Elliot Schwartz

Humans express generalizations using both generics (e.g., “Dogs bark”) and explicit quantifiers (e.g., “All dogs bark”). Quantified statements are systematically misremembered as generics more than vice versa, a phenomenon known as the Generic Recall Bias. Yet, the memory processes underlying this bias remain unclear. We investigate whether this phenomenon arises during memory encoding, retention, or retrieval. Here, we taught adults (N = 1,189) generic or quantified statements about a novel social category, and assessed recall immediately and one week later. Replicating and extending prior findings, we found that “all”, “most”, and “some” statements were each significantly misremembered as generics. Critically, longitudinal analyses revealed that misrecall patterns were stable across time and consistent within items, supporting an encoding-based account: quantified information is often encoded without its specific proportional information from the outset. Overall, these results clarify the memory mechanisms underlying human generalization.

Logical reasoning is one of humanity's most powerful abilities. A widespread assumption across psychology, linguistics, and philosophy holds that reasoning operates over concepts that refer to objects and properties in the world, yet this has rarely been tested empirically. We introduce a novel paradigm that exploits lexical ambiguity to differentiate candidate representations for human inference: word-forms, reference-fixing concepts, or more abstract "underspecified representations" that constrain meaning without fully determining it. Across three experiments (N=158), participants evaluated deductive arguments equivocating over polysemous or homonymous terms. Although these arguments are logically equivalent under standard analyses, participants reliably accepted non-truth-preserving polysemous arguments while rejecting homonymous ones. This asymmetry—the Uncommon Sense Effect—points to underspecified representations as the default basis of logical inference. This challenges a foundational assumption about meaning, and opens new empirical avenues for studying the link between what we think and why we think it.

(Commentary on Bai, D., Hafri, A., Izard, V., Firestone, C., & Strickland, B. (2025). “Core Perception”: Re-imagining Precocious Reasoning as Sophisticated Perceiving. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1–75.) A central motivation of the core knowledge framework has been its promise to illuminate the foundations of cognition. Reclassifying core knowledge as perceptual alters what it can plausibly explain about conceptual development. We consider three broad possibilities for how the authors’ proposal could interact with cognitive development, showing that each raises novel questions that should be addressed.

How do we acquire beliefs? According to the Spinozan model, merely having a thought entails believing it. Only through a further, effortful process can one reject automatically-accepted beliefs. This paper supersedes and extends previous expositions of the Spinozan model in four ways. First, we introduce the mechanisms of the model, by characterizing the interactions of acceptance, rejection, and endorsement. Second, we present recent developmental and theoretical work that supports the Spinozan model. Third, we draw out some sociopolitical implications of having a Spinozan mind, particularly for fake news and misinformation. Finally, we extend the model from its traditional domain, belief acquisition, to belief updating and action. The result provides the foundation for a psychofunctional model of belief proper.

Lexical ambiguity has classically been categorized into two kinds. Homonyms are single word forms that map to multiple, unrelated meanings (e.g., “bat” meaning baseball equipment or a flying mammal). Polysemes are single word forms that map to multiple, related senses (e.g., “breakfast” meaning a plate of food or an event). Yet there is a longstanding debate as to whether polysemy and homonymy reflect distinct cognitive representations. Some (e.g., Fodor & Lepore, 2002; Klein & Murphy, 2001) posit that they do not — merely describing differing patterns of usage — while others (e.g., Falkum & Vicente, 2015; Pietroski, 2018) argue that polysemes, but not homonyms, involve an underspecified representation that is neutral with respect to the form’s multiple senses. While some extant experimental evidence supports the latter view (Klepousniotou, Titone, & Romero, 2008; Srinivasan, Berner, & Rabagliati, 2019), there has not yet been clear evidence of the representation of lexical ambiguity affecting domain-general reasoning. Using a novel inference paradigm, we compare participants’ dispositions to endorse deductive, Aristotelian arguments with equivocating polysemes versus comparable arguments with equivocating homonyms. We find that participants endorse the former substantially more than the latter, a phenomenon that we dub the "Uncommon Sense Effect". Our results provide direct evidence that polysemes and homonyms have underlyingly distinct mental representations — in particular that polysemes uniquely invoke an underspecified representation that allows for rule-based inferences across distinct senses.

Given the technological constraints of long-duration space travel and planetary settlement, off-Earth humans will likely need to employ food systems very different from their terrestrial counterparts, and newly emerging food technologies are being developed that will shape novel food systems in these off-Earth contexts. Projected off-Earth food systems may therefore potentially “alienate” their users in new ways compared to Earth-based food systems. They will be susceptible to alienation in ways that are similar to such potential on Earth, where there are points of overlap between off-Earth food systems and any of the multitudes of ways in which food systems on Earth are structured. They will also be susceptible to new forms of alienation, as we encounter scenarios that are genuinely structurally novel to humanity. These are especially important to consider since there are comparatively fewer analyses of these food systems where they differ from existing ones. We propose five non-exhaustive sources of value beyond nutrition our individual relationships with a food may possess: gustatory, social, cultural, epistemic, and authorial value. Using these, we offer examples of ways in which an off-Earth food system may exacerbate or alleviate alienation for humans in long-term off-Earth food systems.