When people communicate, they coordinate a wide range of linguistic and non-linguistic behaviors. This process of coordination is called alignment, and it is assumed to be fundamental to successful communication. In this paper, we question this assumption and investigate whether disalignment is a more successful strategy in some cases. More specifically, we hypothesize that alignment correlates with task success only when communication is interactive. We present results from a spot-the-difference task in which dyads of interlocutors have to decide whether they (...) are viewing the same scene or not. Interactivity was manipulated in three conditions by increasing the amount of information shared between interlocutors. We use recurrence quantification analysis to measure the alignment between the scan-patterns of the interlocutors. We found that interlocutors who could not exchange feedback aligned their gaze more, and that increased gaze alignment correlated with decreased task success in this case. When feedback was possible, in contrast, interlocutors utilized it to better organize their joint search strategy by diversifying visual attention. This is evidenced by reduced overall alignment in the minimal feedback and full dialogue conditions. However, only the dyads engaged in a full dialogue increased their gaze alignment over time to achieve successful performances. These results suggest that alignment per se does not imply communicative success, as most models of dialogue assume. Rather, the effect of alignment depends on the type of alignment, on the goals of the task, and on the presence of feedback. (shrink)

Rejecting information-processing-based theory permits the merging of a top-down analysis of visual search tasks with a bottom-up analysis of brain structure and function. This reveals the true nature of the functional visual field and its precise role in the conduct of visual search tasks. The merits of such analyses over the traditional methods of the authors are described.

One puzzling result in training-test paradigms is that effects of reward-associated stimuli on attention are often seen in test but not in training. We focus on one study, where reward-related performance benefits occur in the training and which was discussed contentiously. By using a similar design, we conceptually replicated the results. Moreover, we investigated the underlying mechanisms and processes resulting in these reward-related performance benefits. In two experiments, using search tasks and having participants perform the tasks either (...) with or without individually adjusted time pressure, we disentangled the mechanisms and processes contributing to the reward-related benefits. We found evidence that not only search efficiency is increased with increasing reward, but also that non-search factors contribute to the results. By also investigating response time distributions, we were able to show that reward-related performance effects increased as search time increased in demanding tasks but not in less demanding tasks. Theoretical implications of the results regarding how reward influences attentional processing are discussed. (shrink)

How, and how well, do people switch between exploration and exploitation to search for and accumulate resources? We study the decision processes underlying such exploration/exploitation trade‐offs using a novel card selection task that captures the common situation of searching among multiple resources (e.g., jobs) that can be exploited without depleting. With experience, participants learn to switch appropriately between exploration and exploitation and approach optimal performance. We model participants' behavior on this task with random, threshold, and sampling strategies, and find (...) that a linear decreasing threshold rule best fits participants' results. Further evidence that participants use decreasing threshold‐based strategies comes from reaction time differences between exploration and exploitation; however, participants themselves report non‐decreasing thresholds. Decreasing threshold strategies that “front‐load” exploration and switch quickly to exploitation are particularly effective in resource accumulation tasks, in contrast to optimal stopping problems like the Secretary Problem requiring longer exploration. (shrink)

Animals depleting one patch of resources must decide when to leave and switch to a fresh patch. Foraging theory has predicted various decision mechanisms; which is best depends on environmental variation in patch quality. Previously we tested whether these mechanisms underlie human decision making when foraging for external resources; here we test whether humans behave similarly in a cognitive task seeking internally generated solutions. Subjects searched for meaningful words made from random letter sequences, and as their success rate declined, they (...) could opt to switch to a fresh sequence. As in the external foraging context, time since the previous success and the interval preceding it had a major influence on when subjects switched. Subjects also used the commonness of sequence letters as a proximal cue to patch quality that influenced when to switch. Contrary to optimality predictions, switching decisions were independent of whether sequences differed little or widely in quality. (shrink)

A fundamental characteristic of human visual perception is the ability to group together disparate elements in a scene and treat them as a single unit. The mechanisms by which humans create such groupings remain unknown, but grouping seems to play an important role in a wide variety of visual phenomena. I propose a neural model of grouping; through top-down control of its circuits, the model implements a grouping strategy that involves both a connection strategy (which elements to connect) and a (...) selection strategy (spatiotemporal properties of a selection signal that segments target elements to facilitate identification). With computer simulations I explain how the circuits work and show how they can account for a wide variety of Gestalt principles of perceptual grouping. Additionally, I extend the model so that it can simulate visual search tasks. I show that when the model uses particular grouping strategies, simulated results closely match empirical results from replication experiments of three visual search tasks. In these experiments, perceptual grouping was induced by proximity and shape similarity (Palmer & Beck, 2007), by the spacing of irrelevant distractors and size similarity (Vickery, 2008), or by the proximity of dots and the proximity and shape similarity of line figures (Trick & Enns, 1997). Thus, I show that the model accounts for a variety of grouping effects and indicates which grouping strategies were likely used to promote performance in three visual search tasks. (shrink)

Although the dynamic field model predicts infants' perseverative behavior in the context of the A-not-B manual search task, it does not account for infant perseveration in other contexts. An alternative cognitive capacity explanation for perseveration is more parsimonious. It accounts for the graded nature of perseverative responses and perseveration in different contexts.

Current cognitive models of addiction imply that speeded detection and increased distraction from substance cues might both independently contribute to the persistence of addictive behavior. Speeded detection might lower the threshold for experiencing craving, whereas increased distraction might further increase the probability of entering a bias-craving-bias cycle, thereby lowering the threshold for repeated substance use. This study was designed to examine whether indeed both attentional processes are involved in substance use disorders. Both attentional processes were indexed by an Odd-One-Out visual (...) search task in individuals diagnosed with alcohol use disorder and cannabis use disorder. To test whether the detection and/or the distraction component are characteristic for AUD and CUD, their indices were compared with matched individuals without these diagnoses. Individuals with CUD showed speeded detection of cannabis cues; the difference in detection between AUD and the comparison group remained inconclusive. Neither the AUD nor the CUD group showed more distraction than the comparison groups. The sample size of the CUD group was relatively small. In addition, participants made relatively many errors in the attentional bias task, which might have lowered its sensitivity to detect ABs. The current study provided no support for the proposed role of increased distraction in CUD and AUD. The findings did, however, provide support for the view that speeded detection might be involved in CUD. Although a similar trend was evident for AUD, the evidence was weak and remained therefore inconclusive. (shrink)

We investigated the impact of frequency of interruptions in a simulated medical visual search task. Participants performed the visual search task during which they were interrupted by a number-classification task in 25, 50, or 75% of all trials, respectively, reflecting the frequency conditions. Target presence and interruption were varied within-subjects, and interruption frequency was varied between-subjects. Globally, on a frequency condition level, participants in the low frequency condition had longer mean response times for the primary visual search (...) task than in the high condition, but there were no other performance differences between the three frequency conditions. Locally, on the level of specific interruption effects, accuracy decreased directly after interruptions for target present but not for target absent trials. Furthermore, interruptions caused significant interruption costs, reflected in slower overall RTs in interrupted than in uninterrupted trials. The combined findings show that especially for critical visual search tasks as in the medical field, interruptions—regardless of frequency—should be avoided. (shrink)

Attentional bias has been suggested to contribute to the persistence of substance use behavior. However, the empirical evidence for its proposed role in addiction is inconsistent. This might be due to the inability of commonly used measures to differentiate between attentional engagement and attentional disengagement. Attesting to the importance of differentiating between both components of AB, a recent study using the odd-one-out task showed that substance use was differentially related to engagement and disengagement bias. However, the AB measures derived from (...) the OOOT showed insufficient reliability to be used as a solid measure of individual differences. Therefore, the current study aimed to improve the reliability of the AB measures derived from the OOOT by using more distinct contrast stimuli, adding practice trials, increasing the number of trials, and by having participants perform the task in an alcohol-relevant context. We contrasted the original OOOT with the adapted OOOT and assessed AB in low- and high-drinking individuals. Participants were 245 undergraduate students who typically tend to drink either low or high amounts of alcohol. In one condition, AB was measured with the original OOOT in a typical laboratory context, whereas in the other condition, AB was measured with the OOOT-adapt in a bar context. The OOOT-adapt showed superior internal consistency, especially for the high-drinking group. Further, specifically the OOOT-adapt differentiated between low- and high-drinking participants showing that high drinkers engaged faster with alcohol cues than did low drinkers. Thus, the OOOT-adapt was found to be a promising candidate to reliably index AB in the context of alcohol use. The OOOT-adapt further showed superior criterion validity as it could differentiate between low- and high-drinking individuals, thereby adding to the evidence that AB might be involved in substance use behavior. (shrink)

Abstnn Eye movements were monitored while subjects performed parallel and serial sarah tasks. In Experiment la, subjects searched for an “O' among "X"s (parallel condition) and for a 'T" among "L"s (serial condition). In the parallel condition of Eqcriment lb, “q)" was the target and “O"s were distractors; in the serial condition, time..

In recent years, a multitude of datasets of human–human conversations has been released for the main purpose of training conversational agents based on data‐hungry artificial neural networks. In this paper, we argue that datasets of this sort represent a useful and underexplored source to validate, complement, and enhance cognitive studies on human behavior and language use. We present a method that leverages the recent development of powerful computational models to obtain the fine‐grained annotation required to apply metrics and techniques from (...) Cognitive Science to large datasets. Previous work in Cognitive Science has investigated the question‐asking strategies of human participants by employing different variants of the so‐called 20‐question‐game setting and proposing several evaluation methods. In our work, we focus on GuessWhat, a task proposed within the Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing communities that is similar in structure to the 20‐question‐game setting. Crucially, the GuessWhat dataset contains tens of thousands of dialogues based on real‐world images, making it a suitable setting to investigate the question‐asking strategies of human players on a large scale and in a natural setting. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of computational tools to automatically code how the hypothesis space changes throughout the dialogue in complex visual scenes. On the one hand, we confirm findings from previous work on smaller and more controlled settings. On the other hand, our analyses allow us to highlight the presence of “uninformative” questions (in terms of Expected Information Gain) at specific rounds of the dialogue. We hypothesize that these questions fulfill pragmatic constraints that are exploited by human players to solve visual tasks in complex scenes successfully. Our work illustrates a method that brings together efforts and findings from different disciplines to gain a better understanding of human question‐asking strategies on large‐scale datasets, while at the same time posing new questions about the development of conversational systems. (shrink)

Short-term memory search, as investigated within the Sternberg paradigm, is usually described as exhaustive rather than self-terminated, although the debate concerning these issues is still hot. We report three experiments employing a modified Sternberg paradigm and show that whether STM search is exhaustive or self-terminated depends on task conditions. Specifically, STM search self-terminates as soon as a positive match is found, whereas exhaustive search occurs when the STM content does not contain a searched item. Additionally, we (...) show that task conditions influence whether familiarity- or recollection-based strategies dominate STM search performance. Namely, when speeding up the tempo of stimuli presentation increases the task demands, people use familiarity-based retrieval more often, which results in faster but less accurate recognition judgments. We conclude that STM search processes flexibly adapt to current task conditions and finally propose two-phase model of STM search. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of numeracy and the emotion of fear on the decision-making process. While previous research demonstrated that these factors are independently related to search effort, search policy and choice in a decision from experience task, less is known about how their interaction contributes to processing information under uncertainty. We attempted to address this problem and to fill this gap. In the present study, we hypothesized that more numerate people would (...) sample more information about a decision problem and that the effect of fear would depend on the source of this emotion: whether it is integral (i.e., relevant) or incidental (i.e., irrelevant) to a decision problem. Additionally, we tested how these factors predict choices. We addressed these hypotheses in a series of two experiments. In each experiment, we used a sampling paradigm to measure search effort, search policy and choice in nine binary problems included in a decision from experience task. In Experiment 1, before the sampling task we elicited incidental fear by asking participants to recall fearful events from their life. In Experiment 2, integral fear was elicited by asking participants to make choices concerning medical treatment. Decision problems and their payoff distributions were the same in the two experiments and across each condition. In both experiments, we assessed objective statistical numeracy and controlled for a change in the current emotional state. We found that more numerate people sampled more information about a decision problem and switched less frequently between alternatives. Incidental fear marginally predicted search effort. Integral fear led to larger sample sizes, but only among more numerate people. Neither numeracy nor fear were related to the number of choices that maximized expected values. However, across two experiments sample sizes predicted the number of choices that maximized experienced mean returns. The findings suggest that people with higher numeracy may be more sensitive to integral emotions; this may result in more effortful sampling of relevant information leading to choices maximizing experienced returns. (shrink)

Recent experiments suggest that search direction causally affects the discounted valuation of delayed payoffs. Comparisons between options can increase individuals’ patience toward future payoff options, while searching within options instead promotes impatient choices. We further test the robustness and specificity of this relationship using a novel choice task. Here individuals choose between pairs of delayed payoffs instead of single delayed outcomes. We observe a relationship between search styles and temporal discounting that are the opposite of those previously reported. (...) Integrators – those who tend to compare attributes within alternatives – discount and choose more slowly than comparators – those who are more likely to compare between alternatives. This finding supports and augments the view that individuals’ search strategy is predictive of subsequent discount rates. In particular, the direction of this relationship is further modifiable based on the spatial layout and varying information within an individual’s decision-making environment. (shrink)

Systematically analyzes the nature of metaphysics.

Artificial neural networks and supervised learning have become an essential part of science. Beyond using them for accurate input-output mapping, there is growing attention to a new feature-oriented approach. Under the assumption that networks optimised for a task may have learned to represent and utilise important features of the target system for that task, scientists examine how those networks manipulate inputs and employ the features networks capture for scientific discovery. We analyse this approach, show its hidden caveats, and suggest its (...) legitimate use. We distinguish three things that scientists call a ‘feature’: parametric, diagnostic, and real-world features. The feature-oriented approach aims for real-world features by interpreting the former two, which also partially rely on the network. We argue that this approach faces a problem of non-uniqueness: there are numerous discordant parametric and diagnostic features and ways to interpret them. When the approach aims at novel discovery, scientists often need to choose between those options, but they lack the background knowledge to justify their choices. Consequentially, features thus identified are not promised to be real. We argue that they should not be used as evidence but only used instrumentally. We also suggest transparency in feature selection and the plurality of choices. (shrink)

Searching through semantic memory may involve the use of several retrieval cues. In a verbal fluency task, the set of available cues is limited and every candidate word is a target. Individuals exhibit clustering behavior as predicted by optimal foraging theory. In another semantic search task, the remote associates task, three cues are presented and a single target word has to be found. Whereas the task has been widely studied as a task of creativity or insight problem solving, in (...) this article, the RAT is treated as a semantic retrieval task and assessed from the perspective of information foraging theory. Experiments are presented that address the superadditive combination of cues and the anti-clustering behavior in the recall sequence. A new type of search behavior in the RAT is put forward that involves maximizing the difference in activation between target and distractors. This type of search is advantageous when the target is weak and cue patches are contaminated with strong competitors. (shrink)

“With the boundless arrogance of a man of the Enlightenment, Kant claimed in the introduction to Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that ‘he who undertakes to judge or, more, to construct a system of metaphysics must satisfy the demands here made, either by applying my solution or by thoroughly refuting it and substituting another. To evade it is impossible’”. With this startling and accurate estimation of Kant’s hubris, Jorge Gracia begins his concluding chapter of Metaphysics and Its Task. Evidently, Gracia (...) does not concur with Kant’s glowing estimation of Kant’s achievements. Nor does Gracia agree with Kant that people who, despite their efforts, find the Prolegomena unclear, must “give up the investigation altogether, and apply themselves to other enterprises, for not everyone has the talent to engage in the analysis of abstract concepts”. (shrink)