Knowledge about word and object meanings can be organized taxonomically (fruits, mammals, etc.) on the basis of shared features or thematically (eating breakfast, taking a dog for a walk, etc.) on the basis of participation in events or scenarios. An eye-tracking study showed that both kinds of knowledge are activated during comprehension of a…

The tri-reference point (TRP) theory takes into account minimum requirements (MR), the status quo (SQ), and goals (G) in decision making under risk. The 3 reference points demarcate risky outcomes and risk perception into 4 functional regions: success (expected value of x greater than or equal to G), gain (SQ less than x less than G), loss (MR…

The authors report 9 new experiments and reanalyze 3 published experiments that investigate factors affecting the time course of perceptual processing and its effects on subsequent decision making. Stimuli in letter-discrimination and brightness-discrimination tasks were degraded with static and dynamic noise. The onset and the time course of…

According to classical theories, automatic processes are autonomous and independent of higher level cognitive influence. In contrast, the authors propose that automatic processing depends on attentional sensitization of task-congruent processing pathways. In 3 experiments, the authors tested this hypothesis with a modified masked semantic priming…

The current study compared 3 models of recognition memory in their ability to generalize across yes/no and 2-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) testing. The unequal-variance signal-detection model assumes a continuous memory strength process. The dual-process signal-detection model adds a thresholdlike recollection process to a continuous…

Lateralized readiness potentials (LRPs) were used to determine the stage(s) of reaction time (RT) responsible for speed-accuracy trade-offs (SATs). Speeded decisions based on several types of information were examined in 3 experiments, involving, respectively, a line discrimination task, lexical decisions, and an Erikson flanker task. Three levels…