Time to decide? Simplicity and congruity in comparative judgment

Frosch, C. A., McCloy, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2333-9640, Beaman, C. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5124-242X and Goddard, K. (2015) Time to decide? Simplicity and congruity in comparative judgment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 4 (1). pp. 42-54. ISSN 0278-7393 doi: 10.1037/a0037411

Abstract/Summary

What is the relationship between magnitude judgments relying on directly available characteristics versus probabilistic cues? Question frame was manipulated in a comparative judgment task previously assumed to involve inference across a probabilistic mental model (e.g., “which city is largest” – the “larger” question – versus “which city is smallest” – the “smaller” question). Participants identified either the largest or smallest city (Experiments 1a, 2) or the richest or poorest person (Experiment 1b) in a three-alternative forced choice (3-AFC) task (Experiment 1) or 2-AFC task (Experiment 2). Response times revealed an interaction between question frame and the number of options recognized. When asked the smaller question, response times were shorter when none of the options were recognized. The opposite pattern was found when asked the larger question: response time was shorter when all options were recognized. These task-stimuli congruity results in judgment under uncertainty are consistent with, and predicted by, theories of magnitude comparison which make use of deductive inferences from declarative knowledge.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/36944
Identification Number/DOI	10.1037/a0037411
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Cognition Research (CCR)
Uncontrolled Keywords	simple heuristics; congruity effect; magnitude judgments; response times
Publisher	American Psychological Association.
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