Bence Palfi

Commentary: Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human–dog bonds

It has been proposed that evolution of dogs have led to a set of changes, which made them functionally similar to humans in some cognitive, behavioral, and social aspects (Topal et al., 2005; MacLean and Hare, 2015). Searching for these similarities, Nagasawa et al. (2015) hypothesize an oxytocin-mediated positive loop, which developed through the coevolution of human–dog bonding. To test this hypothesis, they conducted a highly original experiment, examining the effects of a 30-min human–dog interaction on oxytocin-secretion in both owners and dogs, and investigating which characteristics of the interaction modulated the oxytocin change (experiment 1). A unique feature of the study is that the same experiment was repeated with hand-reared wolves and their owners to evaluate whether the proposed oxytocin loop was specific to the human–dog interaction. In a following experiment (experiment 2), they administered oxytocin to dogs, and recoded changes in social behavior, and effects of the behavioral change on the owners urinary oxytocin levels.

The Cognitive Reflection Test Revisited: Exploring the Ways Individuals Solve the Test

ABSTRACT Individuals’ propensity not to override the first answer that comes to mind is thought to be a crucial cause behind many failures in reasoning. In the present study, we aimed to explore the strategies used and the abilities employed when individuals solve the cognitive reflection test (CRT), the most widely used measure of this tendency. Alongside individual differences measures, protocol analysis was employed to unfold the steps of the reasoning process in solving the CRT. This exploration revealed that there are several ways people solve or fail the test. Importantly, 77% of the cases in which reasoners gave the correct final answer in our protocol analysis, they started their response with the correct answer or with a line of thought which led to the correct answer. We also found that 39% of the incorrect responders reflected on their first response. The findings indicate that the suppression of the first answer may not be the only crucial feature of reflectivity in the CRT and that the lack of relevant knowledge is a prominent cause of the reasoning errors. Additionally, we confirmed that the CRT is a multi-faceted construct: both numeracy and reflectivity account for performance. The results can help to better apprehend the “whys and whens” of the decision errors in heuristics and biases tasks and to further refine existing explanatory models.

Is Action Execution Part of the Decision-Making Process? An Investigation of the Embodied Choice Hypothesis.

In this study, we aimed to explore whether action execution is an inherent part of the decision-making process. According to the hypothesis of embodied choice, the decision-making process is bidirectional as action dynamics exert their backward influence on decision processes through changing the cost and value of the potential options. This influence takes place as moving toward one option increases the commitment to and, therefore, the likelihood of choosing that option. This commitment effect can be the result of either (a) the continuous act of getting closer to this option or (b) the increased movement cost associated with changing the movement direction to select a different option. To disentangle the potential influence of these two factors, we developed the Guided Movement Task, a choice task designed to bias participant’s computer-mouse movements by constraining the allowed movement space by a corridor. Using this task, we created different conditions in which the participants’ mouse cursor, after being guided toward one of the options, either had equal or unequal distances to the choice options. By this manipulation, we could test whether the continuous act of getting closer to an option in itself is sufficient to influence people’s decisions—a claim of “strong embodiment.” In two experiments, we found that the likelihood of choosing an option only increased when the distances between the two options were unequal after the initial movement but not when they were equal. These results disagree with the hypothesis that action execution is an inherent part of the decision-making process.

Studying the role of cognitive control in reasoning: evidence for the congruency sequence effect in the ratio-bias task

ABSTRACT In this study, we investigated whether control of the conflict between incongruent heuristic and analytical answer options in a reasoning task is modulated by the presence of conflict on previous trials. In two experiments, we found that the incongruency of the previous trial has a significant effect on the control exhibited on the current trial. Our data also showed that this adaptation effect is modulated by the incongruency of the previous series of trials. These results demonstrate the same control adaptation effects for a reasoning task as observed for standard response interference tasks. Coinciding control effects in the two research areas suggest that cognitive control might be an important mechanism underlying performance on reasoning tasks. Based on these results we argue that the study of cognitive control in reasoning could potentially facilitate the refinement of empirical predictions and provide a new tool to explore the exertion of top-down control in human thinking.