The aim of this study was to experimentally distinguish flexibility and broadening hypotheses by limiting through flanker masking the number of switches made between flankers and target.
Both flexibility (e.g., Baumann & Kuhl, 2005; Heerebout, Todorović, Smedinga, & Phaf, 2013; Tan, Jones, & Watson, 2009; but see Huntsinger, Clore, & Bar-Anan, 2010) and broadening hypotheses (Gasper & Clore, 2002; Rowe, Hirsh, & Anderson, 2007) have received ample empirical support.
We hope this recognition of different pathways to design will broaden the hypothesis space in the evolutionary social sciences and encourage methodological pluralism in the investigation of the mind.
Although no evolutionary motivation for it has been posited, the broadening hypothesis holds that positive affect extends spatial attention to large-scale stimulus features.
Because semantic associates do not have an obvious spatial arrangement, a flexibility account (i.e., switching between associates) also seems more appropriate for the remote-associate task than the broadening hypothesis.
We argue that such an approach could broaden the hypotheses considered in cognitive science, improving the generalizability of findings.
At first it may appear that these genes are advantageous to life in the rhizosphere, however their presence in bacteria such as the animal pathogen Brucella broadens this hypothesis.
Our hypothesis may broaden the drug screening and designing for clinical strategies for epilepsy treatment.
Artifice, when introduced wisely, can broaden the scientist's toolbox and hypothesis-testing potential.
