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Two studies explored the conditions under which readers update their representation of news reports in the presence of alternative plausible explanations for a target event. To do so, this study asked readers to read news reports that mentioned 2 different causes to explain the occurrence of a single event. This study manipulated which of the 2 causes was emphasized at the end of the news report. Experiment 1, through an inference judgment task and a simulation using the Landscape Model, evaluated which of the 2 potential causes was represented in the readers' final situation model. Experiment 2 collected think-aloud protocols to investigate the content of readers' thoughts when they were faced with alternative plausible explanations in accounts of a single event. The findings indicate that readers update their representation as new causes appear in the text but that the nature of the updating is a function of the order of presentation of the causes: They either select 1 cause over another or draw causal inferences between the 2 causes to maintain the coherence of their situation models under construction. These findings are discussed within the theoretical framework of the Landscape Model. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

Spatial attention can be captured automatically by an exogenous stimulus (e.g., digital interruption) or by an endogenous stimulus (e.g., valence of the stimulus). In this study, we investigated whether a non-perceptual characteristic (e.g., sense of fluency) has an impact on attention. To this end, we used the conceptual fluency paradigm developed by Whittlesea combined with the dot-probe task developed by MacLeod et al. In three experiments, we measured the response times for each experimental situation (i.e., Valid and Non-valid situations). At each trial, participants were presented in three consecutive displays on a screen: (1) an incomplete and predictive sentence stem; (2) a pair of words, one of which was semantically compatible with the previous sentence stem; and (3) a circle appeared at the spatial location of one of the words. Then, participants had to perform a Go (i.e., a filled circle) and No-go (i.e., an empty circle) task. The analysis found that response times were significantly faster when the Go stimulus appeared at the same location as the semantically compatible word (i.e., Valid situations). Overall, our results show that the sense of fluency triggers attentional capture. Thus, they replicate those of Gardner et al. using another experimental paradigm. Our finding might be helpful to better understand the consequences of digital interruptions on behavioural performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Les theories de la cognition incarnees font l'hypothese que toutes les operations cognitives, y compris celles de haut niveau sont fondamentalement enracinees dans les etats actuels du corps et dans les systemes sensori-moteurs du cerveau. Les travaux experimentaux menes en leur sein s'interessent uniquement au lien existant entre des processus cognitifs automatiques et des reponses motrices. Jamais ce lien n'a ete envisage a travers celui de la production de reponses verbales telles que les reponses << oui >> et << non >>. Or, un grand nombre de taches exigent une reponse verbale en meme temps qu'une reponse motrice. Dans ce travail, nous avons mis en evidence que l'evaluation cognitive et automatique de la valence de mots entretient un lien etroit avec les reponses motrices de << tirer >> et de << pousser >>, ainsi qu'avec les reponses verbales << oui >> et << non >> lorsque la tache demande de dire si << oui >> ou << non >> il y a la lettre << a >> dans un mot. De plus, les donnees obtenues montrent que les reponses verbales << oui >> et << non >> interagissent avec les reponses motrices de << tirer >> et de << pousser >>. Cette interaction appuie l'idee selon laquelle les reponses verbales affirmatives et negatives presentent une dimension motrice, comme le prevoient les theories de la cognition incarnee (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Scorolli & Borghi, 2007; Barsalou, 2008). Mots-cles : cognition incarnee, emotion, reponse motrice, reponse verbale, langage DOI: 10.1037/a0019732

Cet article porte sur l'influence de la taille typique dans une tache de categorisation. L'originalite de notre travail repose sur l'homogeneite de la taille graphique des stimuli. Nous avons commence par construire une norme de taille typique des stimuli, celle-ci porte sur la taille reelle des objets representes par les dessins de tailles homogenes. Ensuite, une experience d'amorcage a ete realisee dans laquelle les dessins amorces et cibles entretiennent deux types de relations : une relation de taille typique et une relation categorielle. Lors de la passation, l'existence d'un lien de taille typique entre amorce et cible n'est pas mentionnee aux participants. Les resultats obtenus montrent un effet d'amorcage positif de la taille typique mais pas d'effet de la categorie. Les resultats sont discutes en regard de l'approche theorique developpee par Barsalou et son equipe (1999, 2003). Dans ce cadre theorique, la taille typique peut &re assimilable a une connaissance perceptive. De cette facon, la taille typique pourrait etre automatiquement simulee par les participants lors de la perception de stimuli connus dans des tailles egalisees. This study explores the influence of typical size during a categorization task. The specificity of this experimental work is based on the homogeneity of the graphic stimuli size. We have created a typical size standard of our stimuli, that concerns the real size of the objects represented by the drawings of homogeneous sizes. Then, a priming experiment was performed in which the prime and target drawings had two types of relations: a typical size, and a categorial. The participants are naive as to the typical size relation between prime and target. The results show a positive priming effect of the typical size but not of the category. The results are discussed in term of theoretical approach developed by Barsalou and his colleagues (1999, 2003). In this theoretical framework, the typical size can be considered as a perceptual knowledge. In that way, we propose that participants could automatically simulate the typical size as soon as they perceived the drawings of objects with homegenous sizes.

Nous presentons la familiarite subjective estimee pour 120 concepts appartenant au domaine vivant (animaux, fruits, legumes) et non vivant (vehicules, vetements, outils) en fonction de l'age et du genre des participants. Parallelement a la construction d'une base de concepts contribuant a terme a l'etude en francais de l'evolution de l'organisation conceptuelle lors du vieillissement normal et pathologique, nous testons l'hypothese d'une interaction genre/categorie. Les resultats montrent l'importance de distinguer les concepts en fonction de ces facteurs dans la construction des taches experimentales. This work presents the rates of subjective familiarity assessed for 120 concepts belonging to the living (animals, fruits, vegetables) and nonliving (vehicles, clothes, tools) domains according to the age and gender. At the same time as the construction of a set of concept norms contributing to the French study of the evolution of the conceptual organization in normal and pathological ageing, we test the assumption of an interaction between gender and category. The results stress the importance to distinguish the concepts according to these factors in the construction of experimental tasks.

This work is rooted in the embodied cognition paradigm applied to the evaluation of visuospatial memory span. We aimed to test whether manuospatial incompatibility affects the evaluation of visuospatial working memory. Older and younger participants were tested under two different spatial field conditions, namely manuospatial incompatibility and manuospatial compatibility, using the standard Corsi Block Tapping Task. The results show that a manuospatial compatibility condition helped both younger and older participants to increase their visuospatial working memory span compared to the traditional manuospatial incompatibility condition. By analyzing the data, our results showed an increase of visuospatial memory span in manuospatial compatibility condition (i.e., the experimenter using his left hand and the participant his right hand) compared to manuospatial incompatibility condition for younger and older adults. We recommend that the interaction between body and cognition would be taken into account in clinical evaluation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]