There is an active debate within the field of phonology concerning the cognitive status of substantive phonetic factors such as ease of articulation and perceptual distinctiveness. A new framework is proposed in which substance acts as a bias, or prior, on phonological learning. Two experiments tested this framework with a method in which participants are first provided highly impoverished evidence of a new phonological pattern, and then tested on how they extend this pattern to novel contexts and novel sounds. Participants (...) were found to generalize velar palatalization (e.g., the change from [k] as in keep to [t⌢∫S] as in cheap) in a way that accords with linguistic typology, and that is predicted by a cognitive bias in favor of changes that relate perceptually similar sounds. Velar palatalization was extended from the mid front vowel context (i.e., before [e] as in cape) to the high front vowel context (i.e., before [i] as in keep), but not vice versa. The key explanatory notion of perceptual similarity is quantified with a psychological model of categorization, and the substantively biased framework is formalized as a conditional random field. Implications of these results for the debate on substance, theories of phonological generalization, and the formalization of similarity are discussed. (shrink)

Between‐trial effects in Stroop‐like interference tasks are linked to differences in the amount of cognitive control. Trials following an incongruent trial show less interference, an effect suggested to result from the increased control caused by the incongruent previous trial (known as the Gratton effect). In this study, we show that cognitive control not only results in a different amount of interference but also in a different locus of the interference. That is, the stage of the task that shows the most (...) interference changes as a function of the preceding trial. Using computational cognitive modeling, we explain these effects by a difference in the amount of processing of the irrelevant dimension of the stimulus. (shrink)

Signalling games are popular models for studying the evolution of meaning, but typical approaches do not incorporate vagueness as a feature of successful signalling. Complementing recent like-minded models, we describe an aggregate population-level dynamic that describes a process of imitation of successful behaviour under imprecise perception and realization of similar stimuli. Applying this new dynamic to a generalization of Lewis’s signalling games, we show that stochastic imprecision leads to vague, yet by-and-large efficient signal use, and, moreover, that it unifies evolutionary (...) outcomes and helps avoid sub-optimal categorization. The upshot of this is that we see ‘as-if’-generalization at an aggregate level, without agents actually generalizing. _1_ Introduction _2_ Background _2.1_ Sim-max games and conceptual spaces _2.2_ Vagueness in sim-max games and conceptual spaces _2.3_ Vagueness, functional pressure, and transmission biases _3_ Imprecise Imitation _3.1_ Replicator dynamic in behavioural strategies _3.2_ Noise-perturbed conditional imitation _4_ Exploring Imprecise Imitation _4.1_ Setting the stage _4.2_ Simulation set-up _4.3_ Measures of interest _4.4_ Results _5_ Discussion _5.1_ Levels of vagueness _5.2_ Evolutionary benefits of imprecision _5.3_ Related work _6_ Conclusion Appendix. (shrink)

Theories of rational decision making often abstract away from computational and other resource limitations faced by real agents. An alternative approach known as resource rationality puts such matters front and center, grounding choice and decision in the rational use of finite resources. Anticipated by earlier work in economics and in computer science, this approach has recently seen rapid development and application in the cognitive sciences. Here, the theory of rationality plays a dual role, both as a framework for normative assessment (...) and as a source of scientific hypotheses about how mental processes in fact work. The latter project, often called rational analysis, depends for its success on a fine-grained characterization of the computational problem facing a decision maker, which may in turn depend on realistic assumptions about what the relevant agent is like. As a consequence, resource rationality involves a delicate, but often fruitful interplay between the normative and the descriptive. (shrink)