From speech to language

This study proposes a novel exploration of perceived prosodic highlights in continuous speech, focusing on the alternative function of indexing and projecting information content deployment in the speech context. Given the assumption that prosodic highlight allocation directly reflects the interlocutors’ information content deployment, this study foregrounds perception-based prominences for indexing both the key information (KEY) and the projector (PJR) that projects the deployment of key/focal information. Two information content planning units (PJR plus its respective projection PJN, and KEY) prompted by prosodic highlights were established, based on quantitative analyses and discriminative acoustic features. Additional analyses confirm a general heavy-to-light information distribution across both units, showcasing that the relative projection trajectory size in the PJR-PJN unit is positively correlated to its position within discourse-prosodic units. Current results, therefore, directly substantiate the cognitive explanation of prosodic projection in speech, as evidence beyond syntactic relationships are drawn and prosodic projection is shown to involve perceived prosodic highlight allocation and information deployment in a fixed pattern. Explorations of prosody-prompted projection shed light on a more comprehensive account of the mechanism behind information planning, hence facilitating a deeper understanding of the composition of context prosody and the derivation of linguistic invariants from speech.

Complexity Aversion in Risky Choices and Valuations: Moderators and Possible Causes

In the age of digitalization and globalization, our decision environments have become increasingly complex. However, it remains unclear under what circumstances complexity affects risk taking. In two experiments (one with a representative sample), we go beyond the behavioral effects and provide a cognitive explanation for the impact of complexity on risk taking. Results show that complexity, defined as the number of outcomes of a risky lottery, decreased choice propensity in choices between two lotteries but had a smaller effect on valuations of individual lotteries. Importantly, participants who spent less time looking at the complex option in choices, were less affected by complexity. Thus, a dislike of cognitive effort can explain the effect of complexity and the difference between choice and valuation. The small effect of complexity on valuations could be explained by individual differences in cognitive ability. Together, we showed that the decision environment as well as individual differences affected the impact of complexity on risk taking and we discuss cognitive explanations for these phenomena.

Theory of Social Proof and Legal Compliance: A Socio-Cognitive Explanation for Regulatory (Non) Compliance

Challenging the assumption of perfect legal knowledge, this Article employs social psychology to better understand how individuals make decisions about legal compliance under imperfect information conditions. It adapts the informational aspects of “social influence conception of criminal deterrence” to regulatory compliance at large. However, it conceptualizes social influence as more than just “visible deterrence.” Social Psychology helps us to understand who, how many, and what kind of behaviors constitute adequate social proof to guide an individual’s decision on compliance. Additionally, the interaction of social proof and legal compliance is considered within a dynamic framework in relation to specific rules and across the system. Within this framework, compliance/non-compliance cascades across different rules and can create a perception about legal compliance at large, which in turn guides initial expectations with respect to new laws. Over time, this can create high/low compliance equilibriums within which societies operate. Understanding this informational role that social influence plays in legal compliance can further our understanding of what motivates compliance, the potency of the expressive functions of law in societies operating within different compliance equilibriums, and inform policy discussions on how to improve compliance—both voluntary and through sanction/incentives.

Not all rights are created equal: A loss–gain frame of investor rights and human rights

International investment tribunals often use the language of ‘rights’ to characterize foreign investors’ claims against host states, evoking the language of human rights and, in some cases, appearing to conflate the two concepts. We investigate the cognitive framing of the relationship between investor rights and human rights in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), as characterized by investment tribunals. We first establish that arbitrators (and scholars and counsel) tend to characterize investor claims as rights claims in general and property rights claims in particular, even if this normative basis is far from precise. Second, building on behavioural economics and cognitive psychology, we argue that this characterization places human rights considerations at a structural disadvantage in ISDS. Investor rights are perceived by arbitrators as endowments that are possessed and that risk being lost, while the human rights of host state populations are viewed as aspirational demands that might only be fully realized in the future. Thus, governmental actions interfering with investments are perceived by arbitrators as actual losses, while competing human rights claims are perceived as potential gains or demands. Following prospect theory, the former (certain losses) will usually be weighed more heavily in a decision-making calculus than the latter (possible gains). This loss–gain frame provides a cognitive explanation for the prevalence of arbitral decisions that prefer investor claims over human rights, a phenomenon that is highly problematic in times in which the legitimacy of the ISDS system rests on its ability to consider the rights of non-investors.

Is overconfidence a motivated bias? Experimental evidence (MOC)

Are overconfident beliefs driven by the motivation to view oneself positively? We test the relationship between motivation and overconfidence using two distinct, but often conflated measures: better-than-average (BTA) beliefs and overplacement. Our results suggest that motivation can indeed affect these faces of overconfidence, but only under limited conditions. Whereas BTA beliefs are inflated by motivation, introducing some specificity and clarity to the standards of assessment (Experiment 1) or to the trait’s definition (Experiments 2 and 3) reduces or eliminates this bias in judgment overall. We find stronger support for a cognitive explanation for overconfidence, which emphasizes the effect of task difficulty. The difficulty of possessing a desirable trait (Experiment 4) or succeeding on math and logic problems (Experiment 5) affected self-assessment more consistently than does motivation. Finally, we find the lack of an objective standard for vague traits allows people to create idiosyncratic definitions and view themselves as better than others in their own unique ways (Experiment 6). Overall, the results suggest motivation’s effect on BTA beliefs is driven more by idiosyncratic construals of assessment than by self-enhancing delusion. They also suggest that by focusing on vague measures (BTA rather than overplacement) and vague traits, prior research may have exaggerated the role of motivation in overconfidence.