Functional learning among children, adolescents, and young adults

This study examined age-related differences in functional learning performance manifested among children, adolescents, and young adults placed in a two-cue ecology involving cues with direct relation and inverse relations with the criterion. On each trial, participants were instructed to consider the values taken by two cues, predict from these two values the value of a criterion, and finally examine the corresponding feedback value (i.e., the correct value of the criterion for this situation). The authors' hypotheses were that: (a) very few children under 11 years of age would be able to learn how to use the inverse relation cue for predicting the criterion, although they would be able to correctly use the direct relation cue; (b) most adolescents and young adults over 17 years of age would be able to learn how to use the inverse relation cue and combine it with the direct relation cue; and (c) adolescents between 11 and 17 years of age would show various levels of achievement. In general, these predictions were confirmed. Not until 11 years was a substantial proportion of participants (23%) able to reject the direct relation hypothesis and select the inverse relation hypothesis during learning.     

Distributional theories of impression formation

This paper examines theories of impression formation which represent stimulus information as distributions on subjective dimensions rather than points along a continuum. These theories explain why unfavorable information often overrides favorable information. Subjects were asked to imagine hypothetical persons described by single adjectives or adjective combinations and to estimate the probability that each person would have various degrees of likeableness. Three models were considered to describe how the likeableness distribution for the adjective combination depends on the distributions of the single adjectives. All three models assume that the mean of the distribution for the adjective combination is described by the equal probability criterion which, for symmetric distributions, implies a weighted average of the single adjective means with weights inversely proportional to their standard deviations. The models can be distinguished on the basis of the standard deviations of the adjective combinations. Estimated standard deviations of the single unfavorable adjectives were smaller than those for the single favorable adjectives. Furthermore, the standard deviation associated with an adjective combination tended to fall between the standard deviations of the single adjectives, consistent with the horizontal averaging model.     

Value and uncertainty as weighting factors in impression formation

An experiment was conducted to compare mathematical models describing how people combine information to form an impression of another person. Subjects rated how much they would like stimulus persons described by one or two adjectives. Subjects also reported their level of uncertainty about each evaluation. Models using the uncertainty measures to predict integration weights were no more successful than the equal weight averaging model. There was no evidence that extreme adjectives were given high weight. Information integration was best described by a model in which the more negative adjective in a pair is given more weight than the other adjective.     

Optimal cue aggregation in the absence of criterion knowledge

The study of multi‐cue judgment investigates how decision makers aggregate cues to predict the value of a criterion variable. We consider a multi‐cue judgment task in which decision makers have prior knowledge of inter‐cue relationships but are ignorant of how the cues correlate with the criterion. In this setting, a naive judgment strategy prescribes weighting the cues equally. Although many participants are well described via an equal weighting scheme, we find that a substantial minority of participants make predictions consistent with a weighting scheme based on a low‐dimensional projection of the cue space that optimally takes into account inter‐cue correlations. The use of such a weighting scheme is consistent with minimizing maximal error in prediction when the cue‐criterion relationships are unknown.     

Cue integration with categories: Weighting acoustic cues in speech using unsupervised learning and distributional statistics

During speech perception, listeners make judgments about the phonological category of sounds by taking advantage of multiple acoustic cues for each phonological contrast. Perceptual experiments have shown that listeners weight these cues differently. How do listeners weight and combine acoustic cues to arrive at an overall estimate of the category for a speech sound? Here, we present several simulations using a mixture of Gaussians models that learn cue weights and combine cues on the basis of their distributional statistics. We show that a cue‐weighting metric in which cues receive weight as a function of their reliability at distinguishing phonological categories provides a good fit to the perceptual data obtained from human listeners, but only when these weights emerge through the dynamics of learning. These results suggest that cue weights can be readily extracted from the speech signal through unsupervised learning processes.     

Learning a two-cue inference task when one of the cue-criterion relations is known

Learning two-cue probability learning (MPL) tasks when the functional relation between the first cue and the criterion was known to the subject was studied in a factorial experiment. Contrary to the predictions from a hypothesis sampling model assuming independent learning of each cue in MPL, the function form for the first cue was found to affect learning of the second cue, facilitating it when the functional relations were the same for both cues and inhibiting it when the functions were different. These results suggest that it is not possible to extrapolate findings from single-cue probability learning directly to MPL.     

The influence of cue unreliability on judgment in a multiple cue probability learning task

The effect of cue reliability was tested in a two-cue multiple-cue probability learning (MCPL) task. Subjects were 42 undergraduates. The cue validities were.78 and.37. Unreliability in a cue was defined as variability in multiple observations of that cue on a given trial. That variability was provided by adding random errors to the true value of the cue. One group was given consistent cues (i.e., the more valid cue was the more reliable cue), one group was given inconsistent cues, and the control group was given true scores. Cue reliability did not affect subjects' consistency or achievement, but did interact with the presence of outcome feedback. The subjective weights showed that subjects thought they weighted the more reliable cue more heavily regardless of the cue validities or their actual cue weightings. There were wide individual differences in performance, illustrating the need for an idiographic-statistical approach in studying decision making.     

An evidential support accumulation model of subjective probability

A model of cue-based probability judgment is developed within the framework of support theory. Cue diagnosticity is evaluated from experience as represented by error-free frequency counts. When presented with a pattern of cues, the diagnostic implications of each cue are assessed independently and then summed to arrive at an assessment of the support for a hypothesis, with greater weight placed on present than on absent cues. The model can also accommodate adjustment of support in light of the baserate or prior probability of a hypothesis. Support for alternatives packed together in a "residual" hypothesis is discounted; fewer cues are consulted in assessing support for alternatives as support for the focal hypothesis increases. Results of fitting this and several alternative models to data from four new multiple-cue probability learning experiments are reported.     

Limitations of exemplar models of multi-attribute probabilistic inference

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.     

Explicit and implicit processes in multicue judgment

In two experiments, a multicue probability learning task was used to train participants in relating judgments to a criterion, on the basis of several cues that could or could not be relevant. The outcome feedback had 25% added noise to simulate real-world experience-based learning. Judgmental strategies acquired were measured by individual multiple linear regression analyses of a test phase (with no feedback) and were compared with self-ratings of cue relevance. In a third experiment, participants were instructed explicitly on cue relevance, with no training phase. The pattern of results suggested that both implicit and explicit cognitive processes influenced judgments and that they may have been sensitive to different task manipulations in the learning phase. On more complex tasks, despite weak explicit learning, explicit processes continued to influence judgments, producing a decrement in performance. These findings explain why studies of expert judgment often show only moderate levels of self-insight, since people have only partial access to the processes determining their judgments.     

Perspective-Taking Judgments of Medication Acceptance: Inferences from Relative Importance about the Impact and Combination of Information

Perspective-taking judgments of medication acceptance were studied for hypothetical mental health treatment scenarios. Three types of information were manipulated in all possible subsets: level of trust in the medication prescriber, severity of the hypothetical mental health condition being experienced, and the potential side effects of the medication. Subjects made judgments from four perspectives: self perspective and that of three other hypothetical people who were each said to place the most importance on one of the three cues. The results showed individual differences in self-reports of the relative importance of the cues which, in turn, predicted differences in judgment patterns. Subjects modified their cue use when making judgments from the perspectives of hypothetical others. The interaction patterns and rank orders of the perspective-taking judgments resembled the individual differences in judgments made from subjects’ own perspectives, but the perspective-taking judgments showed extreme effects of the most important cue. There was also some influence of subjects’ own perspectives on their perspective-taking judgments. When only a subset of the three cues was given, the judgment pattern depended on the importance of the cue that was omitted. The relative weight averaging model accounted for the judgments of only a minority of the subjects. Models which propose that subjects infer the value of missing information were also unsuccessful in explaining the data of the majority. Modifications of those models are proposed.     

Effects of cognition on the psychophysical function

Previous investigation of the deterministic-sensory and the probability-sensory-learning models of psychophysical relationships have featured the manipulation of a single cognitive cue. The present study sought to expand these findings through the manipulation of multiple cognitive cues. Subjects made magnitude estimations of skin-area contact for each of two sets which varied identically in surface area but differed in that one set also varied in accelerative force. Within sets, three treatments featured systematic variation in the presentation of cognitive cues. Power functions were obtained for all treatments and the results supported the deterministic-sensory model. It was suggested, however, that resolution of the perception versus cognition issue must await the identification of innate and conditioned correlates of the subjective response to specific sensory stimuli.     

Memory retrieval given two independent cues: cue selection or parallel access?

A basic but unresolved issue in the study of memory retrieval is whether multiple independent cues can be used concurrently (i.e., in parallel) to recall a single, common response. A number of empirical results, as well as potentially applicable theories, suggest that retrieval can proceed in parallel, though set forth a model that denies that possibility. In this paper, five quantitative models are developed to test broad candidate principles. In multiple experiments, subjects were trained to retrieve a vocal digit response for each member of a set of letter or color cues. In subsequent test and transfer phases, single cue trials were randomly mixed with dual cue trials on which the two cues always required the same response. For the first few repetitions of each new set of dual cue items, there was no evidence of parallel retrieval over any part of the RT distribution. After more repetitions, dual cue trials were performed faster than single cue trials, but only under conditions that were favorable to development of a "chunked" dual cue representation. These results indicate that associative independence is an important modulating variable that must be heeded in any general model of attention and memory retrieval. Further, the results are most consistent with a model that places the performance bottleneck prior to the retrieval stage of processing.     

Allocation of attention, reading skills, and deafness.

Brannan and Williams (1987) found that poor readers cannot successfully utilize parafoveal cues to identify letter targets. Whether a similar deficit in the use of cue information occurs in deaf poor readers and whether it is only specific to processes that capture attention automatically were investigated in congenitally deaf young adults classified as poor or good readers and hearing controls classified as good readers. Subjects were presented with central or parafoveal cues that varied in cue validity probability, followed by letter targets presented to the left or right of fixation. The reaction time data analyses showed significant main effects for cue type and cue location and significant interactions among cue type, cue location, cue validity probability, and visual field. No significant main effect or interactions involving groups were found. These results raise the possibility that reading difficulties associated with deafness do no involve a deficit in the visual attentional system of deaf people. They also confirm that parafoveal cues are more effective than central cues in capturing attention.     

CUE COMPETITION EFFECTS:

Abstract— The ability to predict future consequences on the basis of previous experience with the current yet of environmental cues is one of the most fundamental of all cognitive processes. Thix sttidv investigated how the validity of one cue influences the effectiveness of another cue for predicting a criterion. The results demonstrate a cue competition effect—increasing the validity of one cue decreased the effectiveness of another cue in a linear prediction task, even though the two cues were statistically independent.     

Retrieval in cued recall

Three experiments examined retrieval in a cued recall paradigm by manipulating the pattern of output cues. In the first two experiments, subjects were paced through recall of a categorized list by recalling one word at a time in response to a category name as a retrieval cue. The pattern of these output cues exerted a strong influence on performance. Subjects recalled considerably more when the cues were blocked by category than when required to recall successive words from different categories. This output effect increased over trials, and was interpreted in terms of a model in which subjects develop a retrieval strategy that can be interfered with by the circumstances of output. The last experiment contrasted structural and strategy models in a hierarchical recall paradigm. Subjects were given a set of postinput recall cues that either made evident the hierarchical structure of the input list or contained the same cue words but with no hierarchical information. Information about the hierarchical structure improved performance even when provided only during recall. The data were discuss in terms of recent models of recall, and a compromise was suggested.     

Combining cues while avoiding perceptual conflicts

A common assumption in cue combination models is that small discrepancies between cues are due to the limited resolution of the individual cues. Whenever this assumption holds, information from the separate cues can best be combined to give a single, more accurate estimate of the property of interest. We examined whether information about the discrepancy itself is lost when this is done. In our experiments, subjects were required to combine cues to match certain properties while avoiding perceptual conflicts. In part 1, they combined expansion and change in disparity to estimate motion in depth; and in part 2, they combined perspective and binocular disparities to estimate slant. We compared the pattern in the way that subjects set the two cues with the patterns predicted by models of cue combination with and without a loss of information about the discrepancy. From this comparison we conclude that little information about the discrepancies between cues is lost when the cues are combined.     

Interactions between orientation and contrast modulations suggest limited cross-cue linkage

Recent studies of texture segmentation and second-order vision have proposed very similar models for the detection of orientation modulation and contrast modulation (OM and CM). From the similarity of the models it is tempting to assume that the two cues might be processed by a single generalised texture mechanism; however, recent results (Kingdom et al, 2003 Visual Neuroscience 2 65-76) have suggested that these cues are detected independently, or at least in a mechanism that is able to maintain an apparent independence between the cues. We tested new combinations of OM and CM and found that CM at 0.4 cycle deg(-1) facilitates the detection of OM at 0.2 cycle deg(-1) when the peaks of contrast align with the extremes of orientation. There is also some evidence of weak facilitation of CM by OM under the same conditions. Further, this facilitation can be predicted by filter--rectify--filter channels optimised for the detection of each cue, adding weight to the argument that texture cues are processed in a single generalised mechanism that nonetheless achieves cue independence or near-independence in many circumstances. We also found that the amount of suprathreshold masking produced by an orientation cue depends on the overall percept formed by that cue.     

How do we judge our confidence? Differential effects of meta-memory feedback on eyewitness accuracy and confidence

According to the cue–belief model, we assess confidence in our memories using self-credibility cues that reflect beliefs about our memory faculties. We tested the influence of meta-memory feedback on self-credibility cues in the context of eyewitness testimony, when feedback was provided prior to “testifying” via a memory questionnaire (Experiment 1) and after an initial memory questionnaire but before participants had to retake it (Experiment 2). Participants received feedback (good score, bad score, or none) on a fictitious scale purported to predict eyewitness memory ability. Those given good score feedback before testifying were more confident (but no more accurate) than those given bad score feedback. Feedback also affected confidence (good increased and bad decreased) and accuracy (good increased) after testifying but only on leading questions. These differential effects of meta-memory feedback on confidence for normal and leading questions are not explained by the cue–belief model. Implications for our confidence judgments are discussed.     

Cue Combinatorics in Memory Retrieval for Anaphora

Many studies have shown that memory retrieval for real‐time language processing relies on a cue‐based access mechanism, which allows the cues available at the retrieval site to directly access the target representation in memory. An open question is how different types of cues are combined at retrieval to create a single retrieval probe (“cue combinatorics”). This study addresses this question by testing whether retrieval for antecedent‐reflexive dependencies combines cues in a linear (i.e., additive) or nonlinear (i.e., multiplicative) fashion. Results from computational simulations and a reading time experiment show that target items that match all the cues of the reflexive are favored more than target items that mismatch these cues, and that different degrees of mismatches slow reading times in comparable amounts. This profile is consistent with the predictions of a nonlinear cue combination and provides evidence against models in which all cues combine in a linear fashion. A follow‐up set of simulations shows that a nonlinear rule also captures previous demonstrations of interference from nontarget items during retrieval for reflexive licensing. Taken together, these results shed new light on how different types of cues combine at the retrieval site and reveal how the method of cue combination impacts the accessibility of linguistic information in memory.