A note on the analysis of subjective judgment matrices

Saaty (1977–1983) presents an eigenvector (EV) procedure for analyzing matrices of subjective estimates of the utility of one entity relative to another. The procedure is an especially effective tool for analyzing hierarchical problems where the dependence of the entities at one level on the entities in adjacent levels is estimated subjectively. Despite the absence of a formal proof that the procedure has desirable qualities as an estimator of the underlying relative utilities, the process has gained an active following. This paper derives a comparable estimate, the geometric mean (GM) vector (also known as the logarithmic least squares method or LLSM), that can be applied to hierarchical problems in exactly the same way but is developed from statistical considerations. It is shown to be optimal when the judge's errors are multiplicative with a lognormal distribution. The GM shares the desirable qualities of the EV and is preferable to it in several important respects.     

Recognising faces but not traits: Accurate personality judgment from faces is unrelated to superior face memory

It is suggested that accurate personality judgments of faces are driven by a morphological ‘kernel of truth’ from face shape. We hypothesised that this relationship could lead to those with better face identification ability being better at personality judgments. We investigated the relationship between face memory, face matching, Big Five personality traits, and accuracy in recognising Big Five personality traits from 50 photographs of unknown faces. In our sample (n = 792) there was overall good (but varying) face memory and personality judgment accuracy. However, there was convincing evidence that these two skills do not correlate (all r < 0.06). We also replicate the known relationship between extraversion and face memory ability in the largest sample to date.     

Another failure to generalize the Mozart effect

Several studies have not replicated Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky's 1993 finding that 10 minutes of exposure to Mozart piano music temporarily enhanced performance on three spatial reasoning tasks. Later Rauscher and Shaw argued that enhanced performance is unlikely unless three conditions are met. The present study was designed to meet those three conditions. 36 adults were exposed to one of six listening orders and one of six test orders. Listening and test orders had no systematic effect on spatial reasoning performance. A one-factor, repeated-measures analysis of variance yielded no significant difference on spatial reasoning performance after listening to classical music, jazz, or silence. A reanalysis, using only those items most likely to tap spatial reasoning, fell short of significance, and mean scores were in the direction opposite to that hypothesized. These results were inconsistent with studies that have supported a Mozart effect.     

Infants attend to second-order relational properties of faces

Two experiments investigated whether 7-month-old infants attend to the spatial distance measurements relating internal features of the human face. A visual preference paradigm was used, in which two versions of the same female face (one either lengthened or shortened, and one nonmodified) were presented simultaneously. In Experiment 1, infants looked longer at the nonmodified faces, which were determined to match the average distance relationships found in a sample of faces drawn from the same population. Longer looking times for modified faces were found in Experiment 2, in which the nonmodified faces were unusually long and the modified faces conformed to average distance measurements. It is proposed that infants’ attention to the spatial relations of internal face features is an optimal tool for lifelong face recognition.     

Attentional effects of masked famous faces (but not names) and subjective evaluations of a target person

Two experiments are reported using a 1986 version of the dot-probe paradigm of MacLeod, Mathews, and Tata, in which the masked subliminal faces of famous persons were differentially associated with attention depending on participants' attitudes toward the famous person. There was attentional avoidance of the faces of persons invoking high disgust (Exp. 1, n=20) or dislike (Exp. 2) but attentional orientation toward the faces of persons invoking low disgust or liking. In Exp. 2 (n=28), this effect was apparent for the faces but not the names of famous persons, despite evidence that the famous names were recognised without awareness. The aversion of attention from faces, but not the names of famous persons who are regarded in a negative light but who are not particularly threatening, may suggest an automatic tendency to avoid making eye contact with an undesirable person thereby avoiding unwanted social interaction.     

Angry faces are more resistant to forgetting than are happy faces: directed forgetting effects on the identity of emotional faces

Using the item-method directed forgetting paradigm (i.e. intentionally forgetting specified information), we examined directed forgetting of facial identity as a function of facial expression and the sex of the expresser and perceiver. Participants were presented with happy and angry male and female faces cued for either forgetting or remembering, and were then asked to recognise previously studied faces from among a series of neutral faces. For each recognised test face, participants also recalled the face’s previously displayed emotional expression. We found that angry faces were more resistant to forgetting than were happy faces. Furthermore, angry expressions on male faces and happy expressions on female faces were recognised and recalled better than vice versa. Signal detection analyses revealed that male faces gave rise to a greater sensitivity than female faces did, and male participants, but not female participants, showed greater sensitivity to male faces than to female faces. Several theoretical implications are discussed.     

Justification effects on the judgment of analogy

Many of us share a strong intuition that justification forces us to better understand the situations we face. And there is substantial evidence indicating that this is often the case. However, there is a growing body of research showing that, under certain circumstances, explanation and justification can impair performance on a variety of cognitive tasks. In the present research, the effects of justification on judgment of the soundness of analogies were examined. Subjects judged the quality of the match between pairs of stories with varying degrees of superficial and analogical similarity. Experimental subjects either provided reasons for their judgments or wrote recollections of the target stimuli. These subjects rated the match between stimulus pairs as more sound than did control subjects. Also, providing reasons led to poorer discrimination between superficially similar aspects of the stimuli and analogous aspects. Explanations of these findings are proposed, and implications for problem solving and confidence judgment are discussed.     

I’ll just watch: Do the pro-social effects of coordination really generalize to non-actors?

ABSTRACT

Moving in time together has been shown to cultivate pro-social effects in co-actors, such as cooperation and helping. But less is known about who these effects apply to – whether they are restricted only to co-actors, or whether they generalize to those not involved in the coordination. One difference between past work finding generalized vs. restricted effects is whether these “outsiders” were present for the coordination or not. The present study explores whether the pro-social effects of coordination are seen towards observers as well as co-actors, and whether the absence or presence of observers during the coordination is a determining factor. Results show that greater cooperation following coordination is only seen amongst co- actors, regardless of whether the observers were present during the task or not. Findings are discussed in the context of the literature and alternative explanations for research showing generalized effects are suggested.     

A comparison of statistical infrequency and subjective judgment as criteria in the measurement of originality

The Alternate Uses test was administered to a sample of 60 college students. Three different criteria of originality were used in scoring: subjective judgment, statistical infrequency, and random numbers. Correlations among the three methods exceeded .67 (p < .01). The explanation for this finding is that the originality scores are strongly influenced by the number of responses (i.e., ideational fluency). Because the total originality score is based on a sum of the originality weightings for each response, individuals who give many responses are more likely to get high originality scores. Further analysis demonstrated that the subjective and statistical infrequency scoring techniques are not correlated when ideational fluency is controlled. Implications for the measurement of originality are discussed.     

专业背景、主观印象和情绪对量刑决策的影响

为了考察司法决策者对案件当事人的主观印象如何影响刑罚决策及情绪在其中的作用,本研究要求法律与非法律专业被试对案情相同但对案件当事人的主观印象不同的刑事案件进行刑罚强度决策,并要求被试对犯罪行为所引发的情绪强度进行评定。研究结果发现,被试对施害人的消极印象比积极印象条件下产生更强的愤怒和厌恶情绪,更少的同情情绪,同时,给予的刑罚更重;被试对受害人的积极印象比消极印象条件下,低年级组被试对施害人给予的刑罚更重,但在高年级组被试中不存在显著差异,两组被试在情绪强度上也没有显著差异。法律专业比非法律专业被试对犯罪行为所产生的情绪强度更低。被试的专业背景对量刑决策没有显著影响。中介效应检验发现,在施害人的主观印象对刑罚决策的影响过程中,愤怒和同情表现出部分中介效应,厌恶情绪表现出完全中介效应。     

An account of subjective probability judgment for joint events: Conjunctive and disjunctive

Probability judgment is a vital part of many aspects of everyday life. In the present paper, we present a new theory of the way in which individuals produce probability estimates for joint events: conjunctive and disjunctive. We propose that a majority of individuals produce conjunctive (disjunctive) estimates by making a quasi‐random adjustment, positive or negative, from the less (more) likely component probability with the other component playing no obvious role. In two studies, we produce evidence supporting propositions that follow from our theory. First, the component probabilities do appear to play the distinct roles we propose in determining the joint event probabilities. Second, contrary to probability theory and other accounts of probability judgment, we show that the conjunctive‐less likely probability difference is unrelated to the more likely disjunctive probability difference (in normative theory these quantities are identical). In conclusion, while violating the norms of probability judgment, we argue that estimates produced in the manner we propose will be close enough to the normative values especially given the changing nature of the external environment and the incomplete nature of available information.     

Spacing effects on the memory for faces

25 undergraduate women studied 12 stimulus pictures of female faces successively presented in spaced or massed conditions and made affective judgments for the pictures along a dimension of like to dislike. One week after the exposure (study) period, subjects were given an identification test comprised of photographs of the same female faces with different expressions. Analysis showed that the pictures presented in the spaced condition were more frequently and accurately identified than those presented under the massed condition and that affective judgment was unrelated to conditions of presentation.     

Context effects in the processing of familiar faces

Summary In this paper we report five experiments that investigate the influence of prime faces upon the speed with which familiar faces are recognized and named. Previously, priming had been reported when the prime and target faces were closely associated, e.g., Prince Charles and Princess Diana (Bruce & Valentine, 1986). In Experiment 1 we show that there is a reliable effect of relatedness on a double-familiarity decision, even when the faces are only categorially related, e. g., Kirk Douglas and Clint Eastwood. Then it was shown that such an effect emerges only on a double decision task (Experiments 2 and 3). Experiment 4 showed that on a primed naming task, faces preceded by a categorially related prime were responded to more quickly than those preceded by an unrelated prime, and the effect was due to inhibition. Experiment 5 replicated this effect and also showed that when associatively related primes were used, a facilitatory, and not an inhibitory, effect is found. It is argued that the facilitation of associative priming arises at an earlier locus than the inhibition of categorial priming.     

Habitual self-regulatory orientation and ease-of-retrieval: Regulatory focus qualifies the impact of subjective experiences in judgment

Eager strategies of self-regulation, known as promotion orientation, and cautious or vigilant strategies of self-regulation, known as prevention orientation, have been found to be associated with distinct patterns of goal attainment and information exploration. Building on these findings, we hypothesize that self-regulation in a promotion versus prevention focus triggers specific patterns of information use in judgment. Specifically, we predict that reliance on ease-of-retrieval??the feeling of ease or difficulty associated with accessing information??is particularly pronounced with a predominant promotion- compared to prevention-orientation. Two experiments that manipulate ease-of-retrieval and assess habitual differences in regulatory focus orientation support this prediction. The current contribution thus extends previous research by documenting that habitual tendencies of promotion-oriented as compared to prevention-oriented self-regulation are associated with reliance on distinct information sources in judgment.     

Anchor effects in category judgment of weight

Vuorinen, R. Anchor effects in category judgment of weight. Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 261–272.-3 models of psychophysical judgment are tested in 4 experiments. The anchor effects obtained in these experiments deviate from their usually observed contrast properties violating both the "adaptation-level" (AL) model and the "similarity classification" model. Results on comparative judgment disprove the assumed constancy of the parameters of the AL-model. A comparison with the "response frequency equalization" model discloses that the AL-model confounds genuine perceptual aspects of judgment with response determined factors (response bias) involved in category judgment. The present results are related to a critical evaluation of the general AL-theory presented elsewhere (Vuorinen, 1973).