Reasoning about curvilinear motion: Using principles or analogy

People possess implicit theories about the motion of objects, theories that are often incorrect. When asked to predict the path of an object emerging from a curved tube, for example, people often say that the object will continue to follow a curved path. However, when solving a problem that reminds them of a familiar previous instance, people often reason by analogy to the instance. In this study, we show that a previous instance must be very superficially similar to a problem in order to be used as an analogy; otherwise, people will use their implicit theories as the basis of their reasoning.     

Adult Antisocial Behavior And Affect Regulation Among Primary Crack/Cocaine-Using Women

The relationship between deficits in affect regulation and Adult Antisocial Behavior (ASB) in primary crack/cocaine-using women was explored in a sample of 80 inner-city women. Narrative early memories were coded for two components of affect regulation, Affect Tolerance and Affect Expression, using the Epigenetic Assessment Rating Scale (EARS; Wilson, Passik, & Kuras, 1989 ). ASB was measured by the adult criteria of Antisocial Personality Disorder on the SCID-SAC ( Spitzer, Williams, Gibbon, & First, 1993 ). Analyses compared primary crack/cocaine-using women with and without ASB on the affect regulation measures. Findings using memories of primary caretakers revealed that women with ASB had significantly poorer capacity for Affect Tolerance and Affect Expression than women without ASB, suggesting that ASB is significantly associated with differences in the capacity to regulate emotional experience among primary crack/cocaine-using women.     

Type I error rates and power analyses for single-point sensitivity measures

Experiments often produce a hit rate and a false alarm rate in each of two conditions. These response rates are summarized into a single-point sensitivity measure such as d', and t tests are conducted to test for experimental effects. Using large-scale Monte Carlo simulations, we evaluate the Type I error rates and power that result from four commonly used single-point measures: d', A', percent correct, and gamma. We also test a newly proposed measure called gammaC. For all measures, we consider several ways of handling cases in which false alarm rate = 0 or hit rate = 1. The results of our simulations indicate that power is similar for these measures but that the Type I error rates are often unacceptably high. Type I errors are minimized when the selected sensitivity measure is theoretically appropriate for the data.     

Toward a complete decision model of item and source recognition

In a recognition memory test, subjects may be asked to decide whether a test item is old or new (item recognition) or to decide among alternative sources from which it might have been drawn for study (source recognition). Confidence-rating-based receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for these superficially similar tasks are quite different, leading to the inference of correspondingly different decision processes. A complete account of source and item recognition will require a single model that can be fit to the entire data set. We postulated a detection-theoretic decision space whose dimensions, in the style of Banks (2000), are item strength and the relative strengths of the two sources. A model that assumes decision boundaries of constant likelihood ratios, source guessing for unrecognized items, and nonoptimal allocation of attention can account for data from three canonical data sets without assuming any processes specifically devoted to recollection. Observed and predicted ROCs for one of these data sets are given in the article, and ROCs for the other two may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society’s Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Memory strength and the decision process in recognition memory

We investigated the role that memory strength plays in the decision process by examining the extent to which strength is used as a cue to dynamically modify recognition criteria. The study list consisted of strong and weak items, with strength a function of study duration or repetition. The recognition test list was divided into two consecutive blocks; strong items appeared in one block, weak items in the other. If the change in item strength across blocks leads to a shift in criterion, the false alarm rate should change accordingly. In four experiments, the false alarm rates did not change across blocks, even when the difference between the strong and the weak items was magnified and marked with semantic cues. However, the strength of the items in the first test block affected the false alarm rate. Thus, strength cues influence initial criterion placement but fail to induce criterion shifts following permanent and even dramatic changes in item strength. These null findings are contrasted with those in a fifth experiment, in which accuracy feedback produced dynamic criterion shifts.     

ROC curves show that the revelation effect is not a single phenomenon

The revelation effect describes the increased tendency to call itemsold when a recognition judgment is preceded by an incidental task. In theory, the effect could come about either from a more liberal response bias or from a change in underlying memory sensitivity. Using analyses of receiver-operating characteristic curves, we show that the revelation effect occurs for each of these reasons, but under different empirical conditions. A shift in response bias fully accounts for the revelation effect when revealed items are unrelated to the subsequent recognition probes. However, a change in memory sensitivity contributes to the effect when revealed items are identical to the recognition probes. Thus, the revelation effect encompasses at least two distinct phenomena.     

Measures of sensitivity based on a single hit rate and false alarm rate: the accuracy, precision, and robustness of d', Az, and A'

Signal detection theory offers several indexes of sensitivity (d', Az, and A') that are appropriate for two-choice discrimination when data consist of one hit rate and one false alarm rate per condition. These measures require simplifying assumptions about how target and lure evidence is distributed. We examine three statistical properties of these indexes: accuracy (good agreement between the parameter and the sampling distribution mean), precision (small variance of the sampling distribution), and robustness (small influence of violated assumptions on accuracy). We draw several conclusions from the results. First, a variety of parameters (sample size, degree of discriminability, and magnitude of hits and false alarms) influence statistical bias in these indexes. Comparing conditions that differ in these parameters entails discrepancies that can be reduced by increasing N. Second, unequal variance of the evidence distributions produces significant bias that cannot be reduced by increasing N-a serious drawback to the use of these sensitivity indexes when variance is unknown. Finally, their relative statistical performances suggest that Az is preferable to A'.     

Work attitudes and decisions as a function of manager age and employee age

Research has shown the importance of employee age relative to coworker age in determining attitudes, performance, and career-related opportunities. The authors used chronological and subjective measures of employee and manager age to determine whether employee age relative to the manager has an impact on these same outcome variables. One hundred eighty-five managers and 290 employees completed surveys. The strongest and most consistent age effects were observed for interactions between employee and manager chronological age. Both the magnitude and pattern of the employee-manager age interactions varied by self- and manager-rated outcome measures of work attitudes, performance and promotability assessments, and developmental experiences. Results are discussed in light of the relational demography and career timetable literatures.     

Who responds to surveys? Assessing the effects of nonresponse in cross-sectional dyadic research

The purpose of this study was to adapt Goodman and Blum's procedure for assessing the effects of nonrandom sampling in longitudinal research to a cross-sectional study of dyads. To demonstrate the impact of survey nonresponse on means, variances, and relationships between variables, data were collected from a sample of 311 recruiter-applicant pairs. Of the variables included in this investigation, only one (recruiter competence) significantly predicted the likelihood of responding. In addition, there were differences in the means and variances of respondents and nonrespondents on some of the variables included in this study. However, there were no differences in the relationships between independent and dependent variables for the respondent group compared with the entire group of respondents and nonrespondents. In sum, the results suggest that nonresponse does not bias the relationships between variables.