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The world that we perceive and describe changes constantly. If we believe our descriptions of the world to be accurate and consistent, we must assume that the content and the structure of our individual sentences accurately and consistently reflect the world’s constantly changing nature. If so, a comprehensive production system must model the sentence generation process taking into account this basic assumption: Words, their linear arrangement, and the structures they are inserted in must somehow reflect the corresponding parameters of the observed and described event. This system must include representation of salience as one integral component resulting in interplay that involves constant, regular, and automatic mappings between elements of a visual scene, their varying salience, and the structural arrangement of the sentence constituents and the grammatical relations between them. In this interplay, perceptual input contributes initially to this mapping process by providing information for further conceptual and linguistic encoding. Importantly, this information is not processed in an unconstrained fashion; instead, it is systematically filtered, selected, and relayed based on a regular interface between the aspects of attention and their corresponding counterparts in the conceptual and linguistic structures. Bottom-up and top-down features of this interface include noticeability, importance, or relevance. As a result, linguistic output reflects the event’s conceptual organization including the attentional state of the speaker in a regular way. This mapping between attentional focus and structural choice is a part of a more complex mapping mechanism that we will refer to as Cognition-Language Interface or CLI. Specifically, this Chapter will consider theoretical and empirical knowledge about the complex interplay between the speaker’s attentional state and the structural choices they make during sentence production.

Items presented in large font are rated with higher judgments of learning (JOLs) than those presented in small font. According to current explanations of this phenomenon in terms of processing fluency or implicit beliefs, this effect should be present no matter the type of material under study. However, we hypothesized that the linguistic cues present in sentences may prevent using font size as a cue for JOLs. Experiment 1, with short sentences, showed the standard font-size effect on JOLs, and Experiment 2, with pairs of longer sentences, showed a reduced effect. These results suggest that linguistic factors do not prevent font size from being used for JOLs. However, Experiment 3, with both short and long sentences, showed an effect of font size only for the former and not the latter condition, suggesting that the greater amount of to-be-remembered information eliminated the font-size effect. In Experiment 4, we tested a mechanism to explain this result and manipulated cognitive load using the dot-memory task. The short sentences from Experiments 1 and 3 were used, and the results replicated the font-size effect only in the low-cognitive load condition. Our results are consistent with the idea that perceptual information is used to make JOLs only with materials such as words, word pairs, or short sentences, and that the increased cognitive load required to process longer sentences prevents using font size as a cue for JOLs.

Research on conversational exchanges shows that people attempt to optimise their responses’ relevance when they definitely know the correct answer (e.g., “What time is it?”). However, such certainty is often unavailable while speakers may still be under social pressure to provide an answer. We investigated how social context influences the informativeness level when answering questions under uncertainty. In three experiments, participants answered difficult general-knowledge questions placed in different social contexts (formal vs. informal). Participants generated their answers, then they were presented with a given context, and decided on the number of alternative responses they wanted to provide (single, with one alternative vs. plural, with several alternatives) and whether the answer should be reported or withheld (report option). Participants reported more answers in the informal context. In the formal context, single answers were preferred, and they were more frequently reported. We conclude that social context influences the level of informativeness in a conversation, affecting achievable accuracy. Our results also show the joint influence of the confidence and the social context on willingness to share information.

Past studies have shown that the perceptual characteristics of studied items (eg, font size) lead to a metamemory illusion, and that delayed judgments of learning (JOLs) are better predictors of memory performance than immediate. Here, we tested whether delayed JOLs could reduce or eliminate the effect of perceptual characteristics on JOLs and restudy decisions. We adopted a meta-analytic approach and analysed the results of 28 experiments in which participants' studied items were presented in either large or small font. JOLs and, sometimes, restudy, decisions were made either immediately or after a delay. Finally, the participants completed a memory test. The results of the meta-analyses confirmed the effect of the size on JOLs and restudy decisions. The delayed procedures reliably reduced the effect of perceptual characteristics on JOLs, but the effect was still significant after a delay. For restudy decisions, delayed procedures only reduced numerically the effect. Surprisingly, the meta-analysis also showed a very significant difference in size and size. One plausible explanation is that after a delay. In addition, our results suggest that the dissociation between memory and metamemory is reported previously, may not be dissociation at all, but a mistmatched effect on the size of memory and metamemory. For restudy decisions, delayed procedures only reduced numerically the effect. Surprisingly, the meta-analysis also showed a very significant difference in size and size. One plausible explanation is that after a delay. In addition, our results suggest that the dissociation between memory and metamemory is reported previously, may not be dissociation at all, but a mistmatched effect on the size of memory and metamemory. For restudy decisions, delayed procedures only reduced numerically the effect. Surprisingly, the meta-analysis also showed a very significant difference in size and size. One plausible explanation is that after a delay. In addition, our results suggest that the dissociation between memory and metamemory is reported previously, may not be dissociation at all, but a mistmatched effect on the size of memory and metamemory. although no individual study showed a significant difference. One plausible explanation is that after a delay. In addition, our results suggest that the dissociation between memory and metamemory is reported previously, may not be dissociation at all, but a mistmatched effect on the size of memory and metamemory. although no individual study showed a significant difference. One plausible explanation is that after a delay. In addition, our results suggest that the dissociation between memory and metamemory is reported previously, may not be dissociation at all, but a mistmatched effect on the size of memory and metamemory.