Netherlands

How does globalization impact the interaction between perception and language? Building on Berlin and Kay&#39;s foundational study of color naming, we recruited 2,280 online participants speaking 22 different languages. We show that color naming maps differ structurally across languages, even among internet users living in (mostly) industrial societies. We use Large Language Models (LLMs) to simulate the limits of globalization by reproducing the naming task with a highly multilingual artificial agent with access to global digital information. We show that while the LLM has access to all languages, it has language-specific color representations and the number of color terms is correlated across humans and LLMs. However, LLMs use more color terms than humans, indicating differences in the representation. These results suggest that globalization has not removed cultural distinctions in color concepts, as language continues to be a key factor in the diversity of perception and meaning.

**Authors:**

Jakob Pete Niedermann: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics; Ilia Sucholutsky: Princeton University; Raja Marjieh: Princeton University; Elif Çelen: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics; Tom Griffiths: Princeton University ; Nori Jacoby: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics; Pol van Rijn: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics

CogSci 2024

Studying the Effect of Globalization on Color Perception using Multilingual Online Recruitment and Large Language Models

The 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society was an in-person meeting held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands at the Postillion Hotel & Conference Centre.

**ON-DEMAND PROGRAM ACCESS AFTER THE CONFERENCE** 
Recordings of the invited program are now available. You can access them by clicking on the 'Schedule' icon on the left. Select view by week and navigate to the day and time slot of the recording you wish to view. Click on the time slot to access the recording.

Recordings available (click on each recording to view):

**Thursday, July 25** 
0900: [Keynote Speaker Morgan Barense on Enhancing real-world event memory](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/17997/lecture/99084-dynamics-between-minds-and-the-environment) 
1000: [Gleitman Award Winner Isabelle Dautriche on Language Foundations: Insights from acquisition, communication, cognition, and more](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18000/lecture/99085-gleitman-talk) 
1415: [Invited Symposium: Dynamics between minds and the environment](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18016&searchGroup=lecture) 
1700: [Rumelhart Prize Presentation Speaker Alison Gopnik on Exploit, explore, empower: Three ages and three intelligences](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18028/lecture/99161-rp1-rumelhart-prize-presentation) 

**Friday, July 26** 
0900: [C.L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize Keynote Speaker Kia Nobre on Focusing in memory](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18035/lecture/99162-hp1-c-l-de-carvalho-heineken-prize-keynote-address) 
1030: [Rumelhart Symposium: Childhood as exploration](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18038/lecture/100346-childhood-as-exploration) 
1415: [Elman Prize Symposium](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18053&searchGroup=lecture) 
1600: [Invited Symposium: Dynamics between minds](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18065&searchGroup=lecture) 
1745: [Keynote Speaker Andrea E. Martin on Neural dynamics encode the structure and statistics of language](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18077/lecture/99271-neural-dynamics-encode-the-structure-and-statistics-of-language) 

**Saturday, July 27** 
0900: [Keynote Speaker Gregor Schöner on How higher cognition emerges from the dynamics of strongly interacting neural populations](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18083/lecture/99273-dynamics-within-the-mind) 
1000: [Glushko Talks](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18086&searchGroup=lecture) 
1500: [Invited Symposium: Dynamics within minds](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18100&searchGroup=lecture) 


#### **CogSci 2024 Program Book**
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**The Program Book can be downloaded [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yRVp1cBqRnAbdYi4GXWV_pZeyWNsRquv/view?usp=sharing).**

#### **Letter from the President**

Welcome to the 2024 Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society in Rotterdam! CogSci 2024 brings together a large community of cognitive scientists who have traveled here from around the world, as well as a smaller group of remote presenters. I would like to extend an especially warm welcome to our first-time CogSci meeting attendees, and hope that 
their experience inspires them to join our future meetings for many years to come.

I want to thank this year’s conference co-chairs, Larissa K Samuelson, Stefan Frank, Mariya Toneva, Allyson Mackey, and Eliot Hazeltine, for putting together an amazing series of invited talks and symposia around the theme of Dynamics of Cognition. The co-chairs also deserve credit for handling a record-breaking number of submissions and producing a truly exciting conference program 

Beyond the invited talks and symposia dedicated to this year’s conference theme, I would like to highlight the presentations and events honoring the 
Rumelhart, Elman, Gleitman and C .L . de Carvalho Heineken prize winners, including the Rumelhart reception on Thursday. As you may know, we are recording all of the invited talks and symposia, and all prize-winners’ talks, and will be making this content available after the conference. 

The Cognitive Science Society relies on the volunteer efforts of our Governing Board members who work on matters related to our membership; conference policies; diversity and inclusion, international, and outreach initiatives; prizes and much more. We welcome interest from Society members who would like to become more involved in what we do. The 
Society is deeply grateful to Rick Dale and Andrea Bender, who serve as editors of the two Society journals, Cognitive Science and Topics in Cognitive Science respectively. We especially acknowledge our editors’ generosity in donating their stipends each year to D&I and outreach efforts. 

This year’s Annual Meeting depends critically on the support of Marischal De Armond and his team at Podium Conference Specialists: Sharon Zwack, Cendrine De Vis, Sarah-Kate Burke, and Rachel Waller worked tirelessly to secure the venue and handled a multitude of logistical and organizational issues, from arranging coffee breaks and receptions to making sure that a huge number of posters fits comfortably into the available space. Finally, and importantly, I would like to acknowledge the Cognitive Science Society Executive Officer, Erica Wojcik, for managing the complex and ever expanding sphere of our Society’s activities.

I hope you enjoy this year’s meeting and the many different opportunities to engage with the vibrant community of cognitive scientists gathered here. I also hope you get a chance to explore the great city of Rotterdam with its many attractions, museums, restaurants and scenic views. If you’d like to talk more about our Society, or simply want to say hello, please stop by!

![](https://assets.underline.io/markdown_image/1/image/3c66d0e21fff30e204df1138ffd15173.jpeg)

**Anna Papafragou** 
President, Cognitive Science 
Society 2023-2024

**CODE OF CONDUCT** 
By attending the CogSci 2024 Conference, you are required to adhere to the society’s [Code of Conduct](https://drive.google.com/file/d/16-6KkptF0Gn3ZYGJDlpqpwTdImw45Ng0/view?usp=drive_link).

**ABOUT THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE SOCIETY** 
The Cognitive Science Society brings together researchers from around the world who hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The mission of the Society is to promote Cognitive Science as a discipline, and to foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education.

The Society is a non-profit professional organization and its activities include sponsoring an annual conference and publishing the journals Cognitive Science and TopiCS.

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The 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society presents the latest research across cognitive science and highlights the theme of Cognition in Context.

How does globalization impact the interaction between perception and language? Building on Berlin and Kay's foundational study of color naming, we recruited 2,280 online participants speaking 22 different languages. We show that color naming maps differ structurally across languages, even among internet users living in (mostly) industrial societies. We use Large Language Models (LLMs) to simulate the limits of globalization by reproducing the naming task with a highly multilingual artificial agent with access to global digital information. We show that while the LLM has access to all languages, it has language-specific color representations and the number of color terms is correlated across humans and LLMs. However, LLMs use more color terms than humans, indicating differences in the representation. These results suggest that globalization has not removed cultural distinctions in color concepts, as language continues to be a key factor in the diversity of perception and meaning.

**Authors:**

Jakob Pete Niedermann: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics; Ilia Sucholutsky: Princeton University; Raja Marjieh: Princeton University; Elif Çelen: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics; Tom Griffiths: Princeton University ; Nori Jacoby: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics; Pol van Rijn: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics

poster

Drift-Diffusion Models (DDMs) are a widely-used class of models that assume an accumulation of evidence during a quick decision. These models are often used as measurement models to assess individual differences in cognitive processes, such as an individual’s evidence accumulation rate and response caution. An additional underlying assumption of these models is that there is internal noise in the evidence accumulation process. However, fitting DDMs to experimental choice-response time data alone cannot yield estimates of an individual's evidence accumulation rate, caution, and internal noise at the same time. This is due to an intrinsic joint-unidentifiability of these parameters when fitting DDMs to behavioral data. We introduce methods of estimating these parameters at the same time with additional data types. The methods to estimate model parameters rely on Bayesian inference and simulation-based Bayesian inference. We show why these methods are useful without making strong assumptions.

**Authors:**

Michael D Nunez: University of Amsterdam; Anna-Lena Schubert: University of Mainz; Gidon T. Frischkorn: University of Zurich; Klaus Oberauer: University of Zurich

Using additional data types to identify the unidentifiable components of cognition during decision-making

It has been suggested that humans mentally simulate the outcomes of their actions when making decisions. However, this process can be challenging in real-world decision-making, which typically involves temporally extended decision trees with numerous potential outcomes. Here, we demonstrate with a computational model that temporally extended decisions can be achieved with just a few forward simulations, formalized as rollouts. We also show that, under resource constraints, performing many partial (shallow) rollouts can yield more favorable outcomes than performing fewer full (deep) rollouts. Additionally, our model captures behaviors traditionally attributed to reflexive pruning or satisficing strategies without the need for explicit heuristics, providing an alternative explanation for these phenomena. Finally, we show that the dynamics of value estimation over successive rollouts closely resemble evidence accumulation models. Our framework offers a plausible mechanism for temporally extended decision-making and provides insights into the neural underpinnings underlying this process.

**Authors:**

Sixing Chen: New York University; Kristopher T. Jensen: University College London; Marcelo G Mattar: New York University

Some and Done? Temporally extended decisions with very few rollouts

Emotions can be insensitive to certain attributes of a situation. A large body of evidence shows that information on probabilities, large numerical counts, or intentions is frequently disregarded in the elicitation and regulation of emotions. To date, no existing theory comprehensively accounts for the features that tend to be overlooked by emotion. I call attention to the common denominator of such features: they cannot be perceived nor contribute to the iconic representation of events. For instance, the exceedingly low probability of a plane crash does not affect its imagistic representation (i.e., the iconic representation of the event is silent about the event’s probability). I introduce the Iconic Prioritization Hypothesis, positing that the prioritization of the iconic format in emotion can explain the neglect of information that is representationally silent in this format. Emotion may favour iconicity as it is the format of immediate, first-hand evidence about our surroundings.

**Authors:**

Andrea Rivadulla-Duró: Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences

Iconic prioritization and Representational Silence in emotion

To investigate, in an ecological way, how people evaluate the truthfulness of universal and probabilistic statements we introduce a modified version of the Wason Selection Task. Participants see four decks of cards (instead of four cards), and are asked to turn as many cards as they deem necessary to judge if a given statement is true or false, both for the observed sample (deductive task) and for an imaginary reference population (inductive task). Participants encounter universal (“All P are Q”) or probabilistic statements (“more/less than x% of P are Q”; between-subjects) with abstract, realistic neutral, and realistic polarizing statements (within-subjects). Half of the participants receive an endowment for each turn, correct (incorrect) deductive judgments are rewarded (penalized), and turning a card incurs a cost (other half: fixed participation fee). We report results from two online experiments, thereby also contrasting prescriptive models of evidence search with actual behaviors.

**Authors:**

Konstantinos of Armaos: University of Lausanne; Ulrich Hoffrage: university of lausanne

The Wason selection task in the long-run: Evaluating the truthfulness of universal and probabilistic statements through evidence search

When making decisions, humans often rely on information from their social networks through a process termed social sampling. Prior work suggests that when drawing social samples, people search through their contacts in a sequential manner based on structured social categories (e.g., family vs. friends; online vs. offline contacts). We examined whether the problem domain impacts how one categorizes their social contacts and which social categories they sample from. In our study, participants answered questions about the relative popularity of either national parks or social media platforms, respectively associated with offline activities (e.g., visit a national park) and online activities (e.g., use an online social media platform). Participants then provided frequency information about the number of their contacts who have visited the parks or used the social media platforms in different social groups. Adopting a hierarchical Bayesian modeling approach, we compared two social sampling models: one defining social groups based on closeness of social relations (i.e., family, friends, acquaintances), and one using social groups based on contact mode (i.e., online vs. offline contacts). Results indicate that when making comparison judgments related to online activities (social media usage), participants are more likely to sample from social circles of online contacts, and when judgments are related to offline activities (national park visits), they are more likely to sample from social circles of offline contacts. These findings suggest that people sample from different members of their social network depending on the type of decision they are making.

**Authors:**

Bryce Linford: UCLA; Hunter Priniski: UCLA; Hongjing Lu: UCLA

Social Sampling in Decision Making for Online and Offline Activities

Developmental psychologists have often turned to children to clarify understanding of functional and mechanistic cognition. Here, we investigate children’s epistemic inferences of function – what a thing is for – and mechanism – how a thing works. Children, like adults, believe a mechanism-knower knows more than a function-knower (Study 1). Yet, unlike adults, children do not expect that a mechanism-knower is also more likely to know function than a function-knower is to know mechanism (Study 2). Children’s experience of learning function and mechanism of complex systems sheds light on this asymmetry; Children who are taught just mechanism can infer the complementary function, but, interestingly, children who are taught just function can likewise infer the complementary mechanism (Study 3). This paper considers the nature of children’s epistemic intuitions and whether those beliefs are reflective of children’s learning experience.

**Authors:**

Amanda McCarthy: Yale University; Emma Courtney: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Frank Keil: Yale University

Children’s unexpected inferences across knowledge types

Engaging in science lessons requires creative thinking skills. These skills are expressed in the verbalized ideas of students during these activities. The objective of this study was to analyze how momentary teacher behavior is associated with the level of novelty of scientific reasoning in teacher-student interactions. Participants were 14 teachers together with a small teaching group of 4-7 year old students (around 64 students in total). One lesson per teacher was recorded prior to a professional intervention. We categorized the verbalizations of both teachers and students in real-time, assessing level of novelty for all student statements and categorizing teacher utterances as divergent, convergent, or neutral. Sequential analyses showed that interaction patterns are specific for each teacher and class. Generally, students tended to express lower levels of novelty following teachers' convergent statements. However, teachers' divergent statements did not lead to higher levels of student novelty.

**Authors:**

Marijn van Dijk: University of Groningen

The Dynamics of Creative Thinking: Teacher Behavior and Student Novelty in Science Education

We demonstrate an application for learning multiplication problems with an adaptive algorithm that is based on a computational cognitive model of the learner's memory. The application helps learners automatise multiplications through repeated practice over three levels of difficulty. In a naturalistic setting involving more than 500 primary school students (ages 6-10) who together recorded over 200,000 responses, we observed that performance improved as learners using the application progressed through the levels. A model-based analysis of performance revealed that learners' estimated speed of forgetting decreased from the second to the third level. This is consistent with a shift towards stronger declarative knowledge and/or more efficient computation procedures. The model also identified consistent differences in the difficulty of individual multiplication facts that persisted across levels. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using an adaptive fact learning application to help young learners automatise multiplication, an essential mathematical skill.

**Authors:**

Stefania D. Iancu: MemoryLab; Myrthe Braam: MemoryLab; Nathan Mccabe: MemoryLab; Thomas Jan Wilschut: University of Groningen; Hedderik van Rijn: University of Groningen; Maarten van der Velde: MemoryLab

An Adaptive Learning System for Stepwise Automatisation of Multiplication Facts in Primary Education

Prior research has shown that many elementary school students hold misconceptions about mathematical equivalence, interpreting the equal sign operationally as an indicator to give an answer or the total. They often fail to correctly solve missing operand problems such as 1+5= ___ + 2. The present study extends the research on mathematical equivalence to examine pre-service teachers’ performance on equivalence tasks. Results show that some participants failed to correctly solve missing operand problems and chose an operational definition of the equal sign over the correct relational definition. Many participants failed to recognize statements that violate equality and failed to correctly identify equations and operations. These findings suggest that misconceptions of mathematical equivalence can involve confusion about the definition of equation and the meaning of mathematical operation.

**Authors:**

Jennifer Kaminski: Wright State University

Preservice teachers’ understanding of mathematical equivalence

People can distinguish circular explanations from an early age. However, they begin to encounter difficulties when circular explanations mimic the structure of a formal explanation (e.g., "Alcohol promotes cancer because it is a carcinogen"). We explored the possibility of enhancing the ability to detect circular formal explanations by pre-activating participants' prior knowledge of definitions for relevant terms. In Experiment 1, we posed questions about definitions (e.g., What is the best definition for "carcinogen?") immediately before asking participants to evaluate the satisfiability of the explanation. In Experiments 2, we directly provided definitions of the terms. Across both experiments, the effect proved robust, with participants consistently rating such explanations as more satisfactory compared to explicitly circular explanations (e.g., "Alcohol promotes cancer because it is a substance that causes cancerous tumors"). Furthermore, Experiment 1 demonstrated that the effect is not dependent on individuals' ability to select the correct definition of a term.

**Authors:**

Ivan Aslanov: Universidad de Chile; Ernesto Guerra: Universidad de Chile

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