Pillars of Judgment:How Memory Abilities Affect Performance in Rule-Based and Exemplar-Based Judgments

Making accurate judgments is an essential skill in everyday life. Although how different memory abilities relate to categorization and judgment processes has been hotly debated, the question is far from resolved. We contribute to the solution by investigating how individual differences in memory abilities affect judgment performance in 2 tasks that induced rule-based or exemplar-based judgment strategies. In a study with 279 participants, we investigated how working memory and episodic memory affect judgment accuracy and strategy use. As predicted, participants switched strategies between tasks. Furthermore, structural equation modeling showed that the ability to solve rule-based tasks was predicted by working memory, whereas episodic memory predicted judgment accuracy in the exemplar-based task. Last, the probability of choosing an exemplar-based strategy was related to better episodic memory, but strategy selection was unrelated to working memory capacity. In sum, our results suggest that different memory abilities are essential for successfully adopting different judgment strategies

Pillars of judgment : how memory abilities, task feedback, and cognitive load guide judgment strategies

Making judgments is an essential part of everyday life and how people form a judgment has instigated a plethora of research. Research in judgment and categorization has particularly contrasted two types of judgment strategies: rule-based and similarity-based strategies. Recent research suggests that people can make use of both rule- and similaritybased strategies and frequently shift between these strategies. To select between strategies, contingency approaches propose that people trade off the strategies’ accuracy against the effort needed to execute strategy so that the selected strategy matches the demands of the task environment and the capabilities of the decision maker. This dissertation presents three papers investigating how accuracy-effort trade-offs between rule-based and similarity-based judgment strategies change strategy selection in judgment and categorization tasks. The first paper studies how reducing working memory by imposing a cognitive load may foster shifts to a less demanding similarity-based strategy and, in turn, enhances judgment performance in tasks well solved by a similarity-based strategy, but not in tasks for which rules are better suited. The second paper compares judgment strategies to strategies people apply in categorization. It shows that the same task characteristics, namely the number of cues and the functional relationship between cues and criterion, foster shifts between rulebased and similarity-based strategies in judgment and categorization. The third manuscript explores which memory abilities underlie rule-based and similarity-based judgments. Specifically, it shows that working memory predicts to a stronger degree how well people solve rule-based judgment tasks, whereas episodic memory is more closely linked to judgment performance in similarity-based tasks. Furthermore, episodic memory also predicts selecting a similarity-based strategy, but not working memory

Neural correlates of the affect heuristic during brand choice

In this working paper it is investigated how affect and cognition interact in consumer decision making. The research framework is multidisciplinary by applying a neuroscientific method to answer the question which information is processed during brand choice immediately when the decision is computed in the test person’s brain. In a neuroscientific experiment test persons perform binary decision-making tasks between different brands of the same product class. The results suggest that the presence of the respondent’s first choice brand leads to a specific modulation of the neural brain activity, which can be described as neural correlate of Slovic’s affect heuristic concept.Neuroeconomics, brand choice, cognition, affect

The Role of executive function in children\u27s source monitoring with varying retrieval strategies

Previous research on the relationship between executive function and source monitoring in young children has been inconclusive, with studies finding conflicting results about whether working memory and inhibitory control are related to source-monitoring ability. In this study, the role of working memory and inhibitory control in recognition memory and source monitoring with two different retrieval strategies were examined. Children (N = 263) aged 4–8 participated in science activities with two sources. They were later given a recognition and source-monitoring test, and completed measures of working memory and inhibitory control. During the source-monitoring test, half of the participants were asked about sources serially (one after the other) whereas the other half of the children were asked about sources in parallel (considering both sources simultaneously). Results demonstrated that working memory was a predictor of source-monitoring accuracy in both conditions, but inhibitory control was only related to source accuracy in the parallel condition. When age was controlled these relationships were no longer significant, suggesting that a more general cognitive development factor is a stronger predictor of source monitoring than executive function alone. Interestingly, the children aged 4–6 years made more accurate source decisions in the parallel condition than in the serial condition. The older children (aged 7–8) were overall more accurate than the younger children, and their accuracy did not differ as a function of interview condition. Suggestions are provided to guide further research in this area that will clarify the diverse results of previous studies examining whether executive function is a cognitive prerequisite for effective source monitoring

Implications of Cognitive Load for Hypothesis Generation and Probability Judgment

We tested the predictions of HyGene (Thomas et al., 2008) that both divided attention at encoding and judgment should affect the degree to which participants’ probability judgments violate the principle of additivity. In two experiments, we showed that divided attention during judgment leads to an increase in subadditivity, suggesting that the comparison process for probability judgments is capacity limited. Contrary to the predictions of HyGene, a third experiment revealed that divided attention during encoding leads to an increase in later probability judgment made under full attention. The effect of divided attention during encoding on judgment was completely mediated by the number of hypotheses participants generated, indicating that limitations in both encoding and recall can cascade into biases in judgments

The effect of divided attention on inadvertent plagiarism for young and older adults

Older adults inadvertently plagiarize more than young adults (McCabe, Smith, & Parks, 2007). One current explanation proposes that this effect can be understood in terms of age-related declines in working and episodic memory (McCabe et al., 2007). The current study tested this hypothesis by placing groups of young and older adult participants under divided attention while performing within the typical experimental paradigm. Results indicated that for some measures, dividing the attention of young adults equated their performance to older adults with full attention. For other measures, older adults still produced more errors. Except for false recall, regression analyses revealed that episodic and working memory accounted for age-related variance in these plagiarism errors. The current findings provide tenuous support for the McCabe et al. (2007) hypothesis and suggest other factors may be at play.M.S.Committee Chair: Smith, Anderson; Committee Member: Hertzog, Christopher; Committee Member: Rogers, Wend

The role of phonology in visual word recognition: evidence from Chinese

Posters - Letter/Word Processing V: abstract no. 5024The hypothesis of bidirectional coupling of orthography and phonology predicts that phonology plays a role in visual word recognition, as observed in the effects of feedforward and feedback spelling to sound consistency on lexical decision. However, because orthography and phonology are closely related in alphabetic languages (homophones in alphabetic languages are usually orthographically similar), it is difficult to exclude an influence of orthography on phonological effects in visual word recognition. Chinese languages contain many written homophones that are orthographically dissimilar, allowing a test of the claim that phonological effects can be independent of orthographic similarity. We report a study of visual word recognition in Chinese based on a mega-analysis of lexical decision performance with 500 characters. The results from multiple regression analyses, after controlling for orthographic frequency, stroke number, and radical frequency, showed main effects of feedforward and feedback consistency, as well as interactions between these variables and phonological frequency and number of homophones. Implications of these results for resonance models of visual word recognition are discussed.postprin

Interactive effects of orthography and semantics in Chinese picture naming

Posters - Language Production/Writing: abstract no. 4035Picture-naming performance in English and Dutch is enhanced by presentation of a word that is similar in form to the picture name. However, it is unclear whether facilitation has an orthographic or a phonological locus. We investigated the loci of the facilitation effect in Cantonese Chinese speakers by manipulating—at three SOAs (2100, 0, and 1100 msec)—semantic, orthographic, and phonological similarity. We identified an effect of orthographic facilitation that was independent of and larger than phonological facilitation across all SOAs. Semantic interference was also found at SOAs of 2100 and 0 msec. Critically, an interaction of semantics and orthography was observed at an SOA of 1100 msec. This interaction suggests that independent effects of orthographic facilitation on picture naming are located either at the level of semantic processing or at the lemma level and are not due to the activation of picture name segments at the level of phonological retrieval.postprin

The Role of Posterior Parietal Cortex in Episodic Memory Retrieval: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Studies (tDCS)

Neuroimaging studies of recognition memory have shown that greater activity in the lateral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) correlates with successful recognition in a variety of paradigms, but experimental techniques that manipulate brain activity are necessary to determine the specific contribution of the PPC in episodic memory retrieval. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive technique that can be used to manipulate cortical excitability. The collection of experiments that comprise this dissertation use tDCS to determine: 1) whether or not the lateral PPC is causally involved in episodic retrieval, and 2) whether the lateral PPC has a direct role in memory accuracy for studied information or an indirect role that can influence retrieval judgments during episodic memory retrieval. We applied tDCS during three memory paradigms that have shown correlated activity in the parietal cortex. Experiments in Chapter 1 used a false memory paradigm to test whether the parietal cortex contributes to the perceived oldness of a memory and showed increased false recognition with tDCS over the PPC compared to sham tDCS. The experiment in Chapter 2 tested whether the parietal cortex is involved in item and source accuracy and showed decreased false recognition with tDCS over the parietal cortex compared to sham tDCS. To resolve these discrepant findings, the experiment in Chapter 3 tested whether the parietal cortex is important for integration of contextual cues and mnemonic information. Results showed greater utilization of cues predicting memoranda as new with tDCS over the parietal cortex compared to sham tDCS. Overall, manipulating activity in the parietal cortex with tDCS led to alterations in memory retrieval responses compared to sham stimulation. Collectively, our results causally link the PPC to aspects of memory retrieval, and are consistent with the idea that the parietal cortex indirectly influences retrieval judgments, particularly for new items