{"doi":"10.31219/osf.io/ra4fn","title":"Sequence order resolves ambiguity in a non-linguistic visual categorization task","abstract":"When we encounter an unfamiliar word in a sentence, word order can be used to determine the grammatical category to which that word belongs, and clarify ambiguity. However, it is unclear whether this effect occurs in a nonlinguistic context. We created three perceptually distinct categories of shape stimuli (rounded (A); squared (B); pointed (C)). Participants were first taught to categorize these shapes, then to either select them in a fixed sequence order (A - B - C), or were allowed to select them in any order. We then generated ambiguous stimuli by morphing shapes from different categories together. When an ambiguous morph was presented in a sequence, its subsequent categorization radically shifted based on which shape it replaced. For example, when an AB morph replaced the A shape in a sequence, it was more likely to be categorized as A. By contrast, when participants selected these stimuli without a fixed sequence order, this effect disappeared, ruling out process of elimination as an explanation. These results demonstrate that, even using nonlinguistic stimuli, the position in which an ambiguous stimulus occurs in a sequence drastically impacts how it is subsequently categorized.","journal":"OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)","year":2024,"id":501345,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9586,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":788947,"name":"Benjamin Wilson","orcid":"0000-0003-2043-7771","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1350872,"name":"Angelle Antoun","orcid":"0000-0001-8368-4927","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":33,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:10:15.999370Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}