United States

Creativity is essential for success in both social and professional settings, and science fiction has emerged as a potential tool for enhancing this ability. The present meta-analysis aimed to examine the effect of science fiction on creativity. A systematic literature search was conducted across diverse electronic platforms and databases, resulting in a final sample of five studies with robust methodological quality. The meta-analytic estimate of the overall effect size indicated a medium effect that was not statistically significant. However, the substantial heterogeneity observed among studies suggests that the influence of science fiction on creativity may vary depending on the context or study characteristics. These findings indicate that while science fiction shows promise for enhancing creativity, further research is needed to clarify the conditions and mechanisms that optimize its impact.

CogSci 2025

Effects of Science Fiction on Creativity: A Meta-Analysis

creativity

psychology

poster

### Welcome to CogSci Conference 2025!

The 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society was a hybrid meeting held in San Francisco. 

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#### About

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.

#### Our History 

* **Society Creation**<br>
The Society was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit professional organization in Massachusetts in 1979. The organizing committee included Roger Schank, Allan Collins, Donald Norman, and a number of other scholars from psychology, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy. 
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* **Conference Creation**<br>
The first conference on cognitive science was held at La Jolla, California in August, 1979, and has occurred annually since then. The proceedings of each conference are published, and those from most years are available through Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. The annual proceedings of the Cognitive Science Conference represent a major source of information on new work and new ideas in the scientific study of thinking. In 1990, the Society, with help from an anonymous donor, established the David Marr Prize for the best student paper at each annual meeting.
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* **Journal Creation**<br>
The Journal, Cognitive Science, began publication in 1976, and is now published by Wiley-Blackwell. The Executive Editor is currently Richard P. Cooper of Birkbeck, University of London, and there are 18 Associate Editors and a 30-member editorial board. It serves as the premier outlet for research reports that intersect two or more disciplines. Copyrights for articles published in the journal are held by the Society. The Governing Board of the Cognitive Science Society voted in late 2006 to found a new journal, Topics in Cognitive Science (topiCS). The Editor in Chief is Wayne Gray, Cognitive Science Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The journal seeks to fill a niche not occupied by Cognitive Science Journal or other cognitive science journals. Membership in the Society includes a subscription to Cognitive Science and TopiCS. Copyrights for articles published in the journal are held by the Society.
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#### Code of Conduct

By attending the CogSci 2025 Conference, you are required to adhere to the society’s **[Code of Conduct](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ChPuihLy6jE_BWqfO7J2KKgX35JW2zsM/view?usp=sharing)**.
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The 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society presents the latest research across cognitive science and highlights the theme of Cognition in Context.

How do we communicate with others to achieve our goals? We use our prior experience or advice from others, or construct a candidate utterance by predicting how it will be received. However, our experiences are limited and biased, and reasoning about potential outcomes can be difficult and cognitively challenging. In this paper, we explore how we can leverage Large Language Model (LLM) simulations to help us communicate better. Based on ideas from cognitive science such as the Rational Speech Act model, we propose the Explore-Generate-Simulate (EGS) framework, which takes as input any scenario where an individual is communicating to an audience with a goal they want to achieve. EGS (1) explores the solution space by producing a diverse set of advice relevant to the scenario, (2) generates communication candidates conditioned on subsets of the advice, and (3) simulates the reactions from various audiences to determine both the best candidate and advice to use. We evaluate this framework on eight scenarios spanning a range of interpersonal communication settings. For each scenario, we collect a dataset of human evaluations across candidates and baselines, and show that our framework’s chosen candidate is significantly preferred over popular generation mechanisms for LLMs. Finally, we demonstrate the generality of our framework by applying it to real-world scenarios described by users on web forums.

Improving Interpersonal Communication by Simulating Audiences with Large Language Models

According to reconsolidation hypothesis, consolidated memories can be reactivated and become labile for a period of time, followed by a re-stabilization process that allows them to be strengthened, weakened, or updated. Novel research has begun to investigate if music-based interventions (MBI) could modulate memory reconsolidation. The present study aimed to address this issue through two experiments. First, Experiment 1 aimed to test a paradigm for reactivating episodic emotional memories by comparing different reactivation tasks. It was found that a reactivation task with incomplete reminders was able to reactivate emotional memories and to strengthen them by reconsolidation. Experiment 2 assessed if a MBI after the reactivation of such memories was able to modulate its reconsolidation. We found that listening to arousing music after memory reactivation interfered the reconsolidation process, reducing retrieval. Possible underlying mechanisms are discussed to continue the path toward application of the findings in clinical and educational settings.

Memory reconsolidation: Exploring how to reactivate and modulate episodic memories

Early numeracy is foundational for children’s future mathematics achievement (Duncan et al., 2007), and research shows that math-related language plays a role in its development (Purpura et al., 2017). However, the specific ways in which different types of math-related language contribute to numeracy remain unclear. This study examined if preschoolers’ spontaneous use of math language during picture description predicts numeracy skills. A sample of 321 preschoolers (ages 3-5) completed picture description, print awareness, and numeracy tasks, including a measure of cardinality. Children’s picture descriptions were coded for cardinal labels (e.g., “three birds”), spatial prepositions (e.g., “in”, “on”), and other math-related language (e.g., “more”, “some”). Results showed general numeracy and cardinality were significantly predicted by math language use (p=.002) and print awareness (p<.001). Spatial prepositions and cardinal labels were not consistent predictors. These findings provide further evidence for the link between numeracy and language.

Preschoolers’ Use of Quantitative Math Language in Picture Descriptions Predicts Early Numeracy Skills

Previous research has effectively employed the fast-paced action puzzle video-game Tetris for understanding the acquisition of extreme expertise in complex, dynamic environments. A common approach when contrasting expert to novice performance has been the dissection of their interactions with the environment into disjoint sub-tasks – such as reaction time (RT), measured by the input latency to new events on screen. The crucial, underlying assumption to this paradigm is task consistency at all levels of expertise. Using data collected from participants of the Tetris World Championship 2019 and from novices in our lab, we show that this assumption does not hold. While for novices the RT task type remains the same across all conditions, for experts - depending on environmental parameters - RT task type undergoes a shift and under specific conditions does not represent an RT task anymore. Thus, expert vs. novice sub-task comparison may not be a valid paradigm.

Apples and Oranges - Evaluating Reaction Time Measures as a Paradigm to Contrast Expert vs. Novice Performance in Complex, Dynamic Task Environments

Language encodes societal beliefs about social groups through word patterns. While computational methods like word embeddings enable quantitative analysis of these patterns, studies have primarily examined gradual shifts in Western contexts. We present the first large-scale computational analysis of Chinese state-controlled media (1950-2019) to examine how revolutionary social transformations are reflected in official linguistic representations of social groups. Using diachronic word embeddings at multiple temporal resolutions, we find that Chinese representations differ significantly from Western counterparts, particularly regarding economic status, ethnicity, and gender. These representations show distinct evolutionary dynamics: while stereotypes of ethnicity, age, and body type remain remarkably stable across political upheavals, representations of gender and economic classes undergo dramatic shifts tracking historical transformations. This work advances our understanding of how officially sanctioned discourse encodes social structure through language while highlighting the importance of non-Western perspectives in computational social science.

Word Embeddings Track Social Group Changes Across 70 Years in China

Second language learners can destabilize and change the languages they acquire, due in part to competition between their first and second languages. There is reason to think that how one acquires a second language affects this competition. One such way of affecting language learning is feedback. In our preregistered study, 90 native English speakers learned and transmitted an artificial language with flexible word order and case marking across 15 iterated learning chains while receiving positive, negative, or no feedback. The original flexible word order remained most stable across generations of transmission when feedback was given; otherwise English SVO word order was likely to predominate by the final generation. These findings elucidate the role feedback may play in negotiating between competing linguistic variants and ensuring their stable transmission across generations.

Feedback Maintains Stability in Cultural Transmission

The role of self-generated movement in memory retrieval has been demonstrated in enactment paradigms. However, in the context of object-location memory, the impact of action during learning has not yet been investigated, despite the ecological relevance of such behaviors. In the current project, we present new evidence that actively placing an object in a target location during learning leads to more precise, and faster, subsequent recall of the object-location associations than simply observing this placement. We further demonstrate differences in object- location memory depending on the category of stimuli that participants are engaging with by showing that images of objects with high manipulability are placed more precisely, more quickly, and more directly (mouse-tracking) than images of objects with low manipulability. We suggest that these latter differences are due to the motor information implicitly activated during processing of high manipulability items, and reflect the embodied nature of concepts. Although both enactment and manipulability impacted object-location recall, they did not interact. This research extends findings on enactment to associative encoding processes, and informs our understanding of the relationship between enactment and embodiment in human memory.

Enactment and Embodiment Impact the Recall of Object-Location Associations

Some social interactions connect us deeply, while others just don’t “click.” Yet it has proven difficult to pinpoint what aspects of a social interaction account for this variation. To test the hypothesis that connection arises from effectively coordinating on a shared perspective, we introduce a novel experimental paradigm based on the game Wavelength, wherein players provide each other clues to help locate a target on a spectrum between opposing concepts (e.g., Bad/Good; Painful/Pleasant). Each trial involved three clues, with Guessers selecting a position after each one and Clue Givers independently predicting their choices. Players rated their sense of connection and their likelihood of generating the same clue. Results show that Guessers feel more connected to players who accurately predict their clue rating and whose clues are in line with what they would have generated, highlighting the role of shared reasoning and predictive accuracy in fostering social bonds.

Learning to communicate a shared wavelength

Early childhood beliefs play a crucial role in shaping engineering engagement. This study examines how engineering competence and interest vary across gender, race/ethnicity, and age among children aged 5–12 (n= 16; data collection ongoing), exploring the relationship between identity-related beliefs and task performance in a hands-on science museum. Participants were assessed on engineering-related perceived competence and interests, and parent’s beliefs. Measures were correlated with persistence and effectiveness in an engineering activity (build a tinfoil boat) linked to problem-solving/creativity. Preliminary results suggest that boys and girls did not differ significantly in engineering perceived competence or interest. Girls were able to support twice as many marbles (25) in their created boat than were boys (12). Age weakly positively correlated with task performance. Our findings show no major gender differences in interest or perceived competence at these young ages, and could inform strategies to enhance STEM engagement among diverse learners.

Early Engineering Identity: Examining Competence, Interest, and Affect

Conspiracy theories explain the cause of world events through the machinations of shadowy, secret groups. Understanding what in conspiracy theories makes them appealing explanations is an important area of research. People like explanations that can account for a large number of seen events (broad explanatory scope), while not accounting for every possible unseen event (narrow latent scope). It is unknown if people think conspiracy theories have broad or narrow scope and how this may relate to their believability. We thus explored perceptions of conspiracy theory explanations’ scope and how this relates to their believability. Participants rated 40 conspiracy theories and their fact-based alternative explanations. Fact-based explanations were seen as having larger explanatory and latent scope. Additionally, larger scope was positively correlated with higher believability for both explanation types. We discuss how these findings relate to the explanation literature and highlight important elements of the seductive appeal of conspiracy theories.

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Improving Interpersonal Communication by Simulating Audiences with Large Language Models

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Improving Interpersonal Communication by Simulating Audiences with Large Language Models

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