Selective hypothesis testing

A diverse set of biases that have been found to characterize judgment may be similarly mediated by a process of selective hypothesis testing. Our paper begins with a definition of selective hypothesis testing and an explanation of how and when this process leads to error. We then review a diverse and often disconnected set of findings in the person perception, judgment, cognition, attitudes, attribution, and rule discovery literatures that can be explained by this process. Finally, we examine the question of why the selective testing of hypotheses occurs. Although the psychological literature suggests that selective hypothesis testing contributes to a variety of errors, in many contexts it may be a useful and efficient strategy that leads to satisfactory judgment.     

Learning and hypothesis testing in probabilistic inference tasks

The relation between learning of probabilistic inference tasks and the availability of correct hypotheses for the tasks in individual subjects was investigated in two experiments. The results showed that having the correct hypotheses as measured before learning the tasks was neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for learning the task. It was concluded that the hypothesis measurements are not reliable enough to allow predictions on an individual level. The results also showed that subjects have not only the four basic functions: positive linear, negative linear, U-shaped and inversely U-shaped, in their hypothesis hierarchies but also J-shaped functions. That the subjects can leam such functions is thus no discodinnation of the hypotheses sampling conception of learning as assumed in earlier studies.     

Strategies of clinical hypothesis testing

This research examines whether Psychology students, when they test clinical hypotheses, follow either confirmatory or disconfirmatory reasoning strategies. Two hundred and six psychology students, divided in four groups, participated. One group received information about the probability that the hypothesis was correct by means of verbal labels, and another group, by means of numerical expressions. An additional group received the information that getting a precise diagnosis was clinically important. In a last group, diagnostic tests allowed them to increase certainty about the hypothesis. Results show a partial use of confirmatory strategies because, although participants did not seek confirming information, they indeed avoided collecting disconfirming information. When the information increased certainty about the hypothesis, confirmatory strategies became more likely. Neither the increase in the task importance nor the numerical expression of the likelihood that the hypothesis was correct seemed to affect the testing strategy used.     

Imagery and interpretations in social phobia: support for the combined cognitive biases hypothesis

Cognitive-behavioral models of clinical problems typically postulate a role for the combined effects of different cognitive biases in the maintenance of a given disorder. It is striking therefore that research has tended to examine cognitive biases in isolation rather than assessing how they work together to maintain psychological dysfunction. The combined cognitive biases hypothesis presented here suggests that cognitive biases influence each another and can interact to maintain a given disorder. Furthermore, it is proposed that the combined effects of cognitive biases may have a greater impact on sustaining a given disorder than if the biases operated in isolation. The combined cognitive biases hypothesis is examined in relation to imagery and interpretation in social phobia. Individuals with social phobia experience negative images of themselves performing poorly in social situations, and they also interpret external social information in a less positive way than those without social anxiety. Evidence of a reciprocal relationship between imagery and interpretations is presented, and the mechanisms underlying the combined effects are discussed. Clinical implications and the potential utility of examining the combined influence of other cognitive biases are highlighted.     

Factors affecting hypothesis testing in kindergarten children

In a previous experiment, the authors demonstrated that kindergarten and first-grade children can be trained to test hypotheses sequentially within the context of a discrimination learning task. The present experiment is concerned with delineating various aspects of the pretraining that contribute to the improved hypothesis-testing strategies of kindergarten children (mean CA = 71.6 months). It was found that children who have learned to anticipate an invariant cue-reward relation in such tasks manifest improved hypothesis-testing behavior, as well as improved discrimination performance, whereas children who have been trained to identify and name the various stimulus components of the discriminanda do not perform better than those without such training. It was also found that children who have had practice in shifting from an irrelevant to a relevant dimension perform better than those who have not had such experience. Moreover, children who have been given explicit instruction and training in the use of win-stay and lose-shift rules, as well as in the use of valid hypotheses, manifest strategies superior to those without such training. Finally, extensive pretraining over two sessions, administered on separate days, resulted in a marked reduction in the proportion of children who were dimensionally fixated while solving discrimination problems with two genuine dimensions.     

Using three-dimensional graphics in neuropsychological hypothesis testing

This paper presents the application of an overlapping sampling technique used with a fast Fourier transform on electroencephalographic data. The use of this sampling and analysis technique is demonstrated on data in which steady state, rate of change, and critical event hypotheses are tested. The benefit of applying computer-generated three-dimensional graphics to the results of using this innovative sampling and analysis technique is emphasized.     

Confirming expectations in asymmetric and symmetric social hypothesis testing

This article examines individuals' expectations in a social hypothesis testing task. Participants selected questions from a list to investigate the presence of personality traits in a target individual. They also identified the responses that they expected to receive and the likelihood of the expected responses. The results of two studies indicated that when people asked questions inquiring about the hypothesized traits that did not entail strong a priori beliefs, they expected to find evidence confirming the hypothesis under investigation. These confirming expectations were more pronounced for symmetric questions, in which the diagnosticity and frequency of the expected evidence did not conflict. When the search for information was asymmetric, confirming expectations were diminished, likely as a consequence of either the rareness or low diagnosticity of the hypothesis-confirming outcome. We also discuss the implications of these findings for confirmation bias.     

Insensitivity and oversensitivity to answer diagnosticity in hypothesis testing

Two experiments examined how people perceive the diagnosticity of different answers (“yes” and “no”) to the same question. We manipulated whether the “yes” and the “no” answers conveyed the same amount of information or not, as well as the presentation format of the probabilities of the features inquired about. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with only the percentages of occurrence of the features, which most straightforwardly apply to the diagnosticity of “yes” answers. In Experiment 2, participants received in addition the percentages of the absence of features, which serve to assess the diagnosticity of “no” answers. Consistent with previous studies, we found that participants underestimated the difference in the diagnosticity conveyed by different answers to the same question. However, participants' insensitivity was greater when the normative (Bayesian) diagnosticity of the “no” answer was higher than that of the “yes” answer. We also found oversensitivity to answer diagnosticity, whereby participants valued as differentially diagnostic two answers that were normatively equal in terms of their diagnosticity. Presenting to participants the percentages of occurrence of the features inquired about together with their complements increased their sensitivity to the diagnosticity of answers. We discuss the implications of these findings for confirmation bias in hypothesis testing.     

Choice biases in no-sample and delay testing in pigeons (Columba livia)

Animal Cognition - In experimental tasks that involve stimuli that vary along a quantitative continuum, some choice biases are commonly found. Take, for instance, a matching-to-sample task where...     

Building biases in infancy: the influence of race on face and voice emotion matching

Early in the first year of life infants exhibit equivalent performance distinguishing among people within their own race and within other races. However, with development and experience, their face recognition skills become tuned to groups of people they interact with the most. This developmental tuning is hypothesized to be the origin of adult face processing biases including the other-race bias. In adults the other-race bias has also been associated with impairments in facial emotion processing for other-race faces. The present investigation aimed to show perceptual narrowing for other-race faces during infancy and to determine whether the race of a face influences infants' ability to match emotional sounds with emotional facial expressions. Behavioral (visual-paired comparison; VPC) and electrophysiological (event-related potentials; ERPs) measures were recorded in 5-month-old and 9-month-old infants. Behaviorally, 5-month-olds distinguished faces within their own race and within another race, whereas 9-month-olds only distinguish faces within their own race. ERPs were recorded while an emotion sound (laughing or crying) was presented prior to viewing an image of a static African American or Caucasian face expressing either a happy or a sad emotion. Consistent with behavioral findings, ERPs revealed race-specific perceptual processing of faces and emotion/sound face congruency at 9 months but not 5 months of age. In addition, from 5 to 9 months, the neural networks activated for sound/face congruency were found to shift from an anterior ERP component (Nc) related to attention to posterior ERP components (N290, P400) related to perception.     

Note on hypothesis testing in probabilistic inference tasks

Subjects' ability to test hypotheses about the form of functional relations in probabilistic inference tasks was investigated in two experiments which varied the functional relation in the task, the hypotheses to be tested, and the validity of the cue. The results showed that the subjects used the same amount of information regardless of the validity of the cue, that nonlinear hypotheses were harder to test accurately than linear hypothesis, and that hypotheses were harder to test when the relation in the task was nonlinear than when it was linear.     

Omnibus hypothesis testing in dominance-based ordinal multiple regression

Often quantitative data in the social sciences have only ordinal justification. Problems of interpretation can arise when least squares multiple regression (LSMR) is used with ordinal data. Two ordinal alternatives are discussed, dominance-based ordinal multiple regression (DOMR) and proportional odds multiple regression. The Q2 statistic is introduced for testing the omnibus null hypothesis in DOMR. A simulation study is discussed that examines the actual Type I error rate and power of Q2 in comparison to the LSMR omnibus F test under normality and non-normality. Results suggest that Q2 has favorable sampling properties as long as the sample size-to-predictors ratio is not too small, and Q2 can be a good alternative to the omnibus F test when the response variable is non-normal.     

A spatial explanation for synchrony biases in perceptual grouping: consequences for the temporal-binding hypothesis

If two images are shown in rapid sequential order, they are perceived as a single, fused image. Despite this, recent studies have revealed that fundamental perceptual processes are influenced by extremely brief temporal offsets in stimulus presentation. Some researchers have suggested that this is due to the action of a cortical temporal-binding mechanism, which would serve to keep multiple mental representations of one object distinct from those of other objects. There is now gathering evidence that these studies should be reassessed. This article describes evidence for sensitivity to fixational eye and head movements, which provides a purely spatial explanation for the earlier results. Taken in conjunction with other studies, the work serves to undermine the current body of behavioral evidence for a temporal-binding mechanism.     

Goal specificity effects on hypothesis testing in problem solving

Previous research has found that having a nonspecific goal (NSG) leads to better problem solving and transfer than having a specific goal (SG). To distinguish between the various explanations of this effect requires direct evidence showing how a NSG affects a participant's behaviour. Therefore we collected verbal protocols from participants learning to control a linear system consisting of 3 outputs by manipulating 3 inputs. This system was simpler than the one we had used previously, so in Exp. 1 we generalized our earlier goal specificity findings to this system. In Exp. 2 protocol analysis confirmed our prediction (based on dual-space theories of problem solving) that NSG participants focused on hypothesis testing whereas SG participants focused on the goal. However, this difference only emerged over time. We also replicated the goal specificity effect on performance and showed that giving participants a hypothesis to test improved performance.     

Statistical consistency and hypothesis testing for nonmetric multidimensional scaling

The properties of nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) are explored by specifying statistical models, proving statistical consistency, and developing hypothesis testing procedures. Statistical models with errors in the dependent and independent variables are described for quantitative and qualitative data. For these models, statistical consistency often depends crucially upon how error enters the model and how data are collected and summarized (e.g., by means, medians, or rank statistics). A maximum likelihood estimator for NMDS is developed, and its relationship to the standard Shepard-Kruskal estimation method is described. This maximum likelihood framework is used to develop a method for testing the overall fit of the model.     

Sensory discrimination and intelligence: testing Spearman's other hypothesis

At the centenary of Spearman's seminal 1904 article, his general intelligence hypothesis remains one of the most influential in psychology. Less well known is the article's other hypothesis that there is "a correspondence between what may provisionally be called 'General Discrimination' and 'General Intelligence' which works out with great approximation to one or absoluteness" (Spearman, 1904, p. 284). Studies that do not find high correlations between psychometric intelligence and single sensory discrimination tests do not falsify this hypothesis. This study is the first directly to address Spearman's general intelligence-general sensory discrimination hypothesis. It attempts to replicate his findings with a similar sample of schoolchildren. In a well-fitting structural equation model of the data, general intelligence and general discrimination correlated .92. In a reanalysis of data published byActon and Schroeder (2001), general intelligence and general sensory ability correlated .68 in men and women. One hundred years after its conception, Spearman's other hypothesis achieves some confirmation. The association between general intelligence and general sensory ability remains to be replicated and explained.     

On estimation and hypothesis testing problems for correlation coefficients

A selection of statistical problems commonly encountered in psychological or psychiatric research concerning correlation coefficients are re-evaluated in the light of recently developed simplifications in the forms of the distribution theory of the intraclass correlation coefficient (exact theory), of the product-moment correlation coefficient and of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (approximate).     

Physical attractiveness and dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis

Previous studies have failed to find support for the hypothesis, derived from Level of Aspiration Theory, that individuals chose to date those whose “social desirability” level is similar to their own. In the present experiments, which were designed to test the matching hypothesis, the salience of possible rejection by the dating choice was varied. Both experiments found support for the principle of matching in social choice. This support was obtained, however, not just under conditions in which rejection was presumably salient but for all conditions of choice. This and additional findings were discussed.     

Observational drawing biases are predicted by biases in perception: Empirical support of the misperception hypothesis of drawing accuracy with respect to two angle illusions

We tested the misperception hypothesis of drawing errors, which states that drawing accuracy is strongly influenced by the perceptual encoding of a to-be-drawn stimulus. We used a highly controlled experimental paradigm in which nonartist participants made perceptual judgements and drawings of angles under identical stimulus exposure conditions. Experiment 1 examined the isosceles/scalene triangle angle illusion; congruent patterns of bias in the perception and drawing tasks were found for 40 and 60° angles, but not for 20 or 80° angles, providing mixed support for the misperception hypothesis. Experiment 2 examined shape constancy effects with respect to reproductions of single acute or obtuse angles; congruent patterns of bias in the perception and drawing tasks were found across a range of angles from 29 to 151°, providing strong support for the misperception hypothesis. In both experiments, perceptual and drawing biases were positively correlated. These results are largely consistent with the misperception hypothesis, suggesting that inaccurate perceptual encoding of angles is an important reason that nonartists err in drawing angles from observation.