United States

CogSci 2025

Predictability effects of Spanish-English code-switching: A directionality and part of speech analysis

corpus studies

linguistics

### Welcome to CogSci Conference 2025!

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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.

poster

The apparent redundancy of grammatical gender systems presents a puzzle to which information theory offers a solution: since nouns are the least predictable part of language,  dividing nouns into semi-arbitrary classes reduces the uncertainty associated with them. Corpus studies show both how gendered articles make nouns more predictable, and how in languages that lack noun class, prenominal adjectives serve a similar function. This raises the question of whether language users are sensitive to this information and actually employ it in communication.  In an elicitation study, we manipulated the contextual information provided by gendered articles to German speakers, and compared their behavior to English speakers (whose articles are always uninformative). When German articles were uninformative, German and English speakers produced prenominal adjectives at the same rates. However, when articles were informative, German prenominal adjective production decreased. These results illustrate how languages use both articles and prenominal adjectives to support communicative efficiency.

How grammatical gender supports efficient communication 

Are some languages more appealing than others? And do specific linguistic features, such as phonetic or prosodic characteristics, contribute to this perceived beauty? Previous studies have been inconclusive, mostly because they primarily relied on subjective ratings prone to social desirability biases. To overcome this limitation, we explore a novel approach, using pupil size as a proxy for linguistic appeal. Pupil dilation has been linked to pleasurable stimuli, such as music and environmental sounds, suggesting similar reactions for appealing languages. In our experiment, participants listened to artificial languages modeled on the phonetic structures of real languages, while their pupil size was measured. By combining this eye-tracking data with traditional ratings, we demonstrate that (a) eye-tracking is a reliable method for investigating phonaesthetic appeal and (b) languages with different linguistic characteristics vary in their perceived attractiveness. This interdisciplinary approach sheds light on the cognitive processes underlying the aesthetic perception of languages.

From the ears to the eyes: using pupil size to explore the perceived appeal of languages

There are binary optical illusions that people typically perceive only one of the two images. These illusions involve a cognitive process. The process seems to on the edge between System 1 and System 2 and doesn’t seem to be a conscious choice. In one well known example, people see either the old woman or the young lady and have difficulty perceiving the other image. We have found a way to manipulate an example of a binary choice perceptual illusion that starts with one image and at a particular point in the transition promptly switches to the other image in a Gestalt sense. The process is repeatable, reversable, appears to be stable over many repetitions, and has several characteristics that can be manipulated, such as the number, density, and size of the object(s) and the rate of change. The poster shows how to do this with a simple protocol.

Detecting an illusion's perception change

Navigating social affiliation adaptively is a critical task of human life. If parsing the social world into affiliative groups forms a core, generative mechanism of the evolved human mind, even infants may differentiate between minimal depictions of inclusion and exclusion. Furthermore, whether groups include or exclude others may cue their individual value as social partners. If so, infants may expect third-party observers to continue avoiding those others exclude and prefer those they include, further perpetuating discrimination of the already marginalized. Here, we show that 10-18 m.o. infants (n=96) look longer when a neutral observer approaches a novel agent whom an abstract group previously excluded, rather than included, in an animated violation-of-expectation paradigm. We found no effect of participant age. Movements were identical across scenarios, differing only in a delay between the excluded agent and the group. These findings indicate that even infants infer that observed exclusion versus inclusion will generalize to other interactions with new social partners.

Infants and Toddlers Expect Others Will Shun the Previously Excluded and Instead Approach the Previously Included

In our poster, we challenge the multiple-choice paradigm used in many communication experiments and the validity of conclusions that can be drawn from it. We concentrate on two well-constructed experiments that have made claims that humans can understand improvised or interspecies forms of communication (e.g., Ćwiek et al., 2021; Graham & Hobaiter, 2023). We hypothesized that participants would perform worse when asked to provide free-text answers, compared to the original design of multiple choice. Our results indicate that participants performed worse compared to the original studies. The post hoc analysis showed that, in many cases, relevant semantic domains were correctly identified by the participants, but hardly any responses were fully congruent with the target concept. We conclude by discussing which types of questions are better addressed with the multiple-choice vs. open-text paradigm, and how the results of each of them can be mapped onto a larger picture of language evolution.

References
Ćwiek, Aleksandra, Susanne Fuchs, Christoph Draxler, Eva Liina Asu, Dan Dediu, Katri Hiovain, Shigeto Kawahara, et al. 2021. Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures. Scientific Reports 11(1). 10108. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4.

Graham, Kirsty E. & Catherine Hobaiter. 2023. Towards a great ape dictionary: Inexperienced humans understand common nonhuman ape gestures. (Ed.) Frans B. M. De Waal. PLOS Biology 21(1). e3001939. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001939.

What do we understand from experiments in language evolution: inferences from multiple-choice vs. open-ended semantic space paradigms

Curiosity is often viewed as information-seeking to fill knowledge gaps arising from expectation violations, typically measured statistically. However, natural systems can be represented as binary relational graphs consisting of entity types, instances, and collections, all of which must maintain relational consistency to ensure a coherent system. This consistency is assured through closure, making its interpretation central to behaviors such as curiosity. When curiosity is defined solely in statistical terms, it fails to guarantee relational consistency - a critical limitation. In contrast, interpreting the three components through closure offers a robust mechanism for verifying relational coherence. Closure is achieved when all relations are in agreement; any deviation signals inconsistency. In the absence of closure, agents seek to achieve closure by bringing in evidentiary support from memory and reinterpreting the relational structure. In this view, curiosity signals act by morphing interpretation to achieve relational closure, enabling the acquisition of coherent knowledge.

Curiosity as a Morphism of Interpretation

Also known as the Ganong effect, a lexicality bias effect- i.e., the bias to interpret an ambiguous sound as the phoneme that yields a real word in its context - has been widely replicated. The search for a similar frequency bias effect, on the other hand, has yielded mixed results: In English, a bias has been observed such that listeners tend to interpret an ambiguous sound as the phoneme that yields a higher-frequency word, but this has failed to be replicated in Mandarin. One difference between these studies is the use of monosyllabic vs. disyllabic stimuli. To determine the factors that influence the presence of a bias effect, the present study tested for both frequency and lexicality bias effects using monosyllabic and disyllabic stimuli in Cantonese. Results show that the lexicality and frequency bias effects can be elicited in both monosyllabic and disyllabic stimuli, but the frequency effect is weaker.

Top-Down Biases for Lexicality and Frequency in Both Monosyllabic and Disyllabic Stimuli: Evidence from Cantonese

Multimodal models excel in tasks requiring semantic integra-
tion of language and vision but struggle with spatial cognition.
Using a visual perspective-taking task inspired by cognitive
science, we find these models fail when the image and ref-
erence view differ, reflecting spatial cognition comparable to
a two-year-old child. To explore these disparities further, we
analyze internal representations using a human action fMRI
dataset and voxelwise encoding models, revealing key differ-
ences between AI and human spatial encoding. This work pro-
vides new benchmarks and insights into bridging artificial and
biological cognition.

Why Multimodal Models Struggle with Spatial Reasoning: Insights from Human Cognition

Why do people vote—or fail to? We explore whether people’s intuitive theories of moral progress shape their intentions and behavior. Specifically, does believing that human action is the driver of moral progress predict voting intention and actual voting behavior? In Study 1a (N=356), conducted one week before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, participants who endorsed stronger beliefs in human action as necessary for moral progress reported stronger voting intentions, mediated by a greater sense of personal responsibility. Study 1b (N=287), conducted post-election, found that human action beliefs did not directly predict actual voting, but indirectly predicted voting when mediated by responsibility. Efficacy (believing that voting is effective) was the only significant predictor of actual voting. Together, these findings highlight the role of personal responsibility and efficacy in driving voting behavior, with potential implications for the role of lay theories in shaping intentions and behavior more broadly.

Do our theories of moral progress predict whether we vote?  Evidence from the 2024 US election

Sound symbolism refers to the finding that certain phonemes are perceived to be better fits for particular properties such as shape (e.g., the Maluma/Takete effect). Sound symbolism extends from nonwords to real first names (i.e., the Bob/Kirk effect). Children begin to show sensitivity to sound symbolism at one year of age, however, the development of name sound symbolism remains unexplored. Additionally, previous work on name sound symbolism has highlighted people’s tendency to associate femaleness with round shapes, and maleness with spiky shapes. We investigated the emergence of name sound symbolism and gender-shape association in five- to seven-year-olds, in comparison to adults. We also collected measures of children’s language abilities. Results indicate that both associations are stronger in adults than children. Moreover, while gender-shape association is observable in children, name sound symbolism develops later, and language skills did not influence development. These findings provide insights into the development of crossmodal correspondences.

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How grammatical gender supports efficient communication

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