mechanisms.

An object presented positively is often judged more favourably than the same object described negatively even when the descriptions are logically equivalent. This difference, termed the attribute‐f...

Previous research has documented the rise in rates of suicidal behaviors following media reports of celebrity suicide. Whereas most research has focused on documenting and analyzing suicide rates, little is known about more subtle psychological effects of celebrity suicide on the public, such as despair and feelings of abandonment. The Internet has revolutionized the responses to news reports, enabling immediate and anonymous responses potentially reflecting these psychological processes. Thus, the current study explored the unique psychological impact of a celebrity suicide on the public by analyzing the big data of readers' comments to suicide news reports, using computational linguistics methods. Readers' comments (N = 14,506) to suicide news reports were retrieved from 4 leading online news sites. The comments were posted in response to 1 of 1 types of reports: a celebrity suicide (Robin Williams), a non-celebrity suicide, and general reports of suicide as a social phenomenon. LIWC software for computerized linguistic analysis was used to calculate the frequency of the various types of words used. Comparison of the responses to the 3 types of suicide reports revealed higher frequency of first-person pronouns and for emotionally charged words on comments to a celebrity suicide, compared with comments to the other types of suicide reports. The findings suggest that celebrity suicide news reports evoke the expression of positive emotions, possibly related to the venerated celebrity, alongside negative, internalized emotions, and feelings of social isolation. Theoretical, practical, and methodological implications are discussed.

Summary Objects and events are often evaluated more favourably when presented in a positive frame than when presented in the complementary negative framing. Recent studies show that this attribute-framing bias can be moderated when both positive and negative frames are represented in the message. Most attribute-framing studies used written messages, although important messages are often conveyed auditorily. Unlike written messages, recipients cannot reread auditory messages and have to rely on their memory when evaluating them; consequently, the moderating effect of mixed representation may depend on memory constraints. The current study compared the framing bias in single-attribute versus mixed-attribute representations in written and auditory messages. In both written and auditory messages, single-attribute representation yielded substantial framing bias whereas mixed-attribute representation moderated the bias. The results are discussed in terms of the role of memory and attention in the attribute-framing bias. Theoretical and practical implications are considered, and future research is suggested. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Previous research has found that objective numeracy moderates framing effects: People who are less numerate were found to be more susceptible to goal-framing and attribute-framing effects than people who are highly numerate. This study examined the possibility that subjective numeracy likewise moderates attribute framing in contexts where participants are presented with percentages of success or failure. The results show that compared with highly numerate participants, less numerate participants were more susceptible to the effect of attribute framing. Interestingly, this moderating effect was revealed only when using objective numeracy measures, and not when subjective numeracy measures were used. Future research is suggested to replicate these findings, to establish the generalizability of numeracy as a moderator of other cognitive biases, and to examine several possible theoretical explanations for the differential moderation of attribute-framing bias.

We explore two aspects of exovergence: we test whether smaller binocular fixation disparities accompany the shorter saccades and longer fixations observed in reading Chinese; we test whether potentially advantageous psychophysical effects of exovergence (cf. Arnold Schindel, 2010; Kersten Murray, 2010) transfer to text reading. We report differential exovergence in reading Chinese and English: Chinese readers begin fixations with more binocular disparity, but end fixations with a disparity closely similar to that of the English readers. We conclude that greater fixation-initial binocular fixation disparity can be adaptive in the reading of visually and cognitively denser text.

Studies in theoretical linguistics argue that subject-verb agreement is more sensitive to grammatical number, while pronoun-antecedent agreement is more sensitive to conceptual number. This claim is robustly supported by speech production research, but few studies have examined this issue in comprehension. We investigated this dissociation between conceptual and grammatical number agreement in three eye-tracking reading experiments, using collective nouns like “group”, which can be notionally interpreted as either singular or plural. Experiment 1 indicated that pronoun-antecedent agreement is conceptually driven; Experiment 2 indicated that subject-verb agreement is morpho-syntactically driven. Experiment 3 indicated that the morpho-grammatical processes that control the initial processing of subject-verb agreement do not bias later semantic processing of pronoun-antecedent number agreement, even when the anaphor and the verb occur in the same sentence, and the same collective noun is both the subject of ...

Construal level theory predicts that people will judge immoral events more harshly when these are presented in a way that elicits a higher construal level, relative to a lower construal level. Previous research supported this prediction using an Israeli sample but not a U.S. sample. This article compared Israeli and U.S. samples with respect to the interactive effect of utility and construal level on unethical behavioral intentions. We found that construal level did not affect unethical behavioral intentions in either the U.S. samples for low-utility level or the Israeli samples for low- and high-utility levels. In contrast, construal level affected unethical behavioral intentions in the U.S. sample for high-utility level: unethical behavioral intentions were higher in the low-construal level compared to the high-construal level. We discuss these findings and suggest additional factors that challenge arguments concerning the direct effect of construal level on unethical behavior.

Readers immediately slow down when an anaphor (e.g. herself) refers to an antecedent that mismatches in stereotypical gender (e.g. minister). The mismatch-cost has been attributed to a clash between the gender of the pronoun and the gender associated with the stereotypical role noun. However, the nature of such stereotypical gender is still controversial; according to the mental models approach it is inferred from world knowledge, while according to a lexical view it is stored as part of the lexical representation. We report two eye-tracking experiments designed to investigate the processing of stereotypical gender. In these experiments stereotypical nouns (e.g. minister) are contrasted with definitional nouns (e.g. king) in which gender information is part of the definition of the word. Experiment 1 shows that in anaphora sentences, where the role noun is presented earlier than the reflexive that conveys gender information, stereotypical and definitional gender nouns lead to a similar mismatch-cost. Experiment 2 shows that in cataphora sentences, where the reflexive precedes the stereotypical noun, a mismatch-cost is exhibited only for definitional gender nouns. These results indicate that stereotypical gender can be overridden when gender is specified by prior discourse, unlike lexically defined gender. We discuss the differences between these noun types and their implications for the representation and processing of stereotypical gender.

Neurolinguistic theories are challenged by the amodal abstract representations assumed by linguists. Embodied linguistics offers a conceptualization of the relationship between linguistic representation, experience, and the brain. Findings correlating brain activation patterns with referential features of words (e.g., body parts), suggest that the mechanism underlying linguistic embodiment is an “action–perception simulation”. This mechanism accounts for embodied representation of words, but is harder to adapt to syntactic abstractions. We suggest that prosody is the missing link. Prosody is a sensory-motor phenomenon that can evoke an “action–perception simulation” that underpins the syntax-experience-brain association. Our review discusses different embodiment models and then integrates psycholinguistic and neurocognitive studies into a new approach to linguistic embodiment. We propose a novel implementation of the syntax-experience-brain relationship via the mapping between the temporo-spectral aspects of speech prosody and temporo-spectral patterns of synchronized behavior of neural populations. We discuss the potential implications for psycho- and neuro-linguistic research.

Bilinguals have more tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) incidents than monolinguals. Whereas previous research has focused on differences in the long term language experience between these groups, the present study examined the hypothesis that both long-term and transient context factors modulate TOT rates. Russian-Hebrew bilinguals who acquired Hebrew either early (5years) or late (11years) were compared to native Hebrew speakers on a picture naming task in Hebrew, before and after viewing a short movie in Russian. Both the short-term context (before-after the movie) and long-term language experience modulated TOT rates: Late bilinguals exhibited significantly higher TOT rates than early bilinguals who did not significantly differ from native Hebrew speakers. Critically, following the Russian movie, bilinguals in both groups differed from the native speakers of the target language. Thus, exposure to the non-target language exerted a global, non-item-specific, cross-language interference effect. The findings highlight the dynamic nature of the bilingual system in which both short and long-term language experience operate to influence bilingual performance.

Neurobehavioral assessment is frequently made in a forensic context. The cognitive assessment may be biased due to an international manipulation of data by the patient motivated by attainment of compensation, that is, malingering. Although malingering is highly relevant in behavioral toxicology, the issue and its assessment are underrepresented in the literature. A routine assessment of malingering is important to reduce false-positive and false-negative errors in assessment, thereby establishing the credibility and validity of behavioral assessment. In the long run, the routine inclusion of malingering measurements might reduce claims and encourage employers to be more cooperative in behavioral toxicology studies. Guidelines for malingering assessment and research, inferred from the clinical and research literature, are discussed. Sensitivity to the problematic issues involved in assessing malingering behavior is an important step toward malingering detection in the clinical setting and to the establishment of assessment methods that are less confounded by these issues.

We look at some of the assumptions made in the computational modelling of cognition. In particular, we look at some of the problems raised by the conventional modelling goal of simplicity. We review why cognitive modellers make certain choices and we emphasise the central role of abstraction. We conclude that Occam’s Razor is only half the story in using implemented computational models to explain cognitive processing, and we raise a number of questions that point the way to a materialist position in computational cognitive modelling.

We present a theory of foveation in normal binocular reading. We consider the pervasive, nontrivial binocular fixation disparities (FDs) observed in reading and relate them to the computational problem of resolving retinal disparities in depth perception. We infer that the right eye’s fixation being to the right of the left eye’s in reading promotes binocular fusion in challenging conditions. We then show a different (nonfusional) processing advantage for the right eye’s fixation being to the left of the left eye’s in reading conditions in which binocular fusion is assured, by modeling the combined influence of foveal splitting, contralateral preference, ocular prevalence, and fixation disparity. This synthesis of anatomically grounded research in different aspects of visual processing produces a theory of foveation in reading that matches current data and makes testable predictions.

Healy (1994) and Koriat and Greenberg (1994) offered different theoretical accounts of the missing-letter effect (MLE) in the letter-detection task, whereby a disproportionate number of letter-detection errors occur in frequent function words. Healy emphasized identification processes, whereas Koriat and Greenberg viewed the structural role of the embedding word to be crucial. Recent research suggests that neither position alone can account for the complete set of observations pertaining to the MLE. The present paper offers a theoretical integration of these competing explanations of letter detection in terms of a GO (guidance-organization) model of reading. This model specifies how structural processing of connected text helps guide eye movements to semantically informative parts of the text, enabling readers to achieve on-line fluency.

According to the structural approach to reading, the extraction of structure precedes the analysis of meaning and paves the way for it. In this study, reading prosody was used to examine this proposition. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that reading prosody produced on line reflects the early extraction of structure. In Experiment 1, readers were successful in assigning natural prosody to unfamiliar text immediately upon its reading. Experiment 2 showed that the prosodic patterns applied are tuned to the structure of the sentence and are largely indifferent to the content of the sentence or to its semantic coherence. The results join with other findings in speech production and comprehension in supporting the precedence of structure to meaning in reading.