Cognition
@cognitionjournal.bsky.social
EiC team: Johan Wagemans, Ian Dobbins, Ori Friedman, and Katrien Segaert
1/10 🧵 When groups make moral decisions, they support actions that maximize overall outcomes more than individuals do (e.g., sacrifice 1 to save 5).
New paper by Bertram Gawronski, Marta Rokosz, Michal Stefanczyk, & Michał Białek discusses why this happens.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
New paper by Bertram Gawronski, Marta Rokosz, Michal Stefanczyk, & Michał Białek discusses why this happens.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
January 26, 2026 at 9:10 PM
1/10 🧵 When groups make moral decisions, they support actions that maximize overall outcomes more than individuals do (e.g., sacrifice 1 to save 5).
New paper by Bertram Gawronski, Marta Rokosz, Michal Stefanczyk, & Michał Białek discusses why this happens.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
New paper by Bertram Gawronski, Marta Rokosz, Michal Stefanczyk, & Michał Białek discusses why this happens.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Human cognition is interactive, with information flowing in both bottom-up (from sensory to conceptual levels) and top-down directions. Are these pathways present early in life or do they emerge later, e.g. with experience or brain maturation?
January 23, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Human cognition is interactive, with information flowing in both bottom-up (from sensory to conceptual levels) and top-down directions. Are these pathways present early in life or do they emerge later, e.g. with experience or brain maturation?
Reposted by Cognition
Out in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social with @jaeminhwang.bsky.social, David Sobel (@candmlab.bsky.social), and @jessicas.bsky.social! Most studies of infants’ fairness expectations focus on resource distribution, but in everyday life, we engage in many different kinds of resource exchanges.
January 21, 2026 at 4:32 PM
Out in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social with @jaeminhwang.bsky.social, David Sobel (@candmlab.bsky.social), and @jessicas.bsky.social! Most studies of infants’ fairness expectations focus on resource distribution, but in everyday life, we engage in many different kinds of resource exchanges.
Choose one of three doors. One hides a reward. After a losing door is revealed, would you switch? Humans usually don’t. Neither do fish. Testing the Monty Hall dilemma, we found fish stick to their first choice, revealing a shared cognitive fallacy. 🚪🐟
January 21, 2026 at 5:34 PM
Choose one of three doors. One hides a reward. After a losing door is revealed, would you switch? Humans usually don’t. Neither do fish. Testing the Monty Hall dilemma, we found fish stick to their first choice, revealing a shared cognitive fallacy. 🚪🐟
New in Cognition: Meaning can travel without shared lexicon. In a preregistered study, Italian speakers created new German-sounding words that guided German speakers toward the intended meaning -
revealing cross-linguistic form–meaning
revealing cross-linguistic form–meaning
January 20, 2026 at 8:26 PM
New in Cognition: Meaning can travel without shared lexicon. In a preregistered study, Italian speakers created new German-sounding words that guided German speakers toward the intended meaning -
revealing cross-linguistic form–meaning
revealing cross-linguistic form–meaning
The term "Native Speaker" is ubiquitous in cognitive science, but it lacks empirical validity. Our new paper argues that essentialist labels like “native speaker” distort inquiry, introduce bias, and perpetuate exclusion.
January 19, 2026 at 4:08 PM
The term "Native Speaker" is ubiquitous in cognitive science, but it lacks empirical validity. Our new paper argues that essentialist labels like “native speaker” distort inquiry, introduce bias, and perpetuate exclusion.
Emotional learning can strengthen memory while blurring information about when events. Across 17 experiments, items from a threat-conditioned category were misattributed to the conditioning phase—even when actually encoded before or after it.
January 9, 2026 at 8:34 PM
Emotional learning can strengthen memory while blurring information about when events. Across 17 experiments, items from a threat-conditioned category were misattributed to the conditioning phase—even when actually encoded before or after it.
What makes a language different to a dialect? Is mutually intelligible key? Objective definitions have evaded linguists. This research uses psychological indices of language processing to ask if Neapolitan is processed like a language.
January 8, 2026 at 2:15 PM
What makes a language different to a dialect? Is mutually intelligible key? Objective definitions have evaded linguists. This research uses psychological indices of language processing to ask if Neapolitan is processed like a language.
Zero-sum thinking about social and economic problems hinders the discovery of effective solutions, while positive-sum thinking helps it. Democrats and Republicans are systematically prone to both types of thinking, only around different issues.
January 7, 2026 at 7:50 PM
Zero-sum thinking about social and economic problems hinders the discovery of effective solutions, while positive-sum thinking helps it. Democrats and Republicans are systematically prone to both types of thinking, only around different issues.
Reposted by Cognition
1/13
New paper with @wimdeneys.bsky.social accepted at @cognitionjournal.bsky.social 🥳
Is creativity intuitive? 👩🎨
A 🧵👇
New paper with @wimdeneys.bsky.social accepted at @cognitionjournal.bsky.social 🥳
Is creativity intuitive? 👩🎨
A 🧵👇
January 7, 2026 at 5:40 PM
1/13
New paper with @wimdeneys.bsky.social accepted at @cognitionjournal.bsky.social 🥳
Is creativity intuitive? 👩🎨
A 🧵👇
New paper with @wimdeneys.bsky.social accepted at @cognitionjournal.bsky.social 🥳
Is creativity intuitive? 👩🎨
A 🧵👇
Babies are active information agents! Using gaze-contingent eye tracking, infants learned that they could make on-screen objects move with their gaze, and they preferred these controllable objects over matched objects that moved on their own.
January 6, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Babies are active information agents! Using gaze-contingent eye tracking, infants learned that they could make on-screen objects move with their gaze, and they preferred these controllable objects over matched objects that moved on their own.
Language isn’t optimized just for efficiency. This study shows that phonological surprisal systematically marks vivid meanings—slowing processing but strengthening memory. Surprisal isn’t noise; it’s how language directs attention.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Say it like you mean it: Linguistic vividness and the attentional optimization hypothesis
This study investigates whether phonemic Surprisal in English words is systematically elevated for semantically vivid meanings, extending prior resear…
www.sciencedirect.com
January 6, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Language isn’t optimized just for efficiency. This study shows that phonological surprisal systematically marks vivid meanings—slowing processing but strengthening memory. Surprisal isn’t noise; it’s how language directs attention.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Can you recognize 2 written words at exactly the same time? Anupindi et al. found that participants can recognize only 1 of 2 unrelated words that were flashed briefly and masked (e.g. bottle + corn). That is consistent with a simple serial model.
January 5, 2026 at 3:40 PM
Can you recognize 2 written words at exactly the same time? Anupindi et al. found that participants can recognize only 1 of 2 unrelated words that were flashed briefly and masked (e.g. bottle + corn). That is consistent with a simple serial model.
Intuitive physics can be instantiated within perception. The Online Processing of Dynamics model argues that mass and velocity are jointly encoded. Initial mass cues shift perceived post-impact velocity, and those velocity shifts feedback to reshape mass estimation.
January 5, 2026 at 3:32 PM
Intuitive physics can be instantiated within perception. The Online Processing of Dynamics model argues that mass and velocity are jointly encoded. Initial mass cues shift perceived post-impact velocity, and those velocity shifts feedback to reshape mass estimation.
Reposted by Cognition
My co-authors and I are happy to present our framework "Collective Intelligence as Collective Information Processing (CIP)."
Here we propose decomposing different information processing mechanisms to unify disparate phenomena traditionally classified as "collective intelligence."
Here we propose decomposing different information processing mechanisms to unify disparate phenomena traditionally classified as "collective intelligence."
December 30, 2025 at 6:35 PM
My co-authors and I are happy to present our framework "Collective Intelligence as Collective Information Processing (CIP)."
Here we propose decomposing different information processing mechanisms to unify disparate phenomena traditionally classified as "collective intelligence."
Here we propose decomposing different information processing mechanisms to unify disparate phenomena traditionally classified as "collective intelligence."
Reposted by Cognition
XPRAG is growing up! When it turned 20, we celebrated with a workshop www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nuP... and a SI in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu... Now that it's turning 25, @irastamon.bsky.social @richardbreheny.bsky.social & Nicole Gotzner are giving us a journal!
Depending on how you count, this announcement has been two plus or 25 years in the making.
December 28, 2025 at 4:07 PM
XPRAG is growing up! When it turned 20, we celebrated with a workshop www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nuP... and a SI in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu... Now that it's turning 25, @irastamon.bsky.social @richardbreheny.bsky.social & Nicole Gotzner are giving us a journal!
Huichao Ji & Brian Scholl report a new type of categorical memory distortion: spontaneous motion extrapolation depends on whether a moving ball is shown during *swinging* vs. *tossing*, or *bouncing* vs. *rolling*. Memory is biased by 'visual verbs'!
December 22, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Huichao Ji & Brian Scholl report a new type of categorical memory distortion: spontaneous motion extrapolation depends on whether a moving ball is shown during *swinging* vs. *tossing*, or *bouncing* vs. *rolling*. Memory is biased by 'visual verbs'!
(Background) Humans naturally link magnitudes like number and space, and previous studies hinted that number and action might be linked early in life — but never tested at birth.
December 22, 2025 at 5:41 PM
(Background) Humans naturally link magnitudes like number and space, and previous studies hinted that number and action might be linked early in life — but never tested at birth.
Maybe there are two distinct kinds of belief: they either represent facts (It's rainy) or express identity (My son is the best). We find instead that many beliefs simultaneously represent facts and express identity (but few beliefs do neither).
December 22, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Maybe there are two distinct kinds of belief: they either represent facts (It's rainy) or express identity (My son is the best). We find instead that many beliefs simultaneously represent facts and express identity (but few beliefs do neither).
Which mechanism explains children’s episodic thinking: constructive episodic simulation, self-projection, or scene construction?
December 22, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Which mechanism explains children’s episodic thinking: constructive episodic simulation, self-projection, or scene construction?
Ever wonder if prioritizing a task makes it easier to switch back to it? A new study suggests the opposite is true, especially in older bilinguals when switching-back to a contextually dominant language after a brief switch-out to another language.
December 16, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Ever wonder if prioritizing a task makes it easier to switch back to it? A new study suggests the opposite is true, especially in older bilinguals when switching-back to a contextually dominant language after a brief switch-out to another language.
New paper! How do outcome preferences bias predictions? Using drift-diffusion modeling, we show that outcome preferences bias both thresholds for prediction and evidence accumulation itself—revealing multiple cognitive routes to wishful predictions.
December 15, 2025 at 2:46 PM
New paper! How do outcome preferences bias predictions? Using drift-diffusion modeling, we show that outcome preferences bias both thresholds for prediction and evidence accumulation itself—revealing multiple cognitive routes to wishful predictions.
Wait, air is not composed of matter….or is it? Deciding whether scientific claims are true can be tricky because our formal scientific understanding co-exists alongside a more intuitive everyday understanding – posing a coordination problem.
December 11, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Wait, air is not composed of matter….or is it? Deciding whether scientific claims are true can be tricky because our formal scientific understanding co-exists alongside a more intuitive everyday understanding – posing a coordination problem.
🎉 Congratulations to the 2025 Cognition Outstanding Reviewer Award recipients:
Recognized for exceptional clarity, depth, and insight, their reviews set the highest standard and advance our field through thoughtful, rigorous evaluation.
This year’s recipients:🥁
Recognized for exceptional clarity, depth, and insight, their reviews set the highest standard and advance our field through thoughtful, rigorous evaluation.
This year’s recipients:🥁
December 4, 2025 at 5:44 PM
🎉 Congratulations to the 2025 Cognition Outstanding Reviewer Award recipients:
Recognized for exceptional clarity, depth, and insight, their reviews set the highest standard and advance our field through thoughtful, rigorous evaluation.
This year’s recipients:🥁
Recognized for exceptional clarity, depth, and insight, their reviews set the highest standard and advance our field through thoughtful, rigorous evaluation.
This year’s recipients:🥁
How do memories of a past good deed shape future prosocial behavior? Vandenbol & Geurten explored the relation between episodic memory and helpful behavior in preschoolers.
December 1, 2025 at 8:29 PM
How do memories of a past good deed shape future prosocial behavior? Vandenbol & Geurten explored the relation between episodic memory and helpful behavior in preschoolers.