Coauthors:
Roger Ratcliff, Northwestern University
Scott D. Gronlund, University of Oklahoma
Global memory models are evaluated by using data from recognition memory
experiments. For recognition, each of the models gives a value of
familiarity as the output from matching a test item against memory. The
experiments provide ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curves that
give information about the standard deviations of familiarity values for
old and new test items in the models. The experimental results are
consistent with normal distributions of familiarity (a prediction of the
models). However, the results also show that the new-item familiarity
standard deviation is about 0.8 that of the old-item familiarity standard
deviation and independent of the strength of the old items (under the
assumption of normality). The models are inconsistent with these results
because they predict either nearly equal old and new standard deviations
or increasing values of old standard deviation with strength. Thus, the
data provide the basis for revision of current models or development of
new models.
© 1992, American Psychological Association
Psychological Review, Vol. 99, No. 3, 518-535
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Coauthor:
John R. Anderson, Carnegie Mellon University
We analyze how subjects make causal judgments based on contingency
information in two paradigms. In the discrete paradigm, subjects are given
specific information about the frequency a, with which a purported cause
occurs with the effect; the frequency b, with which it occurs without the
effect; the frequency c, with which the effect occurs when the cause is
absent; and the frequentcy d, with which both cause and effect are absent.
Subjects respond to P1 = a/(a +b) and
P2 = c/(c+ d).
Some subjects' ratings are just a function of P1, while others
are a function of AP =
P1 -
P2. Subjects' post-experiment reports are accurate reflections
of which model they use. Combining these two types of subjects results in
data well fit by the weighted AP model (Allan, 1993). In the continuous
paradigm, subjects control the purported causes (by clicking a mouse) and
observe whether an effect occurs. Because causes and effects occur
continuously in time, it is not possible to explicitly pair causes and
effects. Rather, subjects report that they are responding to the rate at
which the effects occur when they click versus when they do not click.
Their ratings are a function of rates and not probabilities. In general,
we argue that subjects' causal ratings are judgments of the magnitude of
perceptually salient variables in the experiment.
© 1995, Psychonomic Society, Inc.
Memory & Cognition, 23(4), 510-524
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