Semantic congruity and lexical marking in symbolic comparisons: An expectancy hypothesis

Lexical marking and semantic congruity effects were investigated in four symbolic size comparison experiments. Predictions followed from an expectancy hypothesis suggested by results of recent comparative judgment studies. According to the present position, lexical marking and semantic congruity should be mutually exclusive effects in such tasks, and the demonstration of either dependent upon the order in which the stimuli and the comparative term are evaluated. When the comparative precedes the stimuli, an expectancy is created whereby the subject is more likely to be prepared for, say, large items following the comparative “larger” and small items following the comparative “smaller.” In addition, the usual advantage of unmarked as compared to marked comparisons should be offset by the initial processing of the comparative. As predicted, the comparative-stimulus presentation order produced a significant semantic congruity effect and no effect of lexical marking in Experiment 1. Conversely, when stimuli precede the comparative, or are presented simultaneously with it, no expectancy should be created, as the items are immediately available to the subject, and the semantic congruity effect should not be obtained. Upon presentation of the comparative, however, unmarked comparisons should be easier than marked comparisons. Experiments 2 and 4 confirmed these expectations, as significant lexical marking effects were obtained and significant congruity effects were not. These findings are contrary to predictions derived from a semantic coding interpretation of the symbolic comparison process.     

Congruity and the perceptual comparison task

The effects of congruity between comparatives and the relative magnitudes of to-be-compared stimuli were investigated in six perceptual comparison experiments. Experiments 1-5 failed to obtain congruity effects in purely perceptual tasks even when subjects had extensive practice with a relatively small stimulus set. Experiment 6 obtained a congruity effect with perceptual stimuli but only when the stimuli were described as representing real-world objects. All of the results indicated that congruity effects occur only in tasks that include major symbolic or memorial components; a review of the perceptual comparison literature reveals consistent support for this position. These findings are discussed in terms of expectancy and semantic coding interpretations of the congruity effect.     

Semantic congruity in symbolic comparisons: Evidence against an expectancy hypothesis

A previously proposed expectancy hypothesis predicts that the semantic congruity effect typically observed in symbolic comparison tasks will be eliminated when the items to be compared are presented prior to the comparative. Previous studies testing this hypothesis have been inconclusive. The present experiments demonstrate that a semantic congruity effect can be obtained when the comparative follows the pair after a 1-sec (Experiment 1) or 4-sec (Experiment 2) delay. Lexical markedness effects were also obtained. The key to producing a “comparative-after” congruity effect is to intermix questions about several different dimensions, so that when the pair is presented, subjects will be unable to anticipate the question. The results disconfirm the expectancy hypothesis.     

Semantic congruity and expectancy in symbolic judgments

These experiments assess the degree to which the semantic-congruity effect in comparative judgment can be explained by such expectancy effects as priming, perceptual "set," or strategies used in the task. The first experiment mixed a lexical-decision task with the comparative-judgment task and showed that neither automatic semantic priming nor deliberate preparation can account for the congruity effect. Experiments 2-4 assessed expectancy effects in a different way by presenting the instructions for comparative judgment either before or after the pair to be judged. These experiments included, among other things, a number of safeguards against artifacts in this paradigm. In these three experiments the congruity effect was obtained with both orders of stimuli and instructions, contrary to the prediction of an expectancy hypothesis. The results indicate that when stimuli are not degraded. The semantic-congruity effect depends largely on the relation between the stimuli and the instructions and only to a small degree, if at all, on expectancy.     

Semantic congruity effects and theories of the comparison process.

Two experiments requiring comparisons of point locations on the line demonstrate that the magnitude of the response-time-based congruity effect parallels the form of the macro and the micro speed-accuracy trade-off function. This is predicted from the evidence accrual class of theories but is contrary to either the propositionally based semantic coding theory or the expectancy view. Very large accuracy-based congruity effects with comparisons of point locations in the plane are evident. Congruity effects arise because the duration of each evidence accrual is increased and the quality of the information is reduced as the distance of the stimulus representations from the instruction-activated reference point increases. This evidence accrual view is extended to account for the properties of perceptual and symbolic comparisons.     

Isolating the effects of symbolic distance,and semantic congruity in comparative judgments: An additive-factors analysis

The time needed to compare two symbols increases as the cognitive distance between them on the relevant dimension increases (symbolic distance effect). Furthermore, when subjects are told to choose either the larger or the smaller of two stimuli, the response time is shorter if the instruction is congruent with the overall size of the stimuli (semantic congruity effect). Three experiments were conducted to determine the locus of these effects in terms of a sequence of processing stages. The developmental aspects of these effects were also evaluated, as the subjects were from kindergarten, first grade, third grade, fifth grade, and college. By varying the visual quality of the stimulus in each experiment, it was determined that the distance effect resides in a comparison stage, whereas the congruity effect is an encoding phenomenon. Both distance and congruity effects were present at all grade levels, but they decreased in magnitude as grade increased. The results were interpreted relative to recent models of comparative judgments.     

Semantic congruity and expectancy as separate processes

In two experiments, we investigated the role of expectancy in producing congruity effects in comparative judgment. In Experiment 1, instructions to choose the larger or smaller term either preceded pairs for comparative judgment or preceded individual words for lexical decision. If expectancy in interpreting the comparative judgment terms accounts for the congruity effect, the lexical decision task also should show a congruity effect. However, there were large congruity effects in comparative judgment but not in lexical decision. In this experiment, we used an infiniteset design to make sure that semantic information was needed on comparative judgment trials. In Experiment 2, comparative judgment pairs were preceded by a prime word that either was or was not a category label for the terms in the pairs. There were both congruity and priming effects, with no interaction between the two. This result implies that expectancy and the semanticcongruity effect come from separate processes.     

Discriminations among perceptual and symbolic stimuli

This research compares the time required for perceptual discriminations among pairs of physically present objects (circles) with the time required to discriminate pairs of symbols Inonsense syllables) that subjects learned to associate uniquely with each of the circles. Four experiments show very large differences between symbolic and perceptual discriminations. Discrimination times for the perceptual stimuli declined systematically as their size ratio increased, but discriminations among the associated nonsense syllables showed only a strictly ordinal effect of position in the series. Discriminations among the symbolic stimuli showed a large semantic congruity effect, but the perceptual stimuli showed none. The research does not replicate previous results showing similarities between perceptual and symbolic processing suggestive of image processing. We conclude that in the symbolic task subjects use only ordinal information rather than images or analog representations of the associated circles. We propose that perceptual discriminations show a semantic congruity effect only when they are processed as if the perceptual stimuli were symbolic.     

The role of expectancy in comparative judgments

Researchers interested in the processing of relational information have sought a satisfactory explanation for the congruity effect in linear orders. It is relatively easy to select either the greater of two objects that are high on a dimension or the lesser of two objects that are low on a dimension, but it is relatively difficult to determine the greater of two objects that are low in magnitude or the lesser of two objects that are high in magnitude. One explanation of the congruity effect is the expectancy hypothesis that claims that the choice of the comparative primes objects of particular magnitudes. We present two experiments that demonstrate that a congruity effect of equivalent magnitude is obtained when the comparative is presented after the stimulus pair. Moreover, this equivalence cannot be attributed to the salience of the dimensions we employed, because this equivalence held for stimuli that were classified as salient and for those classified as nonsalient. These findings are interpreted in the context of some current explanations of the congruity effect.     

The selective impact of question form and input mode on the symbolic distance effect in children

Five experiments are reported on the symbolic distance effect (SDE) and related phenomena with 6- and 9-year-old children. In the first of these, children were asked to judge the relative sizes of animals in verbal and pictorial tests featuring the comparatives "bigger" and "smaller." A perceptual condition with actual objects was included by way of comparison. A Symbolic Distance Effect was obtained for both lexical and pictorial input. Mode differences were also observed. Pictures produced faster responses than words, and congruity effects occurred only in the pictorial condition. Although performance was similar in tests with either comparative, our subsequent experiments on both 6- and 9-year-olds reveal a significant asymmetry in the child's capacity to verify statements of relation as a function of the direction along the (size) continuum implied by the question. However, important differences between age groups also apparent in the data lead us to conclude that the older subjects develop strategies to overcome this asymmetry by translating certain statements of relation into a form more congruent with their natural modes of encoding.     

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Humans and other primates are able to make relative magnitude comparisons, both with perceptual stimuli and with symbolic inputs that convey magnitude information. Although numerous models of magnitude comparison have been proposed, the basic question of how symbolic magnitudes (e.g., size or intelligence of animals) are derived and represented in memory has received little attention. We argue that symbolic magnitudes often will not correspond directly to elementary features of individual concepts. Rather, magnitudes may be formed in working memory based on computations over more basic features stored in long-term memory. We present a model of how magnitudes can be acquired and compared based on BARTlet, a representationally simpler version of Bayesian Analogy with Relational Transformations (BART; Lu, Chen, & Holyoak, 2012). BARTlet operates on distributions of magnitude variables created by applying dimension-specific weights (learned with the aid of empirical priors derived from pre-categorical comparisons) to more primitive features of objects. The resulting magnitude distributions, formed and maintained in working memory, are sensitive to contextual influences such as the range of stimuli and polarity of the question. By incorporating psychological reference points that control the precision of magnitudes in working memory and applying the tools of signal detection theory, BARTlet is able to account for a wide range of empirical phenomena involving magnitude comparisons, including the symbolic distance effect and the semantic congruity effect. We discuss the role of reference points in cognitive and social decision-making, and implications for the evolution of relational representations.     

The locus and nature of semantic congruity in symbolic comparison: Evidence from the Stroop effect

Pictures of animals with names of animals printed within the pictures were presented for comparative judgments of size based on either the pictures or the names. The picture-word compounds were compared faster with picture than with word as the relevant dimension. The comparisons of pictures were free of interference from the irrelevant names, but the comparisons of names suffered considerable Stroop interference from the irrelevant pictures. Large effects of semantic congruity characterized the comparisons of both pictures and words. Stroop congruity and semantic congruity did not interact even for comparison of words in which both were present, leading instead to additive effects. The results support theories that (1) place semantic congruity in the decision stage and (2) minimize the role of semantic processing as the basis of the semantic congruity effect.     

The semantic congruity effect: Some tests of the expectancy hypothesis

Subjects comparing items in memory along some dimension are usually quicker to specify the lesser (than the greater) of two low magnitude items and the greater (than the lesser) of two high magnitude ones. One account explains this congruity effect as due to subjects instructed to specify the higher as expecting high magnitude items to follow and the reverse being true for subjects specifying the lesser. Three experiments tested this expectancy hypothesis. In experiment 1, subjects were set to the actual size range of each pair before the pair was shown but the congruity effect still occurred. In experiments 2 and 3, subjects compared critical pairs from a narrow size range plus more from either the same or much broader ranges. Times to compare the critical pairs were the same regardless of the range of the other pairs that subjects were exposed to. These results are strong evidence against the expectancy hypothesis.     

Semantic congruity effects in perceptual comparisons

Semantic congruity effects occur when, as in Experiment 1, for example, the time to select the shorter of two relatively short lines is faster than the time to select the longer; conversely, selection of the longer of two relatively long lines is faster than selection of the shorter. Semantic congruity effects are also demonstrated in experiments requiring comparisons of the heaviness of weights (Experiment 2) and horizontal extent (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, the magnitude of the semantic congruity effect was larger under conditions emphasizing accuracy rather than speed and when the comparison was difficult. In fact, when comparisons were errorless, the effect was minimal (20 msec), thereby replicating previous failures to obtain the effect with supraliminal perceptual comparisons (Banks, Mermelstein, & Yu, 1982; Marschark & Paivio, 1981; Petrusic & Baranski, 1988a). In confirmation of Henmon's (1911) introspective analyses of psychophysical comparisons, Experiments 2 and 3 extend the range of the semantic congruity effect to include judgments of confidence. However, in each of the three experiments, semantic congruity effects were not evident with the response-accuracy measure. Finally, using highly confusable stimuli, in Experiment 3 the magnitude of the semantic congruity effect was shown to be larger for error than for correct response times. The implications of these findings for a decisional locus of the effect and for the semantic coding theory are discussed.     

A model of response time effects in symbolic comparison

A cognitive process model is developed that predicts the 3 major symbolic comparison response time effects (distance, end, and semantic congruity) found in the results of the linear syllogistic reasoning task. The model includes a simple connectionist learning component and dual evidence accumulation decision-making components. It assumes that responses can be based either on information concerning the positional difference between the presented stimulus items or on information concerning the endpoint status of each of these items. The model provides an excellent quantitative account of the mean correct response times obtained from 16 participants who performed paired comparisons of 6 ordered symbolic stimuli (3-letter names).     

Remembered instructions with symbolic and perceptual comparisons

Semantic congruity effects (SCEs) were obtained in each of two experiments, one with symbolic comparisons and the other with comparisons of visual extents. SCEs were reliably larger when the instructions indicating the direction of the comparison were represented by consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonsense syllables, which had been associated with the conventional instructions in a preliminary learning phase of the experiment. Enhanced SCEs with the CVC instructions were evident, especially when stimulus pair location and instruction direction did not match. This finding is not readily explained by any non-evidence-accrual theories of the SCE (e.g., expectancy, semantic coding, and reference point) or by their accrual-based extensions. On the other hand, the general class of evidence-accrual views of SCEs, such as those developed in Leth-Steensen and Marley (2000) and in Petrusic (1992), receive considerable empirical support when the locus of the SCE is specified in terms of the congruency of stimulus pair location and the direction of the instruction.     

Receptive training of adjectival inflections in mental retardates

A generalized discrimination of /er/ and /est/ suffixes as labels for stimuli exemplifying comparative or superlative relationships was established in three institutionalized retardates through differential reinforcement. The subjects were first taught correct pointing in response to opposite adjectives (e.g., "big-small") presented as labels for simple visual stimuli, and then taught each of the comparatives, or each of the superlatives possible for those opposites (e.g., "big-bigger" and "small-smaller", or "big-biggest" and "small-smallest"). As training proceeded, novel combinations of the training stimuli were presented as unreinforced probes to display any developing generalization of the training. As training of comparative discrimination proceeded, correct pointing response to comparative probes was high, but correct response to superlative probes was low. When training of superlative discriminations replaced training of comparatives, correct response to superlative probes increased, and correct response to comparative probes remained high.     

Automatic quantity processing in 5-year olds and adults

In this study adults performed numerical and physical size judgments on a symbolic (Arabic numerals) and non-symbolic (groups of dots) size congruity task. The outcomes would reveal whether a size congruity effect (SCE) can be obtained irrespective of notation. Subsequently, 5-year-old children performed a physical size judgment on both tasks. The outcomes will give a better insight in the ability of 5-year-olds to automatically process symbolic and non-symbolic numerosities. Adult performance on the symbolic and non-symbolic size congruity tasks revealed a SCE for numerical and physical size judgments, indicating that the non-symbolic size congruity task is a valid indicator for automatic processing of non-symbolic numerosities. Physical size judgments on both tasks by children revealed a SCE only for non-symbolic notation, indicating that the lack of a symbolic SCE is not related to the mathematical or cognitive abilities required for the task but instead to an immature association between the number symbol and its meaning.     

Effects of instruction presentation mode in comparative judgments

In each of two experiments, the comparative instructions in a symbolic comparison task were either varied randomly from trial to trial (mixed blocks) or left constant (pure blocks) within blocks of trials. In the first experiment, every stimulus was compared with every other stimulus. The symbolic distance effect (DE) was enhanced, and the semantic congruity effect (SCE) was significantly larger, when the instructions were randomized than when they were blocked. In a second experiment, each stimulus was paired with only one other stimulus. The SCE was again larger when instructions were randomized than when they were blocked. The enhanced SCE and DE with randomized instructions follow naturally from evidence accrual views of comparative judgments.     

Mental comparison of size and magnitude: size congruity effects

Paivio (1975) found that the latency to choose the larger of two named objects does not depend on congruity between the object sizes and the sizes of the object names. Because size congruity does affect latencies for pictorially presented objects, Paivio interpreted this result as support for the dual coding hypothesis. However, Experiment 1 demonstrated that Paivio's results were an artifact of his experimental design. Size congruity does affect latencies to choose the larger of two named objects when object pairs are not repeated. When the same object pairs are used repeatedly, as in Paivio's experiment, the effect disappears. In this case the response is probably remembered, so that the objects need not be compared. To determine the processing stages affected by size congruity, both the distance between stimulus sizes and the size congruity were manipulated in Experiment 2. Three groups of subjects chose either the greater Arabic digit, the greater named digit, or the larger named object. Size congruity interacted with distance only for Arabic digits. For both Arabic digits and named digits, the interference caused by size incongruity was greater than the facilitation caused by size congruity, whereas for object names, the facilitation was greater than the interference. A model of the interaction between physical size comparisons and conceptual size comparisons is proposed to account for these results.