Error patterns in judgment and production of horizontal and vertical scale positions

Cyclic error curves are often found when people judge or set the position of a marker on a linear scale, but various different forms of cyclic pattern have been reported. Twelve subjects each made judgments and also made settings, both on a horizontal linear scale and on a vertical one. Analysis of their error patterns showed a strong tendency to generate the opposite pattern when the response mode changed from judgment to production of scale positions. This is interpreted as evidence that the errors arise from perceptual misjudgments rather than from response biases. Error patterns tended to remain constant for changes in scale orientation alone. Thus, the varying scale orientations do not seem to account for the reported discrepancies in pattern. However, it was found that different subjects could have opposite patterns in the same experimental condition. These were real individual differences because subjects’ patterns tended to persist across changes in orientation and to reverse with changes in response mode. It seems likely that the reported differences in pooled error trends reflect different assortments of subjects who differ fundamentally in their perception of linear scale positions.     

The judgment operation of ratio production

The judgment operation that individuals perform when they set a sensory intensity in a predefined ratio to a standard sensory intensity is unknown. The present study was conducted to determine this operation by functional measurement. Participants first produced a sensory intensity for each combination of various predefined ratios and standard sensory intensities. Subsequently, they rated these produced intensities. Factorial graphs derived from these ratings were essentially parallel. This result shows that participants produced each sensory intensity by operating as if they were adding an amount of sensory intensity to the respective standard sensory intensity. It was found that this added amount varied nonlinearly with the predefined ratio, implying that ratio productions are nonlinear.     

Comparative judgment of numerosity and numerical magnitude: attention preempts automaticity

It is commonly believed that humans are unable to ignore the meanings of numerical symbols, even when these meanings are irrelevant to the task at hand. In 5 experiments, the authors tested the notion of automatic activation of numerical magnitude by asking participants to compare, while timed, pairs of numerical arrays on either numerosity or numerical value. Garner and Stroop effects were used to gauge the degree of interactive processing. The results showed that both effects were sensitive to the discriminability of values along the constituent dimensions, to the number of stimulus values used, and to practice and motivation. Notably, Stroop and Garner effects were eliminated under several conditions. These findings are incompatible with claims of obligatory activation of meaning in numerical processing, and they cast doubt on theories positing automatic processing of semantic information for alphanumerical symbols.     

Exploring numerical proportions in a unique context: The group support systems meeting environment

This paper reports the results of a study examining issues of group gender composition in a meeting setting employing group support systems (GSS). Research examining the effects of numerical proportions on group behavior has traditionally been conducted in settings where use of technology by groups is minimal. This research, however, examines the impact of varying group gender composition on brainstorming, social interaction patterns, and attitudes when technology is employed to facilitate and structure group process. In this setting, we find no gender-related differences in computer-based brainstorming. In the accompanying oral discussions, however, males display a higher proportion of task-related answers than females and uniform groups express more maintenance behavior than groups consisting of mixed genders. Our findings also show that uniform gender groups perceive greater participation in the decision process than skewed groups. Despite these gender-related differences, we found relatively little support for Kanter's Numerical Proportions Model in a GSS setting, given the range of measures explored in this study.     

Error patterns in a chord keyboard response task

Errors in a serial choice-reaction time experiment employing two-finger chord responses to alphabetic stimuli are shown to be distributed in a significantly non-random fashion. Two factors are postulated which are relevant to prediction of the error response. These are the presence or absence of a common finger, and the difference in finger separation, between the actual and the required response. It is suggested that the chord response is coded in terms of a pattern (the distance between the two response components). Responses which mirror the correct response about the centre of the hand are also shown to be significantly more frequent.     

Elaboration and numerical anchoring: Implications of attitude theories for consumer judgment and decision making

Researchers across many domains have examined the impact of externally presented numerical anchors on perceiver judgments. In the traditional paradigm, “anchored” judgments are typically explained as a result of elaborate thinking (i.e., confirmatory hypothesis testing that selectively activates anchor-consistent information in memory). Consistent with a long tradition in attitude change, we suggest that the same judgments can result from relatively thoughtful or non-thoughtful processes, with more thoughtful processes resulting in judgments that have more lasting impact. We review recent anchoring research consistent with this elaboration-based perspective and discuss implications for past anchoring results and theory in judgment and decision making.     

The relationship between moral decision making and patterns of consolidation and transition in moral judgment development

Following models that describe intraindividual correlates of stage transitions (S. S. Snyder & D. H. Feldman, 1984), this study assessed the relation between a measure of consolidation and transition in moral judgment development and the utility of moral concepts in sociomoral decision making. The study extends previous research in suggesting that individuals use moral concepts differently as they cycle through periods of consolidation and transition. With multiple cross-sectional and longitudinal samples, findings indicate that participants' reliance on a Kohlbergian moral framework as measured by the Defining Issues Test is highest during periods of consolidation and lowest during transitions. As participants move into periods of consolidation, the utility of moral stage information increases. Thus, this study indicates that the consolidation and transition model can be used to help identify individuals who are more or less likely to use Kohlberg's moral stages in their moral decision making.     

An application of a dynamic model of judgment to magnitude production

A dynamic model of judgment, together with a model of stimulus context effects, is applied to magnitude production (MP) and magnitude estimation (ME) experiments. Participants' responses in MP were correlated across trials, as is typically found for ME. The magnitudeof the autocorrelation, however, was small, which suggests that participants in MP tend to rely more heavily on a long-term frame of reference. Second, a stimulus context effect found for ME did not appear for MP, most likely because of the different nature of the task (i.e., intermediate values of the stimulus were heard while the participant produced a response). A fit of an earlier regression model, on the other hand, suggests that the number presented on the previous trial in MP has a large contrastive effect on the current response.The present model offers a different view of this result, in that it shows that a negative coefficient for the earlier model is consistent with a positive judgmental effect. The regression effect noted by Stevens and Greenbaum (1966), which is a value of the estimated ME exponent that is smaller than the inverse of the estimated MP exponent, was also found; it i s shown that the effect did not arise from bias in estimation.     

Error and bias in comparative judgment: on being both better and worse than we think we are

People believe that they are better than others on easy tasks and worse than others on difficult tasks. In previous attempts to explain these better-than-average and worse-than-average effects, researchers have invoked bias and motivation as causes. In this article, the authors develop a more parsimonious account, the differential information explanation, in which it is assumed only that people typically have better information about themselves than they do about others. When one's own performance is exceptional (either good or bad), it is often reasonable to assume others' will be less so. Consequently, people estimate the performance of others as less extreme (more regressive) than their own. The result is that people believe they are above average on easy tasks and below average on difficult tasks. These effects are exacerbated when people have accurate information about their performances, increasing the natural discrepancy between knowledge of the self and knowledge of others. The effects are attenuated when people obtain accurate information about the performances of others.     

Electrophysiological difference between the representations of causal judgment and associative judgment in semantic memory

Causally related concepts like “virus” and “epidemic” and general associatively related concepts like “ring” and “emerald” are represented and accessed separately. The Evoked Response Potential (ERP) procedure was used to examine the representations of causal judgment and associative judgment in semantic memory. Participants were required to remember a task cue (causal or associative) presented at the beginning of each trial, and assess whether the relationship between subsequently presented words matched the initial task cue. The ERP data showed that an N400 effect (250–450 ms) was more negative for unrelated words than for all related words. Furthermore, the N400 effect elicited by causal relations was more positive than for associative relations in causal cue condition, whereas no significant difference was found in the associative cue condition. The centrally distributed late ERP component (650–750 ms) elicited by the causal cue condition was more positive than for the associative cue condition. These results suggested that the processing of causal judgment and associative judgment in semantic memory recruited different degrees of attentional and executive resources.     

Modeling patterns of probability calibration with random support theory: Diagnosing case-based judgment

We describe four broad characterizations of subjective probability calibration (overconfidence, conservatism, ecologically perfect calibration, and case-based judgment) and show how Random Support Theory (RST) can serve as a tool for representing, evaluating, and discriminating between these perspectives. We present five studies of probability judgment in a simulated stock market setting and analyse the calibration data in terms of RST parameters. The observed pattern of calibration varies with the outcome base rate and cue value diagnosticity, as predicted by case-based judgment. A similar pattern of calibration is found in real-world judgments of experts in various domains. Case-based RST—defined as RST with stable parameter values—provides a parsimonious account of the substantial changes in calibration performance observed across different judgment environments.     

Aging and capacity in the same-different judgment

The same-different judgment was used in two experiments to investigate age-group differences in visual processing. Two targets next to fixation were presented; the targets on one-half of the trials were the same, and on the other half of the trials, the targets differed by color, shape, or color and shape (redundant). Response times were lower for redundant trials than for color-only and shape-only trials; this redundancy gain was greater for older observers than for young observers. Capacity measures based on the integrated hazard functions indicated that young adults, but not older adults, experienced a slowing of processing (reduction of capacity) in the redundant condition. These capacity measures may provide a method for interpreting age-group effects in the presence of overall response-time differences.     

Neural correlates of lexicon and grammar: evidence from the production, reading, and judgment of inflection in aphasia

Are the linguistic forms that are memorized in the mental lexicon and those that are specified by the rules of grammar subserved by distinct neurocognitive systems or by a single computational system with relatively broad anatomic distribution? On a dual-system view, the productive -ed-suffixation of English regular past tense forms (e.g., look-looked) depends upon the mental grammar, whereas irregular forms (e.g., dig-dug) are retrieved from lexical memory. On a single-mechanism view, the computation of both past tense types depends on associative memory. Neurological double dissociations between regulars and irregulars strengthen the dual-system view. The computation of real and novel, regular and irregular past tense forms was investigated in 20 aphasic subjects. Aphasics with non-fluent agrammatic speech and left frontal lesions were consistently more impaired at the production, reading, and judgment of regular than irregular past tenses. Aphasics with fluent speech and word-finding difficulties, and with left temporal/temporo-parietal lesions, showed the opposite pattern. These patterns held even when measures of frequency, phonological complexity, articulatory difficulty, and other factors were held constant. The data support the view that the memorized words of the mental lexicon are subserved by a brain system involving left temporal/temporo-parietal structures, whereas aspects of the mental grammar, in particular the computation of regular morphological forms, are subserved by a distinct system involving left frontal structures.     

Anchor effects using numerical estimates of simple dot patterns

Shifts due to anchor stimuli using absolute judgments have been ascribed to “semantic” and “scale modulus” changes. To test this explanation, random dot patterns of 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 dots were exposed for 0.30 sec with anchors of 4, 13 or 32 dots preceding each of the stimuli. In the control only the series of stimuli were judged. It was found that numerical estimates of the number of dots increased with small anchor, decreased with large anchor, and were not significantly changed with anchor in the vicinity of AL. These results exactly parallel those found using methods of absolute and comparative ratings and hence cannot be ascribed to semantic shifts especially in view of the fact that independent groups of Ss served in the four anchor and control conditions. Since the anchor effects were significant but not so large that they can be ascribed to change of scale modulus this theory must also be rejected. The AL model seems to offer the simplest and most unitary explanation of these as well as many other results obtained with different types of stimuli and different methods of judging.