Effects of instruction presentation mode in comparative judgments

Shaki, Samuel; Leth‐Steensen, Craig; Petrusic, William M.

doi:10.3758/bf03193398

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The present findings converge nicely with work reported in Shaki, Leth-Steensen, and Petrusic (2006). Those researchers showed, in each of two experiments requiring symbolic comparisons of animal size, that SCEs were enhanced when the instructions varied randomly from trial to trial, as compared with when they were kept constant over a block of trials.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Remembered instructions with symbolic and perceptual comparisons

Petrusic

Shaki

Leth‐Steensen

2008

Perception & Psychophysics

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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.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Remembered instructions with symbolic and perceptual comparisons

Petrusic

Shaki

Leth‐Steensen

2008

Perception & Psychophysics

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“…Finally, the model predicts that the magnitude of the congruity effect will be independent of factors that influence decision difficulty (Banks et al, 1975). However, there is considerable evidence that the magnitude of the congruity effect in fact varies systematically with decision difficulty (Petrusic, 1992;Petrusic & Baranski, 1989;Shaki, Leth-Steensen, & Petrusic, 2006). …”

Section: Alternative Models Of Symbolic Magnitude Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 97%

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Chen

Holyoak

2014

Cognitive Psychology

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a b s t r a c tHumans 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.

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“…In contrast to the representational overlap view, others have stressed the role of response-related processes for the comparison distance effect (e.g., Banks, 1977;Holyoak & Patterson, 1981;Shaki, Leth-Steensen, & Petrusic, 2006). Recent implementations of this idea appear in neural network models of number processing (Verguts, Fias, & Stevens, 2005) and of order processing more generally (Leth-Steensen & Marley, 2000).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissecting the symbolic distance effect: Comparison and priming effects in numerical and nonnumerical orders

Opstal

Gevers

Moor

et al. 2008

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

163

150

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When participants are asked to compare two stimuli, responses are slower for stimuli close to each other on the relevant dimension than for stimuli further apart. Previously, it has been proposed that this comparison distance effect originates from overlap in the representation of the stimuli. This idea is generally accepted in numerical cognition, where it is assumed that representational overlap of numbers on a mental number line accounts for the effect (e.g., Cohen Kadosh et al., 2005). In contrast, others have emphasized the role of response-related processes to explain the comparison distance effect (e.g., Banks, 1977). In the present study, numbers and letters are used to show that the comparison distance effect can be dissociated from a more direct behavioral signature of representational overlap, the priming distance effect. The implication is that a comparison distance effect does not imply representational overlap. An interpretation is given in terms of a recently proposed model of quantity comparison (Verguts, Fias, & Stevens, 2005).

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Effects of instruction presentation mode in comparative judgments

Cited by 15 publications

References 38 publications

Remembered instructions with symbolic and perceptual comparisons

Remembered instructions with symbolic and perceptual comparisons

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Dissecting the symbolic distance effect: Comparison and priming effects in numerical and nonnumerical orders

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