Cross-modal enhancement of perceived brightness: sensory interaction versus response bias

Stein, London, Wilkinson, and Price (1996) reported the presence of cross-modal enhancement of perceived visual intensity: Participants tended to rate weak lights as brighter when accompanied by a concurrent pulse of white noise than when presented alone. In the present study, two methods were used to determine whether the enhancement reflects an early-stage sensory process or a later-stage decisional process, such as a response bias. First, enhancement was eliminated when the noise accompanied the light on only 25% versus 50% of the trials. Second, enhancement was absent when tested with a paired-comparison method. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the sound-induced enhancement in judgments of brightness reflects a response bias, rather than an early sensory process--that is, enhancement is the result of a relatively late decisional process.     

Maternal self-efficacy, knowledge of infant development, sensory sensitivity, and maternal response during interaction

When their infants were 6 months of age, mothers were assessed for self-efficacy (low, moderate, and high illusory control) and knowledge of infant development to determine their impact on mothers' behavioral sensitivity and affect during a feeding task at 9 months (N=70). Mothers' sensory sensitivity to digital images of infants' negative and positive expressions assessed in a signal detection task at 6 months was hypothesized to mediate this relation. Mothers with moderate illusory control exhibited greatest behavioral sensitivity and positive affect. Low knowledge was associated with reduced sensitivity for mothers with low illusory control only. When viewing the negative expression, mothers with moderate illusory control and high knowledge exhibited greatest sensory sensitivity, and mothers with high illusory control and moderate/high knowledge were least sensitive. Although sensory sensitivity was not a mediating variable, its relation to both illusory control and subsequent maternal measures during feeding was informative. Although greater sensory sensitivity predicted more sensitive behavior and more positive affect, only for maternal affect was the relation independent of illusion of control effects.     

Underconfidence in sensory discrimination: The interaction between experimental setting and response strategies

In a recent issue of this journal, Baranski and Petrusic (1994) presented empirical data revealing overconfidence in sensory discrimination. In this paper, we propose an explanation of Baranski and Petrusic’s results, based on an idiosyncrasy in the experimental setting that misleads subjects who are using an unwarranted symmetry assumption. Experiment 1 showed that when this hypothesis is controlled for, a large underconfidence bias is obtained with Baranski and Petrusic’s procedure. The results of Experiment 2 confirmed that overconfidence is difficult to obtain in subject-controlled sensory discrimination tasks, even for a very low proportion of correct responses. The different results obtained in sensory and cognitive tasks suggest that one should not uncritically draw parallels between confidence in sensory and cognitive judgments.     

The effect of response bias on recall performance, with some observations on processing bias

We explored Roediger and Payne's proposal that response bias does not affect recall performance and that it is therefore not necessary to control for response productivity in recall studies. Two initial experiments, contrary to expectation, corroborated Roediger and Payne's findings: Forced recall did not produce more correct recalls than free recall, even though forced recall produced substantially more false alarms than did free recall. However, in succeeding experiments involving pictorial and verbal stimuli, reliable response-bias effects on recall were demonstrated. The stimuli yielding response-bias effects were those associated with higher probabilities of being guessed by chance. In addition, some of the data suggest that processing-bias effects (differential retrieval effort) may be unintentionally induced by instructions and may significantly affect recall memory. Consequently, it is necessary to assess or to control response-bias effects and, possibly, processing-bias effects in recall experiments in which level of recall is of interest.     

Accounting for successful control of implicit racial bias: the roles of association activation, response monitoring, and overcoming bias

Individuals who are primarily internally motivated to respond without prejudice show less bias on implicit measures than individuals who are externally motivated or unmotivated to respond without prejudice. However, it is not clear why these individuals exhibit less implicit bias than others. We used the Quad model to examine motivation-based individual differences in three processes that have been proposed to account for this effect: activation of associations, overcoming associations, and response monitoring. Participants completed an implicit measure of stereotyping (Study 1) or racial attitudes (Study 2). Modeling of the data revealed that individuals who were internally (but not externally) motivated to respond without prejudice showed enhanced detection and reduced activation of biased associations, suggesting that these processes may be key to achieving unbiased responding.     

Maternal sensory sensitivity and response bias in detecting change in infant facial expressions: maternal self-efficacy and infant gender labeling

This study examined the role of maternal cognitive sets regarding infant gender on maternal response; participants were 69 mothers, each with a 6-month-old infant. Signal detection methodology was used to assess maternal sensory sensitivity and response bias to subtle changes in positive and negative infant facial expressions as a function of maternal self-efficacy, operationalized by low, moderate, and high illusory control, and maternal perceptions of infant gender, experimental manipulated through labeling. For the positive expression, mothers who received the female manipulation exhibited greater sensory sensitivity and responded with a less conservative response bias compared with mothers who received the male manipulation. For the negative expression, only mothers with high illusory control were differentially sensitive to the manipulation; those who received the male manipulation exhibited less sensory sensitivity than those who received the female manipulation. Results are discussed in the context of the gendered socialization of emotion.     

Assessing underreporting response bias on the MMPI-2

The authors assess the replicability of the two-factor model of underreporting response style. They then examine the relative performance of scales measuring these styles in analog (ARD) and differential prevalence group (DPG) designs. Principal components analysis produced a two-factor structure corresponding to self-deceptive (SD) and impression management (IM) response styles. The IM factor scale and related individual validity scales were elevated among research participants instructed to fake good on the MMPI-2 as compared with participants who completed the MMPI-2 under standard instructions (ARD) and among individuals evaluated in real-life assessment contexts where underreporting is expected (DPG). Participants in DPG samples produced significantly higher SD factor and related individual scale scores than did the ARD participants instructed to fake good. These findings confirm that the MMPI-2 validity scales measure two types of underreporting styles and that these styles may operate differently in ARD versus DPG designs.     

Spatial ability and sensory interaction: Analog and propositional representation

To provide coverging support that the proper integration of analog and propositional representational systems is associated with spatial ability, visual, auditory and bimodal brain event-related potentials were recorded from 50 right-handed Caucasian males. Sensory interaction indices were derived for these Ss who had taken the Surface Development Test of spatial ability. Product-moment correlations were computed between sensory interaction indices for eight cerebral sites and spatial ability test scores. Sensory interaction for left- and right-hemispheric regions was significantly related to spatial ability. As sensory suppression lessened, spatial ability increased. The results substantiated the theory that the visual-imaginal-analog and the auditory-verbal-propositional representational systems are implicated in spatial ability. The extent to which the cortex can inhibit or attenuate the interaction or integration between these dual-symbol systems is associated with complicated spatial task performance.     

Perfectionism and efficiency: Accuracy,response bias,and invested time in proof-reading performance

Investigating problem-solving performance, Ishida, H. (2005). College students’ perfectionism and task-strategy inefficience: Why their efforts go unrewarded? Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 208–215. Found high levels of perfectionism were associated with lower efficiency. Aiming to replicate and further explore this finding, the present study investigated how two dimensions of perfectionism (high standards, discrepancy between expectations and performance) predicted efficiency in proof-reading performance. N = 96 students completed a proof-reading task involving the detection of spelling, grammar, and format errors. When error-detection performance was subjected to signal detection analysis, high standards correlated positively with the number of incorrectly detected errors (false alarms). Moreover, when task-completion time was taken into account, high standards were negatively correlated with efficiency (accuracy/time). In comparison, discrepancy correlated negatively with the number of correctly detected errors (hits) and positively with a conservative response bias. The findings show that perfectionistic standards are associated with reduced efficiency demonstrating the importance of considering invested time, errors, and response bias when investigating the relationship between perfectionism and performance.     

Lexical decision and naming asymmetries: Influence of response selection and response bias

Signal detection measures were used to evaluate the effects of several response variables (manual vs. vocal, Go-NoGo vs. Yes-No) on lexical decision asymmetries. An unvarying right visual field advantage in discriminability (d') was observed in each condition. However, response criteria (beta) varied over visual fields and conditions. Naming and lexical decision were shown to have equivalent asymmetries when the effects of response bias are removed. The results indicate that postaccess decision processes make important contributions to lexical decision asymmetries.     

The effect of response style bias on the measurement of transformational,transactional, and laissez-faire leadership

Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership are considered to be three distinct leadership styles. In this research we argue that response style behaviour in the form of acquiescence and extreme response style can distort the measurement of these dimensions of leadership. Using a sample of 864 employees selected from 135 work teams, this research demonstrates that (1) response styles affect measurement; (2) divergent validity of the three dimensions increases when response styles are taken into account; (3) gender is spuriously related to leadership upon response styles; and (4) team ratings substantially change when controlling for response styles bias. As a secondary topic of this research, we elaborate on a relatively new approach in diagnosing response styles, i.e., a confirmatory latent-class factor analysis. We explain the advantages of this approach and illustrate the steps a researcher has to take in conducting this type of analysis.