Human errors in cognitive, attentional, and decision-making tasks are sometimes faster than correct responses, and sometimes slower, even for the same fixed task and experimental implementation. Several existing models can fit response time distributions exhibiting these phenomena. However, it is hard to predict ex ante (i.e., before data collection) when errors will be fast or slow. Relying on 20 different datasets comprising 31 experiments from different domains, we empirically validate a simple nonparametric model which successfully predicts when errors will be faster or slower than correct responses. The predictions also include a generalized Stroop effect, as well as error rate differences. The model applies to generalized conflict tasks, where the interaction of multiple processes determines behavior, and makes predictions which depend on whether those processes are in alignment or conflict in a given trial, which can be determined before data collection (e.g., congruent vs. incongruent trials). This yields new testable hypotheses which are overwhelmingly supported in the data. The model's predictions can also be seen as a test of whether process multiplicity is a reasonable assumption in a given task.

How do English-speakers interpret pronouns (e.g., himself, him and he) in sentences such as Samuel told Oliver about himself, Samuel told Oliver about the picture of him, and He was driving home, when Yusuf started coughing? Since the 1980s, patterns of (im)possible pronoun interpretation have been taken as some of the strongest evidence for highly abstract (and possibly innate) grammatical principles. The present set of nine preregistered studies tested an alternative possibility: that listeners' interpretations are based instead on their functional-pragmatic understanding of what the speaker most likely intended to convey, given both the speaker's choice of words and the listener's knowledge about the world. Across all studies, participants' judgments varied according to the relative real-world event-likelihood of the possible interpretations, to the speaker's choice of the particular words used to refer to the characters given considerations of topicality (who is the "central character" in the unfolding narrative), and to whether or not other characters had been previously mentioned. Crucially, these factors did not merely nudge participants' judgments a few percentage points in either direction. In all studies, these functional-pragmatic factors conspired to explain a range of judgments from around 85% SUBJECT (e.g., himself=Samuel for Samuel told Oliver about himself) to 85% OBJECT (e.g., himself= Oliver for Samuel asked Oliver about himself). Thus, while the present findings cannot disprove the existence of formal binding principles, they do suggest that, once discourse-pragmatic factors have been taken into consideration, there may be little remaining for other factors to explain.