CiteULike: acslab judgment

Looking and Weighting in Judgment and Choice,

Douglas Wedell — 2008-05-09T20:25:05-00:00

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 70, No. 1. (April 1997), pp. 41-64.

A sampling model was proposed in which the weight given to a piece of information corresponds to the amount of sampling of that information in either a continuous, discrete or strategic manner. These three sampling processes were related to process tracing measures of initial and additional time per acquisition and frequency of acquisition. The applicability of the sampling model was tested in three experiments in which students uncovered information corresponding to verbal and math aptitude scores of hypothetical applicants and either judged the likelihood of success in a designated major or chose which of a pair of applicants was more likely to succeed in the major. Task focus was manipulated by altering the designated major. In Experiment 1, analysis of judgment data demonstrated large effects of task focus on the weighting of verbal and math scores and corresponding increases in number of acquisitions and time per acquisition on the information receiving more weight. In Experiments 2 and 3, analyses of choice proportions revealed effects of task focus on weight and bias parameters. Looking data in choice provided strong support for two of the stages of processing described by Russo and Leclerc (1994). Initial looks reflected orientation and screening functions and additional looks reflected more evaluative processes. Experiment 3 also explored similarities and differences among groups of participants who were classified as following different identifiable choice strategies.

Sequence effects in categorization of simple perceptual stimuli.

N Stewart — 2008-04-22T21:35:39-00:00

Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, Vol. 28, No. 1. (January 2002), pp. 3-11.

Categorization research typically assumes that the cognitive system has access to a (more or less noisy) representation of the absolute magnitudes of the properties of stimuli and that this information is used in reaching a categorization decision. However, research on identification of simple perceptual stimuli suggests that people have very poor representations of absolute magnitude information and that judgments about absolute magnitude are strongly influenced by preceding material. The experiments presented here investigate such sequence effects in categorization tasks. Strong sequence effects were found. Classification of a borderline stimulus was more accurate when preceded by a distant member of the opposite category than by a distant member of the same category. It is argued that this category contrast effect cannot be accounted for by extant exemplar or decision-bound models of categorization. The effect suggests the use of relative magnitude information in categorization. A memory and contrast model illustrates how relative magnitude information may be used in categorization.

Learning and Attention in Multidimensional Identification, and Categorization: Separating Low-Level Perceptual Processes and High Level Decisional Processes

Todd Maddox — 2008-04-22T21:23:42-00:00

this article should be addressed to W. Todd Maddox, Department of Psychology, Mezes Hall 330 Mail Code B3800, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, 78712. E-mail: maddox@psy.utexas.edu

The Relationship Between Memory and Judgment Depends on Whether the Judgment Task is Memory-Based or On-Line

Reid Hastie — 2008-04-04T21:11:47-00:00

Psychological Review, Vol. 93, No. 3. (1 July 1986), pp. 258-268.

Five alternative information processing models that relate memory for evidence to judgments based on the evidence are identified in the current social cognition literature: independent processing, availability, biased retrieval, biased encoding, and incongruity-biased encoding. A distinction between two types of judgment tasks, memory-based versus on-line, is introduced and is related to the five process models. In memory-based tasks where the availability model describes subjects' thinking, direct correlations between memory and judgment measures are obtained. In on-line tasks where any of the remaining four process models may apply, prediction of the memory-judgment relationship is equivocal but usually follows the independence model prediction of zero correlation.

Limitations of Exemplar Models of Multi-Attribute Probabilistic Inference

Robert Nosofsky — 2008-04-02T20:47:05-00:00

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, Vol. 33, No. 6. (1 November 2007), pp. 999-1019.

Observers were presented with pairs of objects varying along binary-valued attributes and learned to predict which member of each pair had a greater value on a continuously varying criterion variable. The predictions from exemplar models of categorization were contrasted with classic alternative models, including generalized versions of a “take-the-best” model and a weighted-additive model, by testing structures in which interactions between attributes predicted the magnitude of the criterion variable. Under typical training conditions, observers showed little sensitivity to the attribute interactions, thereby challenging the predictions from the exemplar models. In a condition involving highly extended training, observers eventually learned the relations between the attribute interactions and the criterion variable. However, an analysis of the observers' response times for making their paired-comparison decisions also challenged the exemplar model predictions. Instead, it appeared that most observers recoded the interacting attributes into emergent configural cues. They then applied a set of hierarchically organized rules based on the priority of the cues to make their decisions.