Response modes, decision processes and decision outcomes

Until recently, research on riskless multiattribute decision making has generally ignored a distinction among response modes, i.e. the type of response required of the decision maker. This neglect persisted in spite of the results of early studies on preference reversals in gambles, which showed a distinct difference between the decision outcomes of choice and those of judgment. This article examines the effects of response modes in relation to two explanations proposed in recent response mode studies: the compatibility hypothesis and the response mode continuum. An experiment was conducted with a process tracing technique (information boards), in which 104 subjects made decisions on the quality of student papers submitted for publication. Four response modes were compared: selecting, rejecting, classifying, and ranking of alternatives. In addition, information load was manipulated. Response mode influenced both the decision process and the decision outcome. The results are interpreted as supporting the response mode continuum idea, but not the compatibility hypothesis. A classification of response modes is proposed.     

Product assortment and individual decision processes

Research presented in this article examines the impact of product assortment on individuals' decisions. Four experiments report converging evidence that the impact of assortment is moderated by the degree to which individuals have articulated attribute preferences, whereby individuals with an articulated ideal point are more likely to prefer larger assortments than individuals without articulated preferences. The data further show that choices made from large assortments are associated with more selective, alternative-based, and confirmatory processing for individuals with articulated preferences and more comprehensive, attribute-based, and comparative processing for those without articulated preferences.     

Laboratory instruments in the history of psychology

The importance of laboratory instruments as sources for the writing of the history of psychology is stressed, and illustrated through the use of examples where their study has been profitable. Most importantly, the role of the Hipp chronoscope in the reaction-time experiment is discussed, and the importance of various changes introduced into its design by James McKeen Cattell is shown. A photograph, first exhibited by the Department of Psychology of Clark University at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago is included, and further illustrates the importance of these instruments to historians.     

Dissociable learning processes in comparative psychology

Comparative and cognitive psychologists interpret performance in different ways. Animal researchers invoke a dominant construct of associative learning. Human researchers acknowledge humans’ capacity for explicit-declarative cognition. This article offers a way to bridge a divide that defeats productive cross-talk. We show that animals often challenge the associative-learning construct, and that it does not work to try to stretch the associative-learning construct to encompass these performances. This approach thins and impoverishes that important construct. We describe an alternative approach that restrains the construct of associative learning by giving it a clear operational definition. We apply this approach in several comparative domains to show that different task variants change—in concert—the level of awareness, the declarative nature of knowledge, the dimensional breadth of knowledge, and the brain systems that organize learning. These changes reveal dissociable learning processes that a unitary associative construct cannot explain but a neural-systems framework can explain. These changes define the limit of associative learning and the threshold of explicit cognition. The neural-systems framework can broaden empirical horizons in comparative psychology. It can offer animal models of explicit cognition to cognitive researchers and neuroscientists. It can offer simple behavioral paradigms for exploring explicit cognition to developmental researchers. It can enliven the synergy between human and animal research, promising a productive future for both.     

Defense mechanisms in psychology today. Further processes for adaptation

Although the concept of the defense mechanism was rejected from academic psychology for a number of years, recent empirical studies show renewed interest in defenses. Cognitive psychologists have confirmed the existence of unconscious psychological processes, a requisite for defenses. Developmental, personality, and social psychologists have all found evidence for defense mechanisms that explicate psychological functioning. The relevance of this new information for clinical practice is discussed.     

MouseTrace: A better mousetrap for catching decision processes

This paper describes MouseTrace, a computer program designed to monitor the process by which people make decisions by presenting complex choice information to subjects in the form of an alternative-by-attribute matrix. MouseTrace is a Windows-based extension of another program called MouseLab; however, MouseTrace accommodates significantly more information and allows for multiple responses, as well as multiple decision stages. It is also easier to use for both subjects and experimenters and more sophisticated in terms of its features and the data it records. These data include what information was examined, when, and in what order. This information can be used to derive a variety of cognitive process measures, including those related to search depth, sequence, and content, which in turn can be used to provide unique insights into decision-making theory, individual differences, and a variety of decision variables.     

Component processes of phased decision strategies

It is often assumed that decision makers apply mixtures of strategies including heuristic processes in complex choice tasks. In support of this assumption the component processes involved in phased strategies were investigated. Expectations for an experimental investigation were generated by simulations within the effort-quality framework. Effort-quality trade-off functions for tasks of different complexity favor compensatory dimension-based strategies for binary choice. For multialternative choice, a combination of initial dimension-based elimination procedures followed by alternative-based final processing would be expected. These expectations were tested in two experiments. While choosing between two, four, or eight alternatives, subjects could successively retrieve parts of the available information. Depending on their menu selection, either all features of one alternative were displayed together (alternative-based retrieval), or all features on one dimension were displayed together (dimension-based retrieval). Vincent averaging was used to analyze the retrieval sequences with respect to their stationarity. While the stationary sequences for binary choice are compatible with single processing strategies, non-stationarity of the sequences obtained for multialternative choice indicates the use of phased strategies. In particular, non-stationarity due to decreasing dimension-based retrievals over time suggests that subjects first applied dimensional elimination and later derived their choices by more thorough, alternative-based processing of the remaining alternatives.     

Nonrational processes in ethical decision making

Most current ethical decision-making models provide a logical and reasoned process for making ethical judgments, but these models are empirically unproven and rely upon assumptions of rational, conscious, and quasilegal reasoning. Such models predominate despite the fact that many nonrational factors influence ethical thought and behavior, including context, perceptions, relationships, emotions, and heuristics. For example, a large body of behavioral research has demonstrated the importance of automatic intuitive and affective processes in decision making and judgment. These processes profoundly affect human behavior and lead to systematic biases and departures from normative theories of rationality. Their influence represents an important but largely unrecognized component of ethical decision making. We selectively review this work; provide various illustrations; and make recommendations for scientists, trainers, and practitioners to aid them in integrating the understanding of nonrational processes with ethical decision making.     

Dynamical evolutionary psychology: individual decision rules and emergent social norms

A new theory integrating evolutionary and dynamical approaches is proposed. Following evolutionary models, psychological mechanisms are conceived as conditional decision rules designed to address fundamental problems confronted by human ancestors, with qualitatively different decision rules serving different problem domains and individual differences in decision rules as a function of adaptive and random variation. Following dynamical models, decision mechanisms within individuals are assumed to unfold in dynamic interplay with decision mechanisms of others in social networks. Decision mechanisms in different domains have different dynamic outcomes and lead to different sociospatial geometries. Three series of simulations examining trade-offs in cooperation and mating decisions illustratehow individual decision mechanisms and group dynamics mutually constrain one another, and offer insights about gene-culture interactions.     

Recognition and source memory as multivariate decision processes

Recognition memory, source memory, and exclusion performance are three important domains of study in memory, each with its own findings, its specific theoretical developments, and its separate research literature. It is proposed here that results from all three domains can be treated with a single analytic model. This article shows how to generate a comprehensive memory representation based on multidimensional signal detection theory and how to make predictions for each of these paradigms using decision axes drawn through the space. The detection model is simpler than the comparable multinomial model, it is more easily generalizable, and it does not make threshold assumptions. An experiment using the same memory set for all three tasks demonstrates the analysis and tests the model. The results show that some seemingly complex relations between the paradigms derive from an underlying simplicity of structure.