Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:15:19 BST CiteULike: butterchicken cogsci http://www.citeulike.org/user/butterchicken/tag/cogsci CiteULike.org en-gb Copyright © 2004-2008 citeulike.org http://www.citeulike.org/user/butterchicken/article/2754903 <i>Cognition, Vol. 107, No. 3. (June 2008), pp. 1144-1154.</i><br /><br />Traditional theories of moral development emphasize the role of controlled cognition in mature moral judgment, while a more recent trend emphasizes intuitive and emotional processes. Here we test a dual-process theory synthesizing these perspectives. More specifically, our theory associates utilitarian moral judgment (approving of harmful actions that maximize good consequences) with controlled cognitive processes and associates non-utilitarian moral judgment with automatic emotional responses. Consistent with this theory, we find that a cognitive load manipulation selectively interferes with utilitarian judgment. This interference effect provides direct evidence for the influence of controlled cognitive processes in moral judgment, and utilitarian moral judgment more specifically. Cognitive load selectively interferes with utilitarian moral judgment Joshua Greene Sylvia Morelli Kelly Lowenberg Leigh Nystrom Jonathan Cohen doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.11.004 Cognition, Vol. 107, No. 3. (June 2008), pp. 1144-1154. 2008-05-05T02:35:19-00:00 2008 Cognition 107 3 1144 1154 cogsci http://www.citeulike.org/user/butterchicken/article/2104076 <i>Cognition (7 December 2007)</i><br /><br />The seeking of discontinuity in enumeration was recently renewed because Cowan [Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185; Cowan, N. (2005). Working memory capacity. Hove: Psychology Press] suggested that it allows evaluating the limit of the focus of attention, currently estimated at four items. A strong argument in favour of a general constraint of the cognitive system is that similar discontinuities should be observed in modalities different from the classic simultaneous presentation of visual objects. Recently, data were provided on tactile stimuli, but the authors diverged in their conclusion about the existence of such discontinuity [Gallace, A., Tan, H. Z., & Spence, C. (2006). Numerosity judgments for tactile stimuli distributed over the body surface. Perception, 35(2), 247-266; Riggs, K. J., Ferrand, L., Lancelin, D., Fryziel, L., Dumur, G., & Simpson, A. (2006). Subitizing in tactile perception. Psychological Science, 17(4), 271-272]. Following a similar rationale, our study aimed at evaluating discontinuity in the enumeration of auditory and visual stimuli presented sequentially. The clear and similar discontinuity observed in error rates, response times and given responses for both modalities favours the general capacity limit view, but also questions the size of this capacity, because the discontinuity occurred here at size 2. However, the masking of stimuli in sensory memory could not be entirely discarded. Discontinuity in the enumeration of sequentially presented auditory and visual stimuli. Valérie Camos Barbara Tillmann doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.11.002 Cognition (7 December 2007) 2007-12-13T13:46:02-00:00 2007 Cognition 0010-0277 cogsci