We don't know what you did last summer. On the importance of transparent reporting of reaction time data pre-processing.

In behavioral, cognitive, and social sciences, reaction time measures are an important source of information. However, analyses on reaction time data are affected by researchers' analytical choices and the order in which these choices are applied. The results of a systematic literature review, presented in this paper, revealed that the justification for and order in which analytical choices are conducted are rarely reported, leading to difficulty in reproducing results and interpreting mixed findings. To address this methodological shortcoming, we created a checklist on reporting reaction time pre-processing to make these decisions more explicit, improve transparency, and thus, promote best practices within the field. The importance of the pre-processing checklist was additionally supported by an expert consensus survey and a multiverse analysis. Consequently, we appeal for maximal transparency on all methods applied and offer a checklist to improve replicability and reproducibility of studies that use reaction time measures.

From Puzzle to Progress: How Engaging With Neurodiversity Can Improve Cognitive Science.

In cognitive science, there is a tacit norm that phenomena such as cultural variation or synaesthesia are worthy examples of cognitive diversity that contribute to a better understanding of cognition, but that other forms of cognitive diversity (e.g., autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder/ADHD, and dyslexia) are primarily interesting only as examples of deficit, dysfunction, or impairment. This status quo is dehumanizing and holds back much-needed research. In contrast, the neurodiversity paradigm argues that such experiences are not necessarily deficits but rather are natural reflections of biodiversity. Here, we propose that neurodiversity is an important topic for future research in cognitive science. We discuss why cognitive science has thus far failed to engage with neurodiversity, why this gap presents both ethical and scientific challenges for the field, and, crucially, why cognitive science will produce better theories of human cognition if the field engages with neurodiversity in the same way that it values other forms of cognitive diversity. Doing so will not only empower marginalized researchers but will also present an opportunity for cognitive science to benefit from the unique contributions of neurodivergent researchers and communities.

Contextual factors predicting compliance behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: A machine learning analysis on survey data from 16 countries.

Voluntary isolation is one of the most effective methods for individuals to help prevent the transmission of diseases such as COVID-19. Understanding why people leave their homes when advised not to do so and identifying what contextual factors predict this non-compliant behavior is essential for policymakers and public health officials. To provide insight on these factors, we collected data from 42,169 individuals across 16 countries. Participants responded to items inquiring about their socio-cultural environment, such as the adherence of fellow citizens, as well as their mental states, such as their level of loneliness and boredom. We trained random forest models to predict whether someone had left their home during a one week period during which they were asked to voluntarily isolate themselves. The analyses indicated that overall, an increase in the feeling of being caged leads to an increased probability of leaving home. In addition, an increased feeling of responsibility and an increased fear of getting infected decreased the probability of leaving home. The models predicted compliance behavior with between 54% and 91% accuracy within each country's sample. In addition, we modeled factors leading to risky behavior in the pandemic context. We observed an increased probability of visiting risky places as both the anticipated number of people and the importance of the activity increased. Conversely, the probability of visiting risky places increased as the perceived putative effectiveness of social distancing decreased. The variance explained in our models predicting risk ranged from < .01 to .54 by country. Together, our findings can inform behavioral interventions to increase adherence to lockdown recommendations in pandemic conditions.

Adaptive memory: Is the animacy effect on memory due to richness of encoding?

A large body of evidence shows an animacy effect on memory in that animate entities are better remembered than inanimate ones. Yet, the reason for this mnemonic prioritization remains unclear. In the survival processing literature, the assumption that richness of encoding is responsible for adaptive memory benefits has received substantial empirical support. In the present study, we examined whether richness of encoding may be considered as a possible mechanism underlying the animacy effect as well. Specifically, we tested a prediction derived from the assumption that processing animate words results in a richer set of associations to other items in memory than processing inanimate words, which may provide participants with a larger set of retrieval cues at test. In Experiments 1 and 3 the animacy effect was replicated in an intentional learning paradigm with different sets of to-be-remembered animate and inanimate words. In Experiments 2 and 4, participants were asked to report any ideas coming to mind in response to these words at encoding. Participants were also asked to recall the words in a surprise recall test. The results showed a reliable animacy effect on free recall in all four experiments, that is, independently of whether encoding was intentional or incidental. Most importantly, the results of Experiments 2 and 4 show that participants spontaneously generated more ideas in response to animate words than in response to inanimate words. The findings suggest that richness of encoding should be further considered as a potential proximate mechanism of the animacy effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Distraction by steady-state sounds: Evidence for a graded attentional model of auditory distraction.

Sound disrupts short-term retention in working memory even when the sound is completely irrelevant and has to be ignored. The dominant view in the literature is that this type of disruption is essentially limited to so-called changing-state distractor sequences with acoustic changes between successive distractor objects (e.g., "ABABABAB") and does not occur with so-called steady-state distractor sequences that are composed of a single repeated distractor object (e.g., "AAAAAAAA"). Here we show that this view can no longer be maintained. What is more, disruption by steady-state distractors is significantly reduced after preexposure to the distractor item, directly confirming a central assumption of attentional explanations of auditory distraction and parallel to what has been shown earlier for changing-state sounds. Taken together, the findings reported here are compatible with a graded attentional account of auditory disruption, and they are incompatible with the duplex-mechanism account. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Time of presentation affects auditory distraction: Changing-state and deviant sounds disrupt similar working memory processes.

Four experiments tested conflicting predictions about which components of the serial-recall task are most sensitive to auditory distraction. Changing-state (Experiments 1a and 1b) and deviant distractor sounds (Experiments 2a and 2b) were presented in one of four different intervals of the serial-recall task: (1) during the first half of encoding, (2) during the second half of encoding, (3) during the first half of retention, or (4) during the second half of retention. According to the embedded-processes model, both types of distractors should interfere with the encoding and rehearsal of targets in the focus of attention. According to the duplex-mechanism account, changing-state distractors should interfere only with rehearsal, whereas deviant distractors should interfere only with encoding. Inconsistent with the latter view, changing-state and deviant distractor sounds interfered with both the encoding and the retention of the targets. Both types of auditory distraction were most pronounced during the second half of encoding when the increasing rehearsal demands had to be coordinated with the continuous updating of the rehearsal set. These findings suggest that the two types of distraction disrupt similar working memory mechanisms.

Reassessing the token set size effect on serial recall: Implications for theories of auditory distraction.

Sequences of auditory objects such as one-syllable words or brief sounds disrupt serial recall of visually presented targets even when the auditory objects are completely irrelevant for the task at hand. The token set size effect is a label for the claim that disruption increases only when moving from a 1-token distractor sequence (e.g., "AAAAAAAA") to a token set size of 2 (e.g., "ABABABAB") but remains constant when moving from a token set size of 2 to a larger token set size (e.g., "ABCABCAB" or "DAGCFBEH"). Here we show that this claim was incorrect and based on experiments with insufficient statistical power. With sufficient statistical power it can be shown that disruption increases not only when the distractor token set size increases from 1 to 2, but also when it increases from two to eight one-syllable words (Experiment 1) and brief instrumental sounds (Experiment 2). These findings have implications for theories of auditory distraction which differ in their predictions about whether the distractor-induced performance decrement should (a) only be determined by acoustic differences between immediately adjacent distractor tokens (duplex-mechanism account) or (b) gradually increase as a function of the variability in the distractor set (attentional account). The present data are inconsistent with the duplex-mechanism account and support the attentional account. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Adaptive memory: Is the animacy effect on memory due to emotional arousal?

Animate entities are often better remembered than inanimate ones. The proximal mechanisms underlying this animacy effect on recall are unclear. In two experiments, we tested whether the animacy effect is due to emotional arousal. Experiment 1 revealed that translations of the animate words used in the pioneering study of Nairne et al. (Psychological science, 24, 2099-2105, 2013) were perceived as being more arousing than translations of the inanimate words, suggesting that animacy might have been confounded with arousal in previous studies. In Experiment 2, new word lists were created in which the animate and inanimate words were matched on arousal (amongst several other dimensions), and participants were required to reproduce the animate and inanimate words in a free recall task. There was a tendency towards better memory for arousing items, but robust animacy effects were obtained even though animate and inanimate words were matched on arousal. Thus, while arousal may contribute to the animacy effect when it is not carefully controlled for, it cannot explain the memory advantage of animate items.

Equivalent auditory distraction in children and adults.

There is an ongoing debate about whether children have more problems ignoring auditory distractors than adults. This is an important empirical question with direct implications for theories making predictions about the development of selective attention. In two experiments, the disruptive effect of to-be-ignored speech on short-term memory performance of third graders, fourth graders, fifth graders, younger adults, and older adults was examined. Three auditory conditions were compared: (a) steady state sequences in which the same distractor was repeated, (b) changing state sequences in which different distractors were presented, and (c) auditory deviant sequences in which a deviant distractor was presented in a sequence of repeated distractors. According to the attentional resource view, children should exhibit larger disruption by changing and deviant sounds due to their poorer attentional control abilities compared with adults. The duplex-mechanism account proposes that the auditory deviant effect is under attentional control, whereas the changing state effect is not, and thus predicts that children should be more susceptible to auditory deviants than adults but equally disrupted by changing state sequences. According to the renewed view of age-related distraction, there should be no age differences in cross-modal auditory distraction because some of the irrelevant auditory information can be filtered out early in the processing stream. Children and adults were equally disrupted by changing and deviant speech sounds regardless of whether task difficulty was equated between age groups or not. These results are consistent with the renewed view of age-related distraction.

The Effect of Cognitive Control on Different Types of Auditory Distraction.

Deviant as well as changing auditory distractors interfere with short-term memory. According to the duplex model of auditory distraction, the deviation effect is caused by a shift of attention while the changing-state effect is due to obligatory order processing. This theory predicts that foreknowledge should reduce the deviation effect, but should have no effect on the changing-state effect. We compared the effect of foreknowledge on the two phenomena directly within the same experiment. In a pilot study, specific foreknowledge was impotent in reducing either the changing-state effect or the deviation effect, but it reduced disruption by sentential speech, suggesting that the effects of foreknowledge on auditory distraction may increase with the complexity of the stimulus material. Given the unexpected nature of this finding, we tested whether the same finding would be obtained in (a) a direct preregistered replication in Germany and (b) an additional replication with translated stimulus materials in Sweden.

Attentional capture by taboo words: A functional view of auditory distraction.

It is well established that task-irrelevant, to-be-ignored speech adversely affects serial short-term memory (STM) for visually presented items compared with a quiet control condition. However, there is an ongoing debate about whether the semantic content of the speech has the capacity to capture attention and to disrupt memory performance. In the present article, we tested whether taboo words are more difficult to ignore than neutral words. Taboo words or neutral words were presented as (a) steady state sequences in which the same distractor word was repeated, (b) changing state sequences in which different distractor words were presented, and (c) auditory deviant sequences in which a single distractor word deviated from a sequence of repeated words. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that taboo words disrupted performance more than neutral words. This taboo effect did not habituate and it did not differ between individuals with high and low working memory capacity. In Experiments 3 and 4, in which only a single deviant taboo word was presented, no taboo effect was obtained. These results do not support the idea that the processing of the auditory distractors' semantic content is the result of occasional attention switches to the auditory modality. Instead, the overall pattern of results is more in line with a functional view of auditory distraction, according to which the to-be-ignored modality is routinely monitored for potentially important stimuli (e.g., self-relevant or threatening information), the detection of which draws processing resources away from the primary task. (PsycINFO Database Record

Semantic priming by irrelevant speech.

To-be-ignored, task-irrelevant speech disrupts serial recall performance relative to a quiet control condition. In most studies, the content of the auditory distractors had no effect on their disruptive potential, one's own name being one of the few exceptions. There are two possible explanations of this pattern: (1) Semantic features of the irrelevant speech are usually not processed, except for highly relevant auditory distractors, or (2) semantic processing of the irrelevant speech always occurs, but usually does not affect serial recall performance. To test these explanations, we presented to-be-ignored auditory distractor words drawn from different categories while participants memorized visual targets for serial recall. Afterwards, participants were invited to what they believed to be an unrelated norming study, in which they were required to spontaneously produce words from the categories from which the auditory distractor words were drawn. Previously ignored words were produced with a higher probability than words from a parallel, nonpresented set, demonstrating that features of to-be-ignored, task-irrelevant speech that do not interfere with immediate serial recall performance are nevertheless processed semantically and may have substantial effects on subsequent behavior.

Age equivalence in auditory distraction by changing and deviant speech sounds.

The present study was designed to examine age-related differences in the disruption of short-term memory by changing and deviant speech sounds. In total, 128 old and 130 young adults performed a serial recall task while ignoring (a) steady-state sequences in which the same distractor word was repeated 12 times, (b) auditory deviant sequences in which the ninth distractor word deviated from the otherwise repetitive context, and (c) changing state sequences in which 12 different distractor words were presented. According to inhibitory deficit theory, older adults should generally be more susceptible to auditory distraction. The duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction is based on the idea that the changing state effect and the auditory deviant effect are functionally different. It suggests that older adults should be more impaired by auditory deviants than younger adults but equally able to ignore changing state sequences. The age-invariant distractibility account predicts no age differences in auditory distraction, which was confirmed by the present results. Old adults performed worse than young adults in the serial recall task. In both age groups, however, the changing state effect (i.e., increased disruption by changing state sequences relative to steady-state sequences) and the auditory deviant effect (i.e., increased disruption by auditory deviant sequences relative to steady-state sequences) were equivalent. These effects were also unrelated to individual differences in working memory capacity.

Adaptive memory: thinking about function.

Rating the relevance of words for the imagined situation of being stranded in the grasslands without survival material leads to exceptionally good memory for these words. This survival processing effect has received much attention because it promises to elucidate the evolutionary foundations of memory. However, the proximate mechanisms of the survival processing effect have to be identified before informed speculations about its adaptive function are possible. Here, we test and contrast 2 promising accounts of the survival processing effect. According to the 1st account, the effect is the consequence of the prioritized processing of threat-related information. According to the 2nd account, thinking about the relevance of items for survival stimulates thinking about object function, which is a particularly elaborate form of encoding. Experiment 1 showed that the emotional properties of the survival scenario, as manipulated by the negative or positive framing of the scenario, did not influence recall. A focus on threat at encoding led to worse recall than a focus on function. The latter finding was replicated in Experiment 2, which further showed that focusing on threat did not lead to a memory advantage over a pleasantness control condition. The beneficial effect of inducing a functional focus at encoding even surpasses that of the standard survival processing instruction. Together, the results support the theory that thinking about function is an important component of the survival processing effect.

Please silence your cell phone: Your ringtone captures other people's attention.

Ringtones are designed to draw attention away from on-going activities. In the present study, it was investigated whether the disruptive effects of a ringing cell phone on short-term memory are inevitable or become smaller as a function of exposure and whether (self-) relevance plays a role. Participants performed a serial recall task either in silence or while task-irrelevant ringtones were presented. Performance was worse when a ringing phone had to be ignored, but gradually recovered compared with the quiet control condition with repeated presentation of the distractor sound. Whether the participant's own ringtone was played or that of a yoked-control partner did not affect performance and habituation rate. The results offer insight into auditory distraction by highly attention-demanding distractors and recovery therefrom. Implications for work environments and other applied settings are discussed.

What determines auditory distraction? On the roles of local auditory changes and expectation violations.

Both the acoustic variability of a distractor sequence and the degree to which it violates expectations are important determinants of auditory distraction. In four experiments we examined the relative contribution of local auditory changes on the one hand and expectation violations on the other hand in the disruption of serial recall by irrelevant sound. We present evidence for a greater disruption by auditory sequences ending in unexpected steady state distractor repetitions compared to auditory sequences with expected changing state endings even though the former contained fewer local changes. This effect was demonstrated with piano melodies (Experiment 1) and speech distractors (Experiment 2). Furthermore, it was replicated when the expectation violation occurred after the encoding of the target items (Experiment 3), indicating that the items' maintenance in short-term memory was disrupted by attentional capture and not their encoding. This seems to be primarily due to the violation of a model of the specific auditory distractor sequences because the effect vanishes and even reverses when the experiment provides no opportunity to build up a specific neural model about the distractor sequence (Experiment 4). Nevertheless, the violation of abstract long-term knowledge about auditory regularities seems to cause a small and transient capture effect: Disruption decreased markedly over the course of the experiments indicating that participants habituated to the unexpected distractor repetitions across trials. The overall pattern of results adds to the growing literature that the degree to which auditory distractors violate situation-specific expectations is a more important determinant of auditory distraction than the degree to which a distractor sequence contains local auditory changes.

Predictability and distraction: Does the neural model represent postcategorical features?

Two experiments examined the role of predictability within the elements of a task-irrelevant auditory sequence on the disruption produced to visual-verbal serial recall. Experiment 1 showed that participants did not benefit from having a long-term representation of the irrelevant sequence: A highly predictable, canonical sequence ("1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9") produced as much disruption as a repeated random sequence (which was the same on each trial) and an unpredictable, random sequence (which differed on each trial), as compared with quiet. In line with this finding, there was also no difference between a predictable canonical and an unpredictable random sequence in Experiment 2. However, a deviant within the predictable, canonical sequence ("1 2 3 4 5 5 7 8 9") produced greater disruption than a deviant within an unpredictable, random sequence ("4 8 2 9 5 5 7 3 1"). This effect was confined to early trials within the block. The results showed that long-term knowledge about the order of the individual elements in the sequence did not help attenuate the effect of auditory distraction on serial recall. Nevertheless, attentional capture was amplified when a deviant violated a well-known, canonical sequence, providing evidence that the neural model represents postcategorical sequential information.

Evidence for habituation of the irrelevant-sound effect on serial recall.

Working memory theories make opposing predictions as to whether the disruptive effect of task-irrelevant sound on serial recall should be attenuated after repeated exposure to the auditory distractors. Although evidence of habituation has emerged after a passive listening phase, previous attempts to observe habituation to to-be ignored distractors on a trial-by-trial basis have proven to be fruitless. With the present study, we suggest that habituation to auditory distractors occurs, but has often been overlooked because past attempts to measure habituation in the irrelevant-sound paradigm were not sensitive enough. In a series of four experiments, the disruptive effects of to-be-ignored speech and music relative to a quiet control condition were markedly reduced after eight repetitions, regardless of whether trials were presented in blocks (Exp. 1) or in a random order (Exp. 2). The auditory distractor's playback direction (forward, backward) had no effect (Exp. 3). The same results were obtained when the auditory distractors were only presented in a retention interval after the presentation of the to-be-remembered items (Exp. 4). This pattern is only consistent with theoretical accounts that allow for attentional processes to interfere with the maintenance of information in working memory.

Irrelevant speech disrupts item-context binding.

The present study examines the effects of irrelevant speech on immediate memory. Previous research led to the suggestion that auditory distractors particularly impair memory for serial order. These findings were explained by assuming that irrelevant speech disrupts the formation and maintenance of links between adjacent items in a to-be-remembered sequence, resulting in a loss of order information. Here we propose a more general explanation of these findings by claiming that the capacity to form and maintain item-context bindings is generally impaired by the presence of auditory distractors. The results of Experiment 1 show that memory for the association between an item and its background color is drastically impaired by irrelevant speech, just as memory for the association between an item and its serial position. In Experiment 2 it was examined whether the disrupting effects of irrelevant sound are limited to memory for item-context associations or whether item memory is also affected by the auditory distractors. The results revealed that irrelevant speech disrupts both item memory and item-context binding. The results suggest that the effects of irrelevant sound on immediate memory are more general than previously assumed, which has important theoretical and applied implications.

Adaptive memory: the survival-processing memory advantage is not due to negativity or mortality salience.

Recent research has highlighted the adaptive function of memory by showing that imagining being stranded in the grasslands without any survival material and rating words according to their survival value in this situation leads to exceptionally good memory for these words. Studies examining the role of emotions in causing the survival-processing memory advantage have been inconclusive, but some studies have suggested that the effect might be due to negativity or mortality salience. In Experiments 1 and 2, we compared the survival scenario to a control scenario that implied imagining a hopeless situation (floating in outer space with dwindling oxygen supplies) in which only suicide can avoid the agony of choking to death. Although this scenario was perceived as being more negative than the survival scenario, the survival-processing memory advantage persisted. In Experiment 3, thinking about the relevance of words for survival led to better memory for these words than did thinking about the relevance of words for death. This survival advantage was found for concrete, but not for abstract, words. The latter finding is consistent with the assumption that the survival instructions encourage participants to think about many different potential uses of items to aid survival, which may be a particularly efficient form of elaborate encoding. Together, the results suggest that thinking about death is much less effective in promoting recall than is thinking about survival. Therefore, the survival-processing memory advantage cannot be satisfactorily explained by negativity or mortality salience.