Increased Processing Effort Research Articles

Effects of Natural Scene Inversion on Visual-evoked Brain Potentials and Pupillary Responses: A Matter of Effortful Processing of Unfamiliar Configurations

The inversion of a picture of a face hampers the accuracy and speed at which observers can perceptually process it. Event-related potentials and pupillary responses, successfully used as biomarkers of face inversion in the past, suggest that the perception of visual features, that are organized in an unfamiliar manner, recruits demanding additional processes. However, it remains unclear whether such inversion effects generalize beyond face stimuli and whether indeed more mental effort is needed to process inverted images. Here we aimed to study the effects of natural scene inversion on visual evoked potentials and pupil dilations. We simultaneously measured responses of 47 human participants to presentations of images showing upright or inverted natural scenes. For inverted scenes, we observed relatively stronger occipito-temporo-parietal N1 peak amplitudes and larger pupil dilations (on top of an initial orienting response) than for upright scenes. This study revealed neural and physiological markers of natural scene inversion that are in line with inversion effects of other stimulus types and demonstrates the robustness and generalizability of the phenomenon that unfamiliar configurations of visual content require increased processing effort.

Testing the Intuitive Retributivism Dual Process Model

Abstract. Research on the motives individuals have to punish criminal offenders suggests that punitive reactions are primarily driven by retributive, not utilitarian, motives. To explain this, several authors have suggested a dual process model (DPM) of punitive reactions. According to this model, punitive reactions are the product of two distinct types of processing (type I and type II), which differentially support retributive vs. utilitarian punishment motives. In response to cases of criminal wrongdoing, type I swiftly outputs a retributive reaction. In contrast, for utilitarian motives to play a role, this reaction has to be overridden by type II processing, which only happens rarely. In this article, we argue that despite its popularity, there is little concrete evidence for the DPM. We then report the results of a preregistered study investigating the effect of increased processing effort on retributive vs. utilitarian punitive reactions. We argue that the results fail to support the DPM.

Presupposition, attention and cognitive load

The paper deals with the relation between linguistic presupposition and epistemic vigilance. It proposes evolutionary and cognitive reasons why presuppositions should induce shallower processing, that proves effective in persuasion and manipulation. It shows examples of presuppositions being associated with reduced critical attention from commercial advertising and political propaganda. It summarizes the available experimental verification of this assumption, commenting on the fact that behavioural evidence confirms reduced attention for presupposed contents, while neurophysiological evidence, on the contrary, shows increased processing effort. An explanation for the apparent contradiction is proposed, namely that the measured effort accounts for the mismatch between the cognitive and contextual status of new information and its being linguistically presented as presupposed. The fact that processing resources are devoted to repairing the mentioned mismatch is seen as further reducing the attentional resources available for epistemic vigilance and critical evaluation.

Electrophysiological Differentiation of the Effects of Stress and Accent on Lexical Integration in Highly Fluent Bilinguals

Individuals who acquire a second language (L2) after infancy often retain features of their native language (L1) accent. Cross-language priming studies have shown negative effects of L1 accent on L2 comprehension, but the role of specific speech features, such as lexical stress, is mostly unknown. Here, we investigate whether lexical stress and accent differently modulate semantic processing and cross-language lexical activation in Welsh–English bilinguals, given that English and Welsh differ substantially in terms of stress realisation. In an L2 cross-modal priming paradigm, we manipulated the stress pattern and accent of spoken primes, whilst participants made semantic relatedness judgments on visual word targets. Event-related brain potentials revealed a main effect of stress on target integration, such that stimuli with stress patterns compatible with either the L1 or L2 required less processing effort than stimuli with stress incompatible with both Welsh and English. An independent cross-language phonological overlap manipulation revealed an interaction between accent and L1 access. Interestingly, although it increased processing effort, incorrect stress did not significantly modulate semantic priming effects or covert access to L1 phonological representations. Our results are consistent with the concept of language-specific stress templates, and suggest that accent and lexical stress affect speech comprehension mechanisms differentially.

Formulaicity as a determinant of processing efficiency: investigating clause ordering in complex sentences

Prior research has identified a large number of processing-related factors that affect language users’ choices between two (or more) competing linguistic variants. However, one factor that up until now has not been taken into account is the reliance on formulaic language. This is surprising given a growing body of evidence demonstrating that recurrent multiword units – formulaic sequences and low-scope constructional patterns – play a key role in language learning and processing. Building on insights from research on formulaic language and usage-based constructionist models of language, we take a first step towards determining whether and to what extent formulaicity affects choices language users make in encoding the preverbal message. Focusing on clause ordering in English complex sentences with adverbial clauses (ACs), we investigate whether the choice between a preposed and a postposed AC is affected by the degree of formulaicity of the clause, as measured by (1) the amount of formulaic sequences in the AC and (2) the degree of entrenchment of an AC when treated as a low-scope pattern. Based on a reanalysis of the data in Diessel (2008), we found that the likelihood of an AC being produced in the cognitively more demanding sentence-initial position increased with higher degrees of formulaicity for both measures investigated. We conclude that reliance on formulaic language can be conceived of as a ‘support strategy’ compensating for increased processing effort.

Processing Effort and Poetic Closure

Nigel Fabb (University of Strathclyde)Abstract: Smith (1968) argues that poems may end with formal changes which produce an experience of closure in the reader. I argue that formal changes do not directly cause an experience of closure. Instead, changes in poetic form always demand increased processing effort from the reader, whether they involve new forms, shifts from more to less regular form, or from less to more regular form. I use relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995) to argue that the increased processing effort encourages the reader to formulate rich and relevant thoughts, including the thought 'this poem has closure'. Closure is thus the content of a thought rather than a type of experience. I further argue that 'closure' is a term whose meaning cannot be fully understood, which makes the thought 'this poem has closure' into a schematic belief of the kind which Sperber shows has great richness and productivity. This is one of the reasons that the thought 'this poem has closure' achieves sufficient relevance to justify the effort put into processing the end of the poem.

The intricate relationships between monitoring and control in metacognition: Lessons for the cause-and-effect relation between subjective experience and behavior.

Do we run away because we are frightened, or are we frightened because we run away? The authors address this issue with respect to the relation between metacognitive monitoring and metacognitive control. When self-regulation is goal driven, monitoring effects control processes so that increased processing effort should enhance feelings of competence and feelings of knowing. In contrast, when self-regulation is data driven, such feelings may be based themselves on the feedback from control processes, in which case they should decrease with increasing effort. Evidence for both monitoring-based control and control-based monitoring occurring even in the same situation is presented. The results are discussed with regard to the issue of the cause-and-effect relation between subjective experience and behavior.