Do people change their preferences when they are offered the same risky lotteries at different times (now vs. the future)? Construal level theory (CLT) suggests that people do because our mental representation of events is moderated by how near or distant such events are in time. According to CLT, in the domain of risk preferences, psychological distance causes payoffs and probabilities to be differentially weighted or attended between present and future timepoints: Temporal distance increases the influence of payoffs and decreases the influence of probabilities. Specifically, CLT predicts that high probability/low amount lotteries (i.e., %-lotteries) are preferred in the present, whereas low probability/high amount lotteries (i.e., $-lotteries) are preferred in the future, even when the expected value of these lotteries is identical. We present a functional characterization and systematic investigation of this putative pattern of risk preferences and develop a formal model that incorporates CLT's predictions. In five experiments, we examined several factors that could moderate the effect (e.g., outcome and probability magnitude, lottery presentation format, incentivization procedures). Both our behavioral observations and modeling results suggest the effect is labile, and if it does occur, it is not fully consistent with our formal model of CLT. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The way that societies assign people to racial categories has far-reaching social, economic, and political consequences. One framework for establishing racial boundaries is based on , which historically has been leveraged to create rigid racial categories, particularly with respect to being categorized as White. A second framework is based on , which can vary within families and across the lifespan, and is thus more likely to blur racial boundaries. The persistence of these distinct cultural beliefs about race requires that they be transmitted to each new generation, but there have been few cross-cultural studies on their development during childhood. Participants (5- to 12-year-old children, = 123) were from the United States, in which the ancestry model has been more prevalent, or from Brazil, in which the skin tone model has been more prevalent. In both countries, 5- to 7-year-olds endorsed the belief that skin tone determines race, for example, by assigning biological siblings with differing skin tones to different racial categories. However, racial concepts diverged among the 10- to 12-year-olds, with children from the United States shifting toward a classification based on ancestry and children in Brazil endorsing a classification based on skin tone even more strongly with age. These differing conceptions were especially evident with reference to White racial categorization: Older children from Brazil persisted in classifying lighter skinned people as White when they had African ancestry, unlike older children from the United States. These findings provide important insights into the developmental and cultural influences on racial classification systems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The concept of trust in artificial intelligence (AI) has been gaining increasing relevance for understanding and shaping human interaction with AI systems. Despite a growing literature, there are disputes as to whether the processes of trust in AI are similar to that of interpersonal trust (i.e., in fellow humans). The aim of the present article is twofold. First, we provide a systematic test of an integrative model of trust inspired by interpersonal trust research encompassing trust, its antecedents (trustworthiness and trust propensity), and its consequences (intentions to use the AI and willingness to disclose personal information). Second, we investigate the role of AI personalization on trust and trustworthiness, considering both their mean levels and their dynamic relationships. In two pilot studies ( = 313) and one main study ( = 1,001) focusing on AI chatbots, we find that the integrative model of trust is suitable for the study of trust in virtual AI. Perceived trustworthiness of the AI, and more specifically its ability and integrity dimensions, is a significant antecedent of trust and so are anthropomorphism and propensity to trust smart technology. Trust, in turn, leads to greater intentions to use and willingness to disclose information to the AI. The personalized AI chatbot was perceived as more able and benevolent than the impersonal chatbot. It was also more anthropomorphized and led to greater usage intentions, but not to greater trust. Anthropomorphism, not trust, explained the greater intentions to use personalized AI. We discuss implications for research on trust in humans and in automation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This research examines the effect of self-concept clarity (i.e., having self-beliefs that are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and stable) on moral behavior. Seven preregistered studies ( = 3,373) document that low (vs. high) self-concept clarity decreases moral behavior (e.g., donation, volunteering, tax compliance, honesty in an incentivized game). This effect occurs because low self-concept clarity increases moral disengagement, leading people to behave in morally questionable manners without damaging their self-concept. As evidence for this proposed underlying mechanism, we show that the effect of self-concept clarity on moral behavior is mediated by state moral disengagement and attenuates (a) among people with low trait moral disengagement, (b) among people with high trait moral identity internalization, and (c) in the presence of an honor pledge cueing moral engagement. We then show that the effect holds only when a prosocial act is congruent with personal values. Overall, these findings contribute to the literature on self-concept and moral self-regulation and have implications for how to promote morality and curb unethical behavior in society. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Past investigations into the connection between space and numbers have revealed its potential vulnerability to external influences such as cultural factors, including language. This study aims to examine whether language moderates the association between space and number in the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect, which is demonstrated in an interaction between number magnitude and response side. The SNARC effect has been observed across various stimuli. However, research on the influence of linguistic factors, such as reading direction, on the SNARC effect has yielded contradictory findings. We systematically examined the moderating effect of language on the SNARC effect in a cross-cultural design. A group of British English speakers and a group of Iranian Farsi speakers performed four SNARC tasks including both explicit (magnitude classification) and implicit (parity judgment) processing of number magnitude in two modalities of visual and auditory presentations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic investigation of language, magnitude processing, and sensory modalities altogether. While our registered analyses found no group differences in SNARC tasks, nonregistered analyses using a Bayesian ex-Gaussian framework revealed novel findings: a stronger SNARC effect in slower responses and auditory tasks. These findings challenge the idea of a substantial language role in shaping the SNARC effect but also indicate large uncertainty regarding the exact nature of language-induced effects, highlighting the need for further investigations of spatial-numerical interactions that may be differently influenced by linguistic and cultural factors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Loyalty is considered central to people's moral life, yet little is known about how people think about what it means to be loyal. We used a prototype approach to understand how loyalty is represented in Colombia and the United States and how these representations mediate attributions of loyalty and moral judgments of loyalty violations. Across seven studies ( = 1,984), we found cross-cultural similarities in the associative meaning of loyalty (Study 1) but found differences in the centrality of features associated with loyalty (Study 2) and the latent structure of loyalty representations (Study 3). Colombians represent loyalty in terms of more general moral characteristics, while U.S. participants represent loyalty in terms of interpersonal commitment, both in contrast with current approaches to loyalty. By comparing representations of loyalty and honesty, we establish that differences in loyalty conceptualizations reflect a different way of thinking about loyalty rather than morality more generally (Study 4). Further, Colombians attributed greater loyalty to individuals with general moral characteristics compared to participants from the U.S. sample (Study 5) and were more likely to classify nonloyal values as loyalty-related (Study 6). While the centrality of prototypical features predicts categorizing norm violations as loyalty-related, differences in prototypical structure account for differences in the severity of moral judgment for such violations (Study 7), which suggests that loyalty representations have similar functions, even though these representations differ in structural characteristics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

As social interactions increasingly move to digital platforms, communicators confront new factors that enhance or diminish virtual interactions. Texting abbreviations, for instance, are now pervasive in digital communication-but do they enhance or diminish interactions? The present study examines the influence of texting abbreviation usage on interpersonal perceptions. We explore how texting abbreviations affect perceived sender sincerity and the subsequent likelihood that recipients respond. Eight preregistered studies ( = 5,306) using mixed methods (e.g., surveys, field and lab experiments, and archival analysis of Tinder conversations) find that abbreviations make senders seem less sincere and recipients less likely to write back. These negative effects arise because abbreviations signal a lower level of effort from the sender. Communicator familiarity and text exchange length do not attenuate these effects, providing evidence for a robust phenomenon. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Attention must coordinate with memory to actively anticipate sensory input and guide action. Memory content may be biased away from veridical when it is functionally adaptive. So far, research has considered the biasing of still features in static displays. It is unknown whether the biasing of attentional templates can functionally adapt dynamic stimuli to facilitate search when targets and distractors compete within temporally extended contexts. Biasing of dynamic templates would require learning and modulatory mechanisms capable of abstracting over space and time to guide perception. Four experiments used a novel dynamic visual search task combined with a memory probe to test whether dynamic attentional templates can be biased. In Experiments 1-3, participants searched for a moving target among distractors that systematically moved either clockwise or counterclockwise relative to the target. On memory probe trials, participants recalled the target direction as biased away from the distractors. The distortion bias was adaptively changed (Experiment 2), grew over time (Experiment 2), and occurred even when motion direction was not the target-defining feature (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 manipulated the speed of targets and distractors to test the generalizability of the findings. Participants searched for a target of a given speed among faster or slower distractors. Memory probing revealed that participants remembered the target speed as biased away from that of distractors. Across different tasks, the magnitude of the biasing correlated positively with search performance. Our findings provide compelling evidence that dynamic stimulus attributes in attentional templates can become functionally biased when adaptive. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Social media use is endemic among emerging adults, raising concerns that this trend may harm users. We tested whether reducing the quantity of social media use, relative to improving the way users engage with social media, benefits psychological well-being. Participants were 393 social media users (ages 17-29) in Canada, with elevated psychopathology symptoms, who perceived social media to negatively impact their life somewhat. They were randomized to either (a) assistance to engage with social media in a way to enhance connectedness (tutorial), (b) encouragement to abstain from social media (abstinence), or (c) no instructions to change behavior (control). Participants' social media behaviors were self-reported and tracked using phone screen time apps while well-being was self-reported, over four timepoints (6 weeks in total). Results suggested that the tutorial and abstinence groups, relative to control, reduced their quantity of social media use and the amount of social comparisons they made on social media, with abstinence being the most effective. Tutorial was the only condition to reduce participants' fear of missing out and loneliness, and abstinence was the only condition to reduce internalizing symptoms, relative to control. No condition differences emerged in eating pathology or the tendency to make social comparisons in an upward direction. Changes in social media behaviors mediated the effects of abstinence (but not of tutorial) on well-being outcomes. Participant engagement and perceptions of helpfulness were acceptable, but the abstinence group possibly perceived the content as less helpful. In conclusion, using social media differently and abstaining from social media may each benefit well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Masked priming paradigms are frequently used to shine light on the processes of nonconscious cognition. Introducing a new method to this field, Lähteenmäki et al. (2015) claimed that affective priming requires awareness. Specifically, they administered a subjective rating task after the priming task in each trial to directly assess awareness of the prime. Their main result was a lack of priming for subjectively unaware primes. In four experiments, we compared their method with the traditional paradigm, that is, a single-task priming phase followed by a direct test of prime recognition. We used faces with anger versus sadness expressions as primes and targets; emotion categorization was the task. In contrast to Lähteenmäki et al., primes and targets were drawn from different sets, such that priming effects can be unequivocally attributed to the processing of evaluative features. In Experiments 1a, b, we followed their approach of using different prime durations to produce variance in awareness ratings. With a duration of 40 ms, significant priming effects for subjectively unaware primes were found. This duration was also associated with priming effects in the traditional paradigm with near-zero objective prime categorization, suggesting that priming does not require awareness. In Experiment 2a, employing a constant 40-ms duration, we replicated the traditional effect. However, the parallel Experiment 2b with subjective awareness ratings produced a null result at a sharply increased response time level. We conclude that the claim that affective processing requires awareness is not justified. Subjective trial-by-trial visibility ratings can severely alter processing strategies in response priming paradigms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Many of the most interesting cognitive feats that humans perform require us to consider not just the things that but also . We often do this explicitly (e.g., when imagining precisely how a first date could have gone better), but other times we do it spontaneously and implicitly (e.g., when thinking, "I have to catch this bus," implying bad alternatives if the bus is not caught). A growing body of research has identified a core set of neural processes involved in explicit, episodic counterfactual thinking. Little is known, however, about the processes supporting the spontaneous, possibly implicit representation of alternatives. To make progress on this question, we induced participants to spontaneously generate counterfactual alternatives by asking them to judge whether agents were forced to make a particular choice or chose freely-a judgment that implicitly depends on their alternative options. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found 14 clusters that were preferentially engaged when participants were making force judgments (which elicit the spontaneous consideration of alternatives) compared to judgments of what actually occurred (which do not elicit alternatives). These clusters were widely distributed throughout the brain, including in the bilateral prefrontal cortex, bilateral inferior parietal lobule, bilateral middle and inferior temporal gyri, bilateral posterior cingulate, and bilateral caudate. In many of these regions, we additionally show that variability in the neural signal correlates with trial-by-trial variability in participants' force judgments. Our findings provide a first characterization of the neural substrates of the spontaneous representation of counterfactual alternatives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Uncertainty presents a key challenge when learning how best to act to attain a desired outcome. People can report uncertainty in the form of confidence judgments, but how such judgments contribute to learning and subsequent decisions remains unclear. In a series of three experiments employing an operant learning task, we tested the hypothesis that confidence plays a central role in learning by regulating resource allocation to the seeking and processing of feedback. We predicted that, as participants' confidence in their task knowledge grew, they would discount feedback when it was provided and be correspondingly less willing to pay for it when it was costly. Consistent with these predictions, we found that higher confidence was associated with reduced electrophysiological markers of feedback processing and decreased updating of beliefs following feedback receipt. Bayesian modeling suggests that this decrease in processing was due to a drop in the expected informative value of novel information when participants were highly confident. Thus, when choosing whether to pay a fee to receive further feedback, participants' subjective confidence, rather than the objective accuracy of their decisions, guided their choices. Overall, our results suggest that confidence regulates learning and subsequent decision making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The standard method for addressing the consequences of misinformation is the provision of a correction in which the misinformation is directly refuted. However, the impact of misinformation may also be successfully addressed by introducing or bolstering alternative beliefs with opposite evaluative implications. Six preregistered experiments clarified important processes influencing the impact of bypassing versus correcting misinformation via negation. First, we find that, following exposure to misinformation, bypassing generally changes people's attitudes and intentions more than correction in the form of a simple negation. Second, this relative advantage is not a function of the depth at which information is processed but rather the degree to which people form attitudes or beliefs when they receive the misinformation. When people form attitudes when they first receive the misinformation, bypassing has no advantage over corrections, likely owing to anchoring. In contrast, when individuals focus on the accuracy of the statements and form beliefs, bypassing is significantly more successful at changing their attitudes because these attitudes are constructed based on expectancy-value principles, while misinformation continues to influence attitudes after correction. Broader implications of this work are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

What makes an object ? Complexity comes in many different forms. Some objects are complex but simple (e.g., a hairbrush). Other objects are the opposite; they look simple but work in a complex way (e.g., an iPhone). Is one kind of complexity more fundamental to how we represent, attend to, and remember objects? Although most existing psychological research on complexity focuses on visual complexity, we argue that mechanistic complexity may be more consequential: Across five preregistered experiments ( = 780 adults), we show that mechanistic complexity not only predicts explicit judgments but also drives visual attention and memory. Thus, representations of object complexity-and object representations more broadly-rely on more than just external appearance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

What are the diagnostic dimensions on which objects differ visually? We constructed a two-dimensional object space based on such attributes captured by a deep convolutional neural network. These attributes can be approximated as stubby/spiky and animate-/inanimate-looking. If object space contributes to human visual cognition, this should have a measurable effect on object discrimination abilities. We administered an object foraging task to a large, diverse sample ( = 511). We focused on the stubby animate-looking "face quadrant" of object space given known variations in face discrimination abilities. Stimuli were picked out of tens of thousands of images to either match or not match with the coordinates of faces in object space. Results show that individual differences in face perception can to a large part be explained by variability in general object perception abilities (o-factor). However, additional variability in face processing can be attributed to visual similarity with faces as captured by dimensions of object space; people who struggle with telling apart faces also have difficulties with discriminating other objects with the same object space attributes. This study is consistent with a contribution of object space to human visual cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Traditional explanations for stereotypes assume that they result from deficits in humans (ingroup-favoring motives, cognitive biases) or their environments (majority advantages, real group differences). An alternative explanation recently proposed that stereotypes can emerge when exploration is costly. Even optimal decision makers in an ideal environment can inadvertently form incorrect impressions from arbitrary encounters. However, all these existing theories essentially describe shortcuts that fail to explain the multidimensionality of stereotypes. Stereotypes of social groups have a canonical multidimensional structure, organized along dimensions of warmth and competence. We show that these dimensions and the associated stereotypes can result from exploration: When individuals make self-interested decisions based on past experiences in an environment where exploring new options carries an implicit cost and when these options share similar attributes, they are more likely to separate groups along multiple dimensions. We formalize this theory via the contextual multiarmed bandit problem, use the resulting model to generate testable predictions, and evaluate those predictions against human behavior. We evaluate this process in incentivized decisions involving as many as 20 real jobs and successfully recover the classic dimensions of warmth and competence. Further experiments show that intervening on the cost of exploration effectively mitigates bias, further demonstrating that exploration cost per se is the operating variable. Future diversity interventions may consider how to reduce exploration cost, in ways that parallel our manipulations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychologists have long been intrigued by decision-induced changes in preferences where making a decision strengthens one's relative preference between more and less preferred options. This phenomenon has been explained through two prominent theories: a dissonance account, which suggests that it results from the decision maker's attempt to minimize an unpleasant emotional-motivational state of "dissonance," and an inference account, which posits that it reflects a process of inferring and updating one's "true" preferences. In the current research, we investigate whether, how, and why framing a decision as a choice or a rejection influences decision-induced preference modulation. Across 13 preregistered experiments, including seven ( = 6,248 participants from North America and Asia) reported in the main text, we find that reject-framed decisions between attractive options induce greater postdecision preference modulation (i.e., a larger preference gap between options) than choose-framed decisions, all else equal. Supporting the inference account, the effect is moderated by attribute similarity and choice set valence while being mediated consistently by perceived action diagnosticity. In contrast, purported moderators and process measures of the dissonance account received no support when tested. Additionally, we systematically address potential confounds associated with varying levels of "noise" in preference expression through decisions, an issue that had encumbered previous paradigms on preference modulation. Our findings suggest that changes in preference induced by ordinary day-to-day decisions primarily stem from an ongoing process of information inference and updating rather than dissonance reduction. This research also provides insights into the previously unforeseen consequences of framing interventions in policy and business. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The field of psychology has a long history of studying how diversity influences various outcomes such as identity development, social behaviors, perceptions, and decision making. However, considering the ways that diversity science research has expanded in recent years, the goal of this special issue is to provide space to highlight work that centers on identifying and testing new pathways from which we learn about diversity broadly defined. Specifically, this set of articles across the November and December 2024 issues stresses the need for us as a field to consider one's context, one's social identities or group memberships, and other various individual difference factors that all shape how we experience different forms of diversity across the lifespan (infancy through early adulthood). We also discuss areas of research not reflected through the submissions and push the field to fill those gaps in future work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

In hybrid foraging, foragers search for multiple targets in multiple patches throughout the foraging session, mimicking a range of real-world scenarios. This research examines outcome uncertainty, the prevalence of different target types, and the reward value of targets in human hybrid foraging. Our empirical findings show a consistent tendency toward risk-averse behavior in hybrid foraging. That is, people display a preference for certainty and actively avoid taking risks. While altering the prevalence or reward value of the risky targets does influence people's aversion to risk, the overall effect of risk remains dominant. Additionally, simulation results suggest that the observed risk-averse strategy is suboptimal in the sense that it prevents foragers from maximizing their overall returns. These results underscore the crucial role of outcome uncertainty in shaping hybrid foraging behavior and shed light on potential theoretical developments bridging theories in decision making and hybrid foraging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Social interactions can be uncomfortable. The current research focuses on a particularly uneasy interaction that individuals face with their friends and acquaintances: the need to request owed money back. Nine preregistered studies ( = 6,953) show that individuals' approach to resolving interpersonal debt varies based on their closeness with the requestee. Specifically, people prefer communication methods low in social richness (e.g., digital apps) when requesting money back from weak social connections such as distant acquaintances. However, they prefer communication methods high in social richness (e.g., in-person interactions) when requesting money back from strong social connections such as close friends. Process evidence reveals the psychological dynamics at play: (a) people anticipate discomfort when requesting money back from distant acquaintances in person, driving them away from in-person requests and toward digital apps, and (b) people are more averse to appearing impersonal with close friends, driving them away from digital apps and toward in-person requests. In sum, individuals adaptively approach uncomfortable financial interactions based on the relationship dynamics at hand. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Resistance to truth and susceptibility to falsehood threaten democracies around the globe. The present research assesses the magnitude, manifestations, and predictors of these phenomena, while addressing methodological concerns in past research. We conducted a preregistered study with a split-sample design (discovery sample N = 630, validation sample N = 1,100) of U.S. Census-matched online adults. Proponents and opponents of 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump were presented with fake and real political headlines ahead of the election. The political concordance of the headlines determined participants' belief in and intention to share news more than the truth of the headlines. This "concordance-over-truth" bias persisted across education levels, analytic reasoning ability, and partisan groups, with some evidence of a stronger effect among Trump supporters. Resistance to true news was stronger than susceptibility to fake news. The most robust predictors of the bias were participants' belief in the relative objectivity of their political side, extreme views about Trump, and the extent of their one-sided media consumption. Interestingly, participants stronger in analytic reasoning, measured with the Cognitive Reflection Task, were more accurate in discerning real from fake headlines when accurate conclusions aligned with their ideology. Finally, participants remembered fake headlines more than real ones regardless of the political concordance of the news story. Discussion explores why the concordance-over-truth bias observed in our study is more pronounced than previous research suggests, and examines its causes, consequences, and potential remedies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This study investigates how American Sign Language (ASL) fluency and hearing status influence the perception of biological motion, using three point-light display (PLD) tasks. Prior research indicates that early exposure to ASL among deaf signers results in more rapid and effortless recognition of biological motion than hearing nonsigners, potentially due to the expertise in deciphering complex human movements or possibly due to neuroplasticity in deaf brains. However, it remains uncertain whether this advantage stems from signed language proficiency or the experience of being deaf. To explore this, we designed three PLD tasks involving viewing randomly moving dots, identifying a person from biological motion PLDs, and determining whether right-side up and inverted PLDs depict actions involving a ball. A diverse cohort of participants (N = 224) with varying ASL fluencies and hearing statuses completed the tasks online, providing us with reaction time and accuracy data. Our results demonstrate that earlier ASL exposure is associated with accuracy, especially on complex action identification tasks. Furthermore, we discovered robust evidence for a speed-accuracy trade-off in deaf participants, in which they performed more quickly but less accurately. The speed-accuracy trade-off was evident in the most difficult task, the action identification task. Further analysis of this deaf group revealed that earlier signed language acquisition led to higher accuracy in action identification task. We conclude that age of ASL exposure and hearing status both significantly contribute to variations in biological motion perception, with implications for understanding visual expertise and cognitive processing in both deaf and signing populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Theories of reading posit that decisions about "where" and "when" to move the eyes are driven by visual and linguistic factors, extracted from the perceptual span and word identification span, respectively. We tested this hypothesized dissociation by masking, outside of a visible window, either the spaces between the words (to assess the perceptual span, Experiment 1) or the letters within the words (to assess the word identification span, Experiment 2). We also investigated whether deaf readers' previously reported larger reading span was specifically linked to one of these spans. We analyzed reading rate to test overall reading efficiency, as well as average saccade length to test "where" decisions and average fixation duration to test "when" decisions. Both hearing and deaf readers' perceptual spans extended between 10 and 14 characters, and their word identification spans extended to eight characters to the right of fixation. Despite similar sized rightward spans, deaf readers read more efficiently overall and showed a larger increase in reading rate when leftward text was available, suggesting they attend more to leftward information. Neither rightward span was specifically related to where or when decisions for either group. Our results challenge the assumed dissociation between type of reading span and type of saccade decision and indicate that reading efficiency requires access to both perceptual and linguistic information in the parafovea. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Individuals preferentially reciprocate connections with copartisans versus counter-partisans online. However, the mechanisms underlying this partisan bias remain unclear. Do individuals simply prefer viewing politically congenial content, or do they additionally prefer socially connecting with copartisans? Is this driven by preference for in-party ties or distaste for out-party ties? In a Twitter (now called X) field experiment, we created bot accounts varying by partisanship and whether they identified as bots or humans. We randomly assigned Twitter users ( = 3,013) to be followed by one of these accounts. We found evidence for social motivation-users were much more likely to reciprocate links to copartisan relative to counter-partisan accounts when the accounts identified as humans versus bots. We also found evidence for both in-party preference and out-party dispreference-users were as likely to follow back copartisan accounts as they were unlikely to followback counter-partisan accounts, compared to politically neutral accounts. A follow-up survey experiment ( = 990) provides further evidence for distinct roles of issue polarization, out-party animosity, and in-party affinity in moderating follow-back decisions online. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The factors that trigger lapses of attention (e.g., mind-wandering) during new learning remain unclear. The present study investigated whether the likelihood of experiencing an attentional lapse depends on (a) the importance of the material being studied and (b) the learner's age. In two experiments, younger and older adults completed a delayed free recall task in which to-be-remembered words were paired with point values. Thought probes were embedded into the encoding phase of each list to provide an index of one's ability to maintain attention on task and prevent recurrent lapses of attention (i.e., the consistency of attention). Experiment 1 revealed all individuals better remembered high-value information at the expense of low-value information, and older adults were more frequently focused on the task than younger adults. Participants were also less likely to remember an item at test if they experienced an attentional lapse while learning said item, and they were more consistently focused on the task when studying high-value information than when studying low-value information. Age did not moderate either of these effects. Experiment 2 replicated the findings from Experiment 1 and further revealed that the positive association between age and attentional consistency was explained by age-related differences in affect, motivation, personality, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder symptomology. Once these factors were accounted for, older age was associated with increased attentional (less on-task focus). While future replication of this finding is needed, implications for education and theories of both mind-wandering and aging are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Adaptation to the environment is a universal property of perception across all sensory modalities. It can enhance the salience of new events in an ongoing background and helps maintain perceptual constancy in the face of variable sensory input. Several contrastive adaptation effects have been identified using sounds within the categories of human voice and musical instruments. The present study investigated whether such contrast effects can occur between voice and nonvoice stimulus categories. A 10-step continuum between "voice" (/a/, /o/, or /u/ vowels) and "instrument" (bassoon, horn, or viola) sounds was generated for each of the nine possible pairs. In each trial, an adaptor, either a voice or instrument, was played four times and was followed by a target from along the appropriate continuum. When trials with voice and instrumental adaptors were grouped into separate blocks, strong contrastive adaptation effects were observed, with the target more likely to be identified as a voice following instrumental adaptors and vice versa (Experiment 1). The effects were not observed for visual image adaptors (Experiment 2). The effects were somewhat larger when the adaptors and the target were presented to the same than to different ears, but significant adaptation was observed in both conditions, suggesting contributions of central mechanisms, following binaural integration (Experiment 3). The effect accumulated when the same type of adaptor was presented consecutively and persisted following the end of the adaptors (Experiment 4). The discovery of voice-nonvoice contrastive pairs opens the possibility of studying perceptual or neuronal voice selectivity while keeping acoustic features constant. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Simulating other people can shift one's self-concept, an effect known as simulation-induced malleability. How does imagining others shift the self? We propose that the activation of self-knowledge is the key factor by which simulation of others alters one's self-concept. We test this possibility across four studies that each manipulate self-knowledge activation indirectly during simulation and measure the impact on subsequent self-ratings. Results demonstrate that increasing activation of self-knowledge during simulation is associated with increased self-concept change. People experienced greater self-concept change when simulating similar others (Studies 1 and 2). People also generalized simulation-induced changes to aspects of the self-concept that were semantically similar to the simulated content (Study 3). Finally, people who are less likely to recruit self-knowledge (i.e., older adults) during simulation were less susceptible to self-concept change (Study 4). These studies highlight self-knowledge activation as an essential component of the effects of simulation on self-rated change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

For contractualist accounts of morality, actions are moral if they correspond to what rational or reasonable agents would agree to do, were they to negotiate explicitly. This, in turn, often depends on each party's bargaining power, which varies with each party's stakes in the potential agreement and available alternatives in case of disagreement. If there is an asymmetry, with one party enjoying higher bargaining power than another, this party can usually get a better deal, as often happens in real negotiations. A strong test of contractualist accounts of morality, then, is whether moral judgments do take bargaining power into account. We explore this in five preregistered experiments ( = 3,025; U.S.-based Prolific participants). We construct scenarios depicting everyday social interactions between two parties in which one of them can perform a mutually beneficial but unpleasant action. We find that the same actions (asking the other to perform the unpleasant action or explicitly refusing to do it) are perceived as less morally appropriate when performed by the party with lower bargaining power, as compared to the party with higher bargaining power. In other words, participants tend to give more moral leeway to parties with better bargaining positions and to hold disadvantaged parties to stricter moral standards. This effect appears to depend only on the relative bargaining power of each party but not on the magnitude of the bargaining power asymmetry between them. We discuss implications for contractualist theories of moral cognition and the emergence and persistence of unfair norms and inequality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Language processing is incremental. As language signals-for example, words in a sentence-unfold, humans predict and activate likely upcoming input to facilitate comprehension. Prediction not only accelerates understanding but also prompts reassessment in the case of prediction error, fostering learning and refining comprehension skills. Therefore, it is paramount to understand what happens when linguistic predictions are violated-for example, when a sentence ends in an unpredicted word. One theory, which we test here, is that the originally predicted word is actively inhibited after semantic violations. Furthermore, we tested whether this purported lexical inhibition process is achieved by a domain-general mechanism-that is, one that also inhibits other processes (e.g., movement). We combined a semantic violation task, in which highly constrained sentences primed specific words but sometimes continued otherwise, with a motoric stop-signal task. Across two experiments, semantic violations significantly impaired simultaneous action-stopping. This implies that lexical and motor inhibition share the same process. In support of this view, multivariate decoding of electroencephalographic recordings showed early overlap in neural processing between action-stopping (motor inhibition) and semantic violations (lexical inhibition). Moreover, a known signature of motor inhibition (the stop-signal P3) was reduced after this initial overlap period, further suggesting the presence of a bottleneck due to shared processing. These findings show that semantic violations trigger inhibitory processing and suggest that this lexical inhibition recruits a domain-general inhibitory control mechanism. This provides a new perspective on long-standing debates in psycholinguistics, extends the range of a well-characterized cognitive control mechanism into the linguistic domain, and offers support for recent neurobiological models of domain-general inhibitory control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

People often need to learn complex information as part of their daily lives. One of the most effective strategies for understanding information is to explain it, for instance to a hypothetical other (Pilots 1 and 2). Yet, we find that learners prefer equally effortful but less effective learning strategies, even when incentivized to perform well (Study 1). Critically, we propose and find that learners' reluctance to explain is tied to their subjective knowledge of the material; learners who feel less knowledgeable about what they learned are most reluctant to explain it, despite the strategy being as effective for them (Study 2). An intervention that increased subjective knowledge (by having learners answer a few easy questions) increased learners' choice to explain, which was mediated by learners believing that explaining would be more pleasant and effective (Study 3). Directly manipulating beliefs about how fun and effective explaining is also boosted learners' willingness to explain (Study 4). Finally, because Studies 1-4 incentivized performance financially, we replicated key results in the classroom with students, finding improved scores on a class quiz (Study 5). The paradoxical implication of these findings is that those who need effective learning strategies the most are the ones least likely to use them. Put together, we find that subjective knowledge plays a key role in learning decisions and that boosting subjective knowledge is a simple intervention that can improve learning-related choices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).