Cognitive Science

The latest breakthroughs, innovations, and cool happenings at the cutting edge of the world of cognitive science. Updated daily.

Rationalization and Reflection Differentially Modulate Prior Attitudes Toward the Purity Domain

Abstract Outside Western, predominantly secular‐liberal environments, norms restricting bodily and sexual conduct are widespread. Moralization in the so‐called purity domain has been treated as evidence that some putative violations are victimless. However, respondents themselves disagree: They often report that private yet indecent acts incur self‐harm, or harm to one’s family and the wider community—a result […]

Published on June 16, 2019

Affordance Compatibility Effect for Word Learning in Virtual Reality

Abstract Rich sensorimotor interaction facilitates language learning and is presumed to ground conceptual representations. Yet empirical support for early stages of embodied word learning is currently lacking. Finding evidence that sensorimotor interaction shapes learned linguistic representations would provide crucial support for embodied language theories. We developed a gamified word learning experiment in virtual reality in […]

Published on June 16, 2019

Effects of Case and Transitivity on Processing Dependencies: Evidence From Niuean

Abstract We investigate the processing of wh questions in Niuean, a VSO ergative–absolutive Polynesian language. We use visual‐world eye tracking to examine how preference for subject or object dependencies is affected (a) by case marking of the subject (ergative vs. absolutive) and object (absolutive vs. oblique), and (b) by the transitivity of the verb (whether […]

Published on June 16, 2019