Approaches to Statutory Interpretation and Legislative History in France

The study investigated potential effects of the presentation order of numeric information on retrospective subjective judgments of descriptive statistics of this information. The studies were theoretically motivated by the assumption in the naive sampling model of independence between temporal encoding order of data in long-term memory and retrieval probability (i.e. as implied by a "random sampling'' from memory metaphor). In Experiment 1, participants experienced Arabic numbers that varied in distribution shape/variability between the first and the second half of the information sequence. Results showed no effects of order on judgments of mean, variability or distribution shape. To strengthen the interpretation of these results, Experiment 2 used a repeated judgment procedure, with an initial judgment occurring prior to the change in distribution shape of the information half-way through data presentation. The results of Experiment 2 were in line with those from Experiment 1, and in addition showed that the act of making explicit judgments did not impair accuracy of later judgments, as would be suggested by an anchoring and insufficient adjustment strategy. Overall, the results indicated that participants were very responsive to the properties of the data while at the same time being more or less immune to order effects. The results were interpreted as being in line with the naive sampling models in which values are stored as exemplars and sampled randomly from long-term memory

Mirroring the Inverse Base-Rate Effect: The Novel Symptom Phenomenon

The elimination model is proposed as an account of the inverse base-rate effect (D. L. Medin & S. M. Edelson, 1988). A key-assumption is that participants sometimes rely on eliminative inference to decide among candidate categories. A new prediction is that there will be an inverse base-rate effect also for an entirely novel symptom presented in the transfer phase—a prediction that contrasts with that by ADIT (J. K. Kruschke, 1996). This was tested and confirmed in 2 experiments

Are all Data Created Equal? : Exploring Some Boundary Conditions for a Lazy Intuitive Statistician

The study investigated potential effects of the presentation order of numeric information on retrospective subjective judgments of descriptive statistics of this information. The studies were theoretically motivated by the assumption in the naive sampling model of independence between temporal encoding order of data in long-term memory and retrieval probability (i.e. as implied by a "random sampling'' from memory metaphor). In Experiment 1, participants experienced Arabic numbers that varied in distribution shape/variability between the first and the second half of the information sequence. Results showed no effects of order on judgments of mean, variability or distribution shape. To strengthen the interpretation of these results, Experiment 2 used a repeated judgment procedure, with an initial judgment occurring prior to the change in distribution shape of the information half-way through data presentation. The results of Experiment 2 were in line with those from Experiment 1, and in addition showed that the act of making explicit judgments did not impair accuracy of later judgments, as would be suggested by an anchoring and insufficient adjustment strategy. Overall, the results indicated that participants were very responsive to the properties of the data while at the same time being more or less immune to order effects. The results were interpreted as being in line with the naive sampling models in which values are stored as exemplars and sampled randomly from long-term memory

Attentional bias induced by stimulus control (ABC) impairs measures of the approximate number system

Pervasive congruency effects characterize approximate number discrimination tasks. Performance is better on congruent (the more numerous stimulus consists of objects of larger size that occupy a larger area) than on incongruent (where the opposite holds) items. The congruency effects typically occur when controlling for nonnumeric variables such as cumulative area. Furthermore, only performance on incongruent stimuli seems to predict math abilities. Here, we present evidence for an attentional-bias induced by stimulus control (ABC) where preattentive features such as item size reflexively influence decisions, which can explain these congruency effects. In three experiments, we tested predictions derived from the ABC. In Experiment 1, as predicted, we found that manipulation of size introduced congruency effects and eliminated the correlation with math ability for congruent items. However, performance on incongruent items and neutral, nonmanipulated items were still predictive of math ability. A negative correlation between performance on congruent and incongruent items even indicated that they measure different underlying constructs. Experiment 2 demonstrated, in line with the ABC account, that increasing presentation time reduced congruency effects. By directly measuring overt attention using eye-tracking, Experiment 3 revealed that people direct their first gaze toward the array with items of larger individual size, biasing them towards these arrays. The ABC explains why the relation between performance on approximate number discrimination tasks and math achievement has been fragile and suggests that stimulus control manipulations have contaminated the results. We discuss the importance of using stimuli that are representative of the environment