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Fermi problems are often taught in science and engineering as a technique for difficult numerical estimation in which a question is broken down into sub-questions that people can more confidently estimate. Thus, they may be tools providing insight into how people estimate numbers. However, there are no empirical studies into the effectiveness of Fermi problems. This study presented participants with the same questions as both Fermi problems (with sub-questions) and as non-Fermi problems (no sub-questions) and tested the hypothesis that participants’ estimates would be more accurate when presented with Fermi problems than non-Fermi problems. The same data tested a hypothesis that participants would better fit to Benford’s law when presented with Fermi problems than non-Fermi problems. Neither hypothesis was supported, although the strong fit of peoples estimates to Benford’s law was replicated. This first attempt to empirically examine Fermi problems pointed to ways to more rigorously test these hypotheses.

CogSci 2023

Fermi problems as tools for understanding number generation and Benford’s law

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The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society will take place in Sydney, Australia as a modified hybrid conference. Presentations from the main-session room will be live-streamed every day for all events. This will include all invited talks and award sessions. Recordings of all CogSci 2023 sessions will be made available for on-demand viewing after the conference.<br>
The in-person component will be held at the International Convention Centre Sydney at Darling Harbour. The Conference will take place Wednesday July 26th – Saturday July 29th, 2023 (Wednesday, July 26th is the Workshops Day).

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<br>[**The Program at a Glance can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/COgSci-PAAG-V2.pdf)
<br>[**The Detailed Program can be found here**](https://online.fliphtml5.com/ebtyf/mswz/)
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#### **CogSci 2023 Program Book**
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The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society presents the latest research across cognitive science and highlights the theme of Cognition in Context.

We propose a method to use anchor-biased numerical estimates to enhance the wisdom of the crowd (i.e., aggregating individual estimates becomes more accurate). We predicted that better wisdom of crowds could be achieved by combining estimates affected by two sufficiently different anchors. This prediction was based on the hypothesis that anchoring effects could be used to collect estimates from diverse perspectives, and better crowd wisdom could be achieved by aggregating anchor-biased estimates. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a behavioral experiment on anchoring effects and computer simulations of the wisdom of crowds. The behavioral experiment revealed that anchor-biased estimates did not always produce larger errors but produced more accurate or less accurate estimates depending on the relationship between the anchor and true values. We also found that even in the absence of anchoring effects, the estimates were biased. Thus, estimates without anchor bias were not always more accurate than anchor-biased estimates. The results of computer simulations revealed that robust and better wisdom of crowds could be achieved using the proposed method. Contrastingly, aggregating estimates that were not biased by anchors did not always lead to better wisdom of crowds.

Effective utilization of anchor-biased estimates for the wisdom of crowds

Existing studies of the serial reproduction paradigm focused on stimuli that were statistically independent of each other. We explored serial reproductions of random walk series and examined whether Bayesian models previously built for independent stimuli could be adapted to autocorrelated stimuli. We found that Bayesian models captured most of the empirical results qualitatively, but could be further improved by incorporating recency effects. Besides, given that the optimal strategy of iterative prediction of random walk was to reproduce the current stimuli, we also compared serial prediction of random walk to serial reproduction. We found that serially reproduced and predicted series both decorrelate as a function of chain position and that the means of the series increase in both tasks, which matched qualitative predictions of the Bayesian models.

Comparing serial reproduction and serial prediction of random walk

Confidence is an important concept in cognitive science, as it integrates seamlessly with our beliefs, goals, and decisions. However, the dynamics of how beliefs about hypotheses (represented by a Bayesian posterior probability distribution) give rise to explicitly reported confidence judgments about predictions (which are typically measured on various numerical scales) in the human mind is not well understood. In this work, we report findings on this question from a concept learning and confidence judgment experiment. We compare how leading theories in the present literature stands against our data and propose some new model-based measurements and future directions for predicting humans' confidence judgments.

Towards a model of confidence judgements

During class, taking notes helps the encoding process, especially when students reformulate what is presented. After class, notes can be used for revision. Previous studies, mostly conducted in laboratory contexts, showed that note-taking on paper seems to be more efficient than on computer, probably because students are more likely to reformulate on paper. The originality of this study is to investigate students’ perceptions and strategies depending on their note-taking method during but also after class. Data of 108 students showed that students on paper (30%) declare making more reformulations and less multitasking that students on computer (70%). After class, review sheets are written for a large majority of the students on paper, whatever the method they used during class. These results suggest that even if computer is the most used method during class, paper is still used after class, and with paper are associated better strategies.

Note-taking during and after class: which strategies for which method?

Science teaching is a complex socio-cognitive practice, where teachers simultaneously collaborate with and influence student minds. This process is distributed across textbooks, explanations, blackboard activities, classroom dynamics, student questions, student performance, etc.; and enactive, as teachers act out scientific mechanisms using descriptions, gestures, teaching props, models etc. This complex process of Teacher Cognition (TC) is not well understood, as existing studies are disparate, and based on disjointed approaches. The lack of a TC theory limits the design of systematic education policies - currently based on intuitions about teacher cognition - leading to policy guidelines that teachers find difficult to implement. Recent developments in embodied/enactive cognition theory – particularly the enactive simulation model of language and the enactive simulation theory of other minds – provide useful ways to develop models of TC, especially related to science teaching. Here we extend and develop a finer-grained version of a recent enactive model of TC, using classroom data.

Teacher Cognition: A Model of How Teachers Build Distributed and Enactive Narratives, to Generate and Finetune Mechanism Concepts in Student Minds

The goal of this study was to revisit the nature and role of image schemata in language use. Image schemas have often been thought to be low-level quasi-primitives that structure much of language and thought (Johnson, 1987; Oakley 2010). We queried naive participants’ intuitions about various verbs and their denoted events having visuospatial orientations that can be horizontal, vertical, or some combination or modification of those orientations. The results of our survey show robust consistency among people’s intuitions and suggest that image schemas are dynamic, flexible, and may be combined to compose new ones.

Looking at image schemas: Combinations and modifications

This study investigated how observing pitch gestures conveying lexical tones and representational gestures conveying word meanings when learning L2 Mandarin words differing in lexical tone affects their subsequent semantic and phonological processing in L1 English speakers using the N400 event-related potential (ERP). Larger N400s for English target words mismatching vs. matching Mandarin prime words in meaning were observed for words learned with pitch and representational gesture, but not no gesture. Additionally, larger N400s for Mandarin target words mismatching vs. matching Mandarin prime words in lexical tone were observed for words learned with pitch gesture, but not representational or no gesture. These findings provide the first ERP evidence that observing gestures conveying phonological and semantic information during L2 word learning enhances subsequent phonological and semantic processing of learned L2 words.

Observing Gestures During L2 Word Learning Facilitates Implicit Differentiation Between Unfamiliar Speech Sounds and Word Meanings

One aspect of context on cognition and memory that has been understudied is the influence of temporal context. The temporal contexts used in this study were different times of the year. More specifically, given that we were dealing with a largely Roman Catholic population, we operationalized temporal context in terms of two religious seasons, Lent and Ordinary Time. For this study, we assessed experience of, and memory for, representational and abstract art as a function of whether there was temporal congruity or incongruity. Temporal context did influence memory for perceptual details but not the experience of art during viewing, or gist and autobiographical memory. Thus, temporal context can influence cognition, but the scope of this influence is limited.

Temporal Context and the Experience and Memory of Art

Very few studies have focused on the stimulus materials for social situations to understand if contextual cues have impacts on the gaze pattern of children with ASD to investigate the emotion recognition performance. This study investigated the performance across 2 age groups (preschool, school age) between ASD and typically developing (TD) children by using eye-tracking techniques and recording recognition accuracy for different area of interests (AOI). The performance of ASD (n=91) and TD (n=155) participants were observed while asked to identify emotions in a context, including happy, sad, anger, fear, and surprise. The results showed no significant relationship between age and correct rate; but ASD groups actually spent more time on faces to recognize emotions compared to TD groups. The findings highlighted the greater effects of social experience on TD groups, leading to correctly identify emotions despite less gazing time at faces.

Emotion Recognition and Gaze Pattern of Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Children

Response inhibition refers to the ability to suppress a prepotent response. Studies investigating the role of emotional information in response inhibition have yielded inconsistent results; some studies have shown that positive emotion, compared to negative, facilitates inhibitory control, while other studies have shown opposite effects. We resolve this debate by hypothesizing that the scope of attention with which emotional information is processed can explain these mixed results. We combined a stop signal task with a global-local Navon task. Participants were required to detect a target presented at either a global or local perceptual level (letters H, S, and T). Occasionally, they encountered a stop signal face with irrelevant angry, happy, or neutral expressions. We found that irrelevant happy facial expression impaired inhibitory control compared to angry facial expression under global processing; however, this effect got reversed under local processing, i.e., happy faces facilitated inhibitory control compared to angry faces.

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Effective utilization of anchor-biased estimates for the wisdom of crowds

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Effective utilization of anchor-biased estimates for the wisdom of crowds

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