Spatial working memory capacity predicts bias in estimates of location.

Crawford, L. Elizabeth; Landy, David; Salthouse, Timothy A.

doi:10.1037/xlm0000228

Cited by 24 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…We did so by testing the degree to which individual estimates violated the predictions of the CAM in the sense that it is fundamentally a description of a mechanism that creates central tendency effects. Consistent with previous findings (Barth et al, 2015), participants' estimates were difficult to reconcile with the idea of a central tendency mechanism: numerous estimates were biased away from the predicted directions (see also Crawford, Landy, & Salthouse, 2016). This was true at the individual level -in some cases, nearly all estimates were displaced in the "wrong" direction) -and was also visible at the group median level.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

“…In some tasks, patterns of spatial bias are directed away from category centers or prototypes in a manner that appears inconsistent with the category adjustment model. These findings may be most visible at the more rarely examined individual level, but in some cases this pattern is clear in group data as well (Barth et al, 2015;Crawford, Landy, & Presson, 2014; see also Crawford & Duffy, 2010;Crawford, Landy, & Salthouse, 2016;Sampaio & Wang, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

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What Do Biased Estimates Tell Us about Cognitive Processing? Spatial Judgments as Proportion Estimation

Zax

Williams

Patalano

et al. 2019

Journal of Cognition and Development

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

What Do Biased Estimates Tell Us about Cognitive Processing? Spatial Judgments as Proportion Estimation

Zax

Williams

Patalano

et al. 2019

Journal of Cognition and Development

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“…In Duffy and Crawford (2008), the prior appeared to give more weight to stimuli presented early in the sequence. In many spatial memory tasks (e.g., Crawford, Landy, & Salthouse, 2016;Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Duncan, 1991), the priors people use have nothing to do with the stimulus distribution at all, and yet those priors still have a stronger influence under conditions that are likely to make trace memory less precise, as predicted by CAM.…”

Section: Implications For the Category Adjustment Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reply to Duffy and Smith’s (2018) reexamination

Crawford

2019

Psychon Bull Rev

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Duffy, Huttenlocher, Hedges, and Crawford (2010, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17[2], 224-230) examined whether the well-established central tendency bias in people's reproductions of stimuli reflects bias toward the mean of an entire presented distribution or bias toward only recently seen stimuli. They reported evidence that responses were biased toward the long-run mean and found no evidence that they were biased toward the most recent stimuli. Duffy and Smith (2018) reexamine the data using a different analytical strategy and argue that estimates are biased by recent stimuli rather than toward the long-run mean. I argue that this reanalysis misses a true effect of the running mean and that the data are (mostly) consistent with the claims in the original work. I suggest that these results, and many other null results presented by Duffy and Smith, do not have major theoretical significance for the category adjustment model and similar Bayesian models. (Code and data available: https://osf. io/tkqvn.) Keywords Human memory . Statistical inference . CategorizationAt issue in earlier work by Duffy, Huttenlocher, Hedges, and Crawford (2010, hereafter called DHHC) was whether the well-established central tendency bias in people's reproductions of stimuli reflects bias toward the mean of an entire distribution or bias toward recently seen stimuli. DHHC reported evidence that responses were biased toward the long-run mean rather than toward the most recent stimuli and presented these results as consistent with the category adjustment model (CAM), a Bayesian model of stimulus estimation (Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Vevea, 2000). In their reexamination, Duffy and Smith (DS; 2018) point out some flaws in the original work, apply a different analytical approach to the data, and conclude that estimates are biased toward recent stimuli rather than toward the running mean. They interpret their findings as a refutation of CAM, and of Bayesian models more generally. Here, I argue that the DS failure to detect the impact of the running mean on estimates is likely a Type II error. I also suggest that the paper overstates the theoretical significance of its findings and of the original findings reported in DHHC, and that it presents a distorted view of CAM.

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“…For instance, episodic memory favors semantic categories, resulting in false memories that capture overall meaning at the expense of the details (Brainerd, Yang, Reyna, Howe, & Mills, 2008). Memory for spatial locations is biased by structural categories carved out in space, such as the four quadrants of a computer screen (Crawford, Landy, & Salthouse, 2016;Simmering, Spencer & Schöner, 2006), and memory for stimulus attributes are biased towards the center of the category that they belong to (i.e., the central tendency bias; Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Vevea, 2000). The central tendency bias has been attributed to a Bayesian combination of an imprecise memory trace of the object combined with prior information about its category (e.g., Feldman, Griffiths, & Morgan, 2009;Hemmer & Steyvers, 2009;Huttenlocher, et al, 2000).…”

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confidence: 99%

Misremembering emotion: Inductive category effects for complex emotional stimuli

2017

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Memories of objects are biased toward what is typical of the category to which they belong. Prior research on memory for emotional facial expressions has demonstrated a bias towards an emotional expression prototype (e.g., slightly happy faces are remembered as happier). We investigate an alternate source of bias in memory for emotional expressions -the central tendency bias. The central tendency bias skews reconstruction of a memory trace towards the center of the distribution for a particular attribute. This bias has been attributed to a Bayesian combination of an imprecise memory for a particular object with prior information about its category. Until now, studies examining the central tendency bias have focused on simple stimuli. We extend this work to socially relevant, complex, emotional facial expressions. We morphed facial expressions on a continuum from sad to happy. Different ranges of emotion were used in four experiments in which participants viewed individual expressions and, after a variable delay, reproduced each face by adjusting a morph to match it. Estimates were biased toward the center of the presented stimulus range, and the bias increased at longer memory delays, consistent with the Bayesian prediction that as trace memory loses precision, category knowledge is given more weight. The central tendency effect persisted within and across emotion categories (sad, neutral, and happy). This article expands the scope of work on inductive category effects to memory for complex, emotional stimuli.

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Spatial working memory capacity predicts bias in estimates of location.

Cited by 24 publications

References 45 publications

What Do Biased Estimates Tell Us about Cognitive Processing? Spatial Judgments as Proportion Estimation

What Do Biased Estimates Tell Us about Cognitive Processing? Spatial Judgments as Proportion Estimation

Reply to Duffy and Smith’s (2018) reexamination

Misremembering emotion: Inductive category effects for complex emotional stimuli

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