Wearing heavy iron clogs can inhibit vection.

Visually induced illusory self-motion perception is termed vection. We measured vection strength in participants wearing either wooden or iron clogs together with or without a weight-jacket (four conditions). We hypothesized that the heavier items would inhibit vection more because they make locomotion difficult. Results partially showed that the iron clogs could inhibit vection. We concluded that cognition of the fact that the heavier iron clogs made locomotion difficult might function as an inhibitor of vection, suggesting that cognition can alter vection strength.

The role of familiarity in binary choice inferences.

In research on the recognition heuristic (Goldstein & Gigerenzer, Psychological Review, 109, 75-90, 2002), knowledge of recognized objects has been categorized as "recognized" or "unrecognized" without regard to the degree of familiarity of the recognized object. In the present article, we propose a new inference model--familiarity-based inference. We hypothesize that when subjective knowledge levels (familiarity) of recognized objects differ, the degree of familiarity of recognized objects will influence inferences. Specifically, people are predicted to infer that the more familiar object in a pair of two objects has a higher criterion value on the to-be-judged dimension. In two experiments, using a binary choice task, we examined inferences about populations in a pair of two cities. Results support predictions of familiarity-based inference. Participants inferred that the more familiar city in a pair was more populous. Statistical modeling showed that individual differences in familiarity-based inference lie in the sensitivity to differences in familiarity. In addition, we found that familiarity-based inference can be generally regarded as an ecologically rational inference. Furthermore, when cue knowledge about the inference criterion was available, participants made inferences based on the cue knowledge about population instead of familiarity. Implications of the role of familiarity in psychological processes are discussed.