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These are preprints of manuscripts that relate to Psychological Value Theory. Some of these preprints may have more recent versions that are published in peer reviewed journals.

Recently, Jenkins et al. (2018) demonstrated that a receiver’s competence and warmth (CW) related to how much a participant will give a receiver in the Dictator Game. In a series of four prior experiments, we have demonstrated that Psychological Value Theory (PVT, Cohen et al., 2022) accurately predicts charitable giving decisions and the timing of those decisions. In this reviewer driven experiment, we examine the relation between competence, warmth, psychological value, and charitable giving. Here we provide two important qualifiers: Warmth and Competence is not Psychological Value: Psychological Value is a general theoretical construct that applies to all stimuli (e.g., objects, animals, people, concepts, etc.). We have estimated, through normed magnitude estimates, the Psychological Value of humans, non-human animal, objects, abstract concepts, personality traits, health symptoms, etc. In all cases, PVT predicts choice. In contrast, Competence and Warmth applies only to a small subset of possible stimuli (i.e., people). Thus, Competence and Warmth does not and cannot encompass the theoretical reach of Psychological Values. This experiment is not a true test of the superiority of one model over the other (PVT vs CW): PVT and the CW are fundamentally different models that make predictions with very different levels of precision. PVT precisely predicts choice – specifically the probability of choosing the higher valued option (i.e., p(HVO)) vs. the lower valued option (i.e., p(LVO)), and the speed of those choices (respectively, RTHVO and RTLVO), simultaneously, using measures of distributional overlap. An assumption here is that psychological value of any entities is captured not by a discrete value but by a distribution of values in the same way that evidence is defined in signal detection theory. Critically, in comparing two options in a 2AFC it is the distributional overlap of their two distributions that is key. Distributional overlap measures existed before the current experiment and were estimated independent of the current task. PVT is further constrained by the fact that choice and speed mutually constrain one another in ways that would not obtain were we to attempt to fit the choice data independently of the speed data. As such, PVT excludes most possible patterns of data. In contrast, the CW model makes directional, rather than point predictions. As such the assessment of the relation between the CW measure and choice and RT must be carried out independently of each other. Consequently any observed relations are poorly constrained, and as such an indefinitely large number of possible outcomes could be accommodated by the model. Additionally, the CW measure is derived, in part, from the choice data (i.e., the relative weights for warmth and competence are derived from the choice data with a constraint to produce a positive relation). Consequently, it is not independent of the choice data. Thus, the CW measure is opportunistic in the current analysis. It is obvious at the outset therefore that the CW model is advantaged, that is, much less constrained, in the current analysis relative to the PVT model.

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., red and green). This theory contrasts with views that emphasize the early grouping of features, and which assume that feature processing is interactive and underpins figure/ground segregation as a necessary precursor to object perception. To test between these theories, we report performance in a speeded counting task in which participants were asked to judge which of two shapes was more prevalent. Displays contained squares and circles that appeared in either of two colors, with color and shape distinctions either perfectly correlated (i.e., compatible) or not (i.e., incompatible). BM theory predicts no influence of the relative coincidence of color and shape on the identification of the more prevalent shape. In contrast, grouping theory predicts that performance will be better when the color/shape distinction is compatible than when it is incompatible. Our data strongly support the grouping theory predictions. We conclude that the primary constraints on how visual objects are accessed are the number and kind of groupings that are recovered, not the number of feature maps consulted

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 either presented in Mandarin or in Arabic number formats. In addition to the standard influence of numerical distance, a significant predictor of performance was the degree of physical similarity between the probe and the standard as depicted in Mandarin. Additionally, competing effects of physical similarity, defined in terms of the Arabic number format, were also found. Critically the size of these different effects of physical similarity varied systematically across individuals such that larger effects of one compensated for smaller effects of the other. It is argued that the data favor accounts of processing that assume that different number formats access different format-specific representations of quantities. Moreover, for Chinese participants the default is to translate numerals into a Mandarin format prior to accessing quantity information. The efficacy of this translation process is itself influenced by a competing tendency to carry out a translation into Arabic format.

Here, we proposed Subjective Values Theory, a theory of the perception of value, and how that perception drives preferential choice. Utility Theory, Prospect Theory, and traditional implementations of sequential sampling theory derive value from observers’ preferential choices. Subjective Values Theory goes beyond these theories by (a) precisely defining and measuring value independent of preferential choice, and (b) using these independent measurements of value to a priori predict preferential choice. We instantiate the decision mechanism proposed by Subjective Values Theory in a new Robust Random Walk (RRW) procedure. We evaluate the validity of Subjective Values Theory and the RRW in six experiments that measure the value of human lives and predict participants’ RTs and preferential choices in complex social decisions. In these experiments, we demonstrate that the process of perceiving Psychological Value is the same for objects and human lives, social status influences the perceived Psychological Value of a human life, and quantity has little or no influence on the perceived Psychological Value of human lives or objects. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to decision theory, behavioral economics, and the psychology of morality.

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. Comparison of performance in the bounded and unbounded number-line tasks provides a unique and direct way to assess the role of strategy in number-line completion. Each task produces a distinct pattern of data, yet each pattern is hypothesized to arise, at least in part, from the same underlying psychological representation of quantity. Our model predicts that the estimated biases from each task should be equivalent if the different completion strategies are modelled appropriately and no other influences are at play. We test this equivalence hypothesis in two experiments. The data reveal all variations of the number-line task produce equivalent biases except for one: the estimation variation of the bounded number-line task. We discuss the important implications of these findings.

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. Images were of threatening and non-threatening cats and dogs. The target depicted either an animal expressing an emotion distinct from the other images, or the sequences contained only images depicting the same emotional valence. Enhanced memory was found for targets that differed in emotional valence from the other sequence images, compared to targets that expressed the same emotional valence. Further controls in stimulus selection were then introduced and the same emotional distinctiveness effect obtained. In ruling out possible visual and attentional accounts of the data, an informal dual route topic model is discussed. This places emphasis on how visual short-term memory reveals a sensitivity to the emotional content of the input as it unfolds over time. Items that present with a distinctive emotional content stand out in memory.

The bounded number-line task has been used extensively to assess the numerical competence of both children and adults. One consistent finding is 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 representation of quantity (termed here a direct response strategy). Here we show that the direct response strategy produces the log-linear response function regardless of whether the psychological representation of quantity is compressive or expansive. Simply put, the log-linear response function results from task constraints rather than the psychological representation of quantities. We also demonstrate that a proportion/subtraction response strategy produces response patterns that almost perfectly correlate with the psychological representation of quantity. We therefore urge researchers not to interpret the log-linear response pattern in terms of numerical representation.

Details of supplementary experiment

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. However, when we introduce repeated, error-prone sampling of the stimulus (e.g., Cohen, 2009) superior fits are achieved when the underlying representation of integers reflects linear spacing with constant variance. These results provide new insights into (i) the detailed nature of mental numerical representation, and, (ii) general perceptual processes implemented by the human visual system.

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., hand axe): Such items were no better retained than others. In the remaining experiments, displays contained different images of items from the same higher-level category (e.g., food: a bagel, a sandwich, a pizza). Evidence from the later experiments did suggest that participants were sensitive to the categorical relations present in the displays. However, when separate measures of sensitivity and bias were computed, the data revealed no effects on sensitivity, but a greater tendency to respond positively to non-category items relative to items from the depicted category. Across all experiments, there was no evidence that items from a common category were better remembered than unique items. Previous work has shown that principles of perceptual organization do affect the storage and maintenance of tbr items. The present work shows that there are no corresponding conceptual principles of organization in VSTM. It is concluded that the sort of VSTM tapped by single probe recognition methods is pre-categorical in nature.