Attributions as inferences and explanations: Conjunction effects.

When asked to estimate the probability of an interpretation for an event, observers may either assess whether the event can give rise to the interpretation (an inference set) or assess whether the interpretation can give rise to the event (an explanation set). These two strategies may moderate the conjunction effects (Leddo, Abelson, & Gross, 1984)—attributors' tendency to assign lower probabilities to single-reason interpretations than to their conjunctions. Our two studies showed that explanation-set instructions (e.g., "assess the probability that the interpretation could be the reason for the event") produced stronger conjunction effects than inference-set instructions (e.g., "assess the probability that the interpretation could be inferred from the event"). This Set (inference or explanation)?×?Reason (multiple or single) interaction was not affected by whether the events involved voluntary or involuntary behavior or by whether they described events that happened or failed to happen. In a third study, we found that subjects in an inference set were more likely to report that they estimated probability of the interpretation (as opposed to probability of the behavior) than were subjects in an explanation set. The extent to which the explanation set may account for conjunction effects obtained in other studies was discussed. Possible implications and determinants of the inference-explanation distinction were also considered. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unintended effects of goals on unintended inferences.

Three studies, with a total of 290 undergraduates, investigated unintended effects of goals on spontaneous trait inferences (STIs). Ss read trait-implying sentences to memorize them, to analyze sentence features, or to make social judgments. Cued recall revealed unintended (spontaneous) trait and behavioral-gist inferences. They were equally frequent with all the social judgment goals and absent or infrequent with feature analysis goals. Memorizing the sentences while ignoring their meaning reduced, but did not eliminate, STIs. Goals also affected whether traits were linked directly to actors in explicit memory. Social inferences can occur without intentions or awareness, even when meanings are intentionally ignored, as incidental results of analyzing stimulus details, and as intermediate but unnoticed results of other social judgments. Goals affect these inference likelihoods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some effects of combining psychological tests on clinical inferences.

The study was designed to determine whether the reliability and validity of interpretations based on 3 frequently used psychological tests—Rorschach, TAT, MMPI—increased as a function of number of tests employed. 30 clinical psychologists completed personality questionnaires describing 5 Ss on the basis of identifying data alone, each test individually, pairs of tests, and all 3 combined. Reliability and validity did not increase as a function of number of tests, nor were there any differences between tests or pairs of tests. The validity scores for test data ranged from 66% to 73%, with a Mean of 68%. The reliability scores ranged from 56% to 72%, with a Mean of 64%. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mistaken inferences.

Responds to P. E. Nathan's (see record 1998-00122-002) comments about the Consumer Reports mental health survey. The present authors contend that Nathan's comments contain serious errors and mistaken assumptions, stemming from a misunderstanding of the incidence rates for seeking professional care among subscribers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age and the availability of inferences.

Investigated age differences in inference availability and memory using a speeded decision procedure and cued recall. Younger and older adults read passages that directly suggested either a target inference or an incorrect, competing inference before finally supporting the target inference. At critical points in a passage, Ss judged whether each of a series of words, including either the target or competing inference, was consistent with their current interpretation. Although both groups agreed on the final target inference, younger and older adults showed different patterns of inference availability and revision. Older adults showed broader and more sustained activation of alternative interpretations and also showed lower levels of inference recall. These findings are interpretable by a framework that proposes age-related breakdowns in inhibitory mechanisms that control the contents of working memory (L. Hasher and R. T. Zacks, 1988). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology and inferences about public policy.

The research literature of psychology may be brought to bear on public policy issues in three ways. First, psychology may be useful in establishing procedures for determining public policy. Second, psychology may be useful in formulating the structure for policy and its implementation. Third, the literature of psychology may be reflected in the actual content of public policy. There are many issues involved in making inferences about public policy from the psychological literature. Among these issues are the generalizability of findings from basic science and problems of overadvocacy on the part of policy consultants. Researchers expect that inferences from the psychological literature would lead to innovations in the policy, but the innovations themselves must be evaluated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's inferences with print and pictures.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a difference in children's ability to answer inferential questions from pictures, print, and print with pictures. A secondary purpose was to determine whether there is a difference between more skilled and less skilled reader's ability to answer inferential questions in the different modes. The participants in the study were 116 fifth- and sixth-grade students. The materials consisted of 15 photographs and 15 passages of 150 to 200 words. Each student participated in each condition by answering 25 inferential questions. The results indicated that the students performed significantly better in the picture-only and the print-with-picture conditions than in the print-only condition. Although the more skilled readers scored significantly better than the less skilled readers in the print-only condition, there were no differences between the two ability groups in the two picture conditions. Qualitative analyses were also conducted on the students' responses for determining possible sources of errors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinctiveness of encoding: The effects of paraphrasing and drawing inferences on memory from prose.

Examined in 2 experiments with 236 undergraduates the possibility that readers would differentially recall passage material as a result of differing levels of processing during reading. It was hypothesized that as the level of reader schema–text base interaction increased Ss would generate greater numbers of idea units and logical intrusions. Exp I varied the schema–text base interaction through tasks designed to increase interaction of Ss' existing schemata with the text material. In Exp II, an additional factor of student compliance with the tasks was examined. Results support the hypotheses and indicate that what Ss remembered from reading passages was determined by the activities they engaged in during reading. Activities requiring a restatement of the semantic base of prose resulted in high rates of idea unit recall; activities requiring the formulation of logical extensions of prose resulted in higher rates of logical intrusions in free recall. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal inferences by young children.

48 4–5 yr olds were taught to perform temporal operations with pairs of toys chosen from a set and tested with novel pairs of toys from the same set. For example, they might be taught to place Toy A through a trap door followed by Toy B, and Toy B followed by Toy C. Then they might be given the novel pair of Toys A and C to determine whether or not they make the transitive inference of placing A in the box before C. Results of 6 experiments show that Ss with little initial training made transitive temporal inferences of greater complexity than the transitive inference described above. Inferential strategies other than temporal transitivity, which were used by preoperational Ss when logical transitive inferences were impossible, were identified. These are discussed as the use of internal vs external serial boundaries. It is demonstrated how the methodology used in this study can be transformed into a test of children's linguistic competence. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity inferences from interobserver agreement.

Methods for measuring rater agreement and making inferences about the accuracy of dichotomous ratings from agreement data are described. The first section presents a probability model related to latent class analysis that is applicable when ratings are based on a discrete trait. The second section extends these methods to situations in which ratings are based on a continuous trait, using a model related to signal detection theory and item response theory. The values obtained by these methods provide either direct or upper-bounds estimates of rating accuracy, depending upon the nature of the rating process. Formulas are shown for combining the opinions of multiple raters to classify cases with greater accuracy than simple majority or unanimous opinion decision rules allow. Additional technical refinements of the probabilty modeling approach are possible, and it promises to lead to many improvements in the ways that ratings by multiple raters are analyzed and used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonconscious indirect inferences in encoding.

Indirect (transitive) inference (i.e., if A is related to B, and B is related to C, then C is related to A) is a ubiquitous component of thinking and reasoning. This research demonstrates that a mechanism at least functionally similar to drawing indirect inferences can also be observed in unintentional processes of encoding. The 2 studies followed the same design and used modified versions of procedures tested in previous research on nonconscious information processing (P. Lewicki et al, see record 1992-33878-001). In the 1st learning phase, Ss acquired an encoding algorithm relating Variables A and B. In the 2nd learning phase, Variable A was removed from the material and replaced with Variable C, allowing Ss to acquire the second encoding algorithm (relating B and C). Consistent with the original studies, Ss were not aware that there were any consistencies in the material. In the testing phase material, Variable B was removed, and Ss were asked to make intuitive judgments regarding Variable A. The data from both experiments confirmed the expectation that Ss would implicitly draw indirect inferences (A on the basis of C). This process is discussed as 1 of the mechanisms that may trigger the development of various components of procedural knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Method, theory, and drawing inferences.

Responds to the comment by T. A. Brigham (see record 1989-31532-001) criticizing the labeling of correlational studies as experiments in the article by S. J. Lynn and J. W. Rhue (see record 1988-15963-001). The present author considers the labeling question less critical and differs from Brigham on the issue of methods and inferences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transitive inferences from narrative relations.

Inferences drawn while reading artificial set inclusion passages tend to be different than those made when reasoning with categorical syllogisms and linear orderings even though all 3 describe transitive relations. The present study tests the hypothesis that this disparity results from reasoners' perceptions of the commonality among category terms. In 3 experiments, students were given artificial set inclusion paragraphs that either contained convergent category terms that possess a common superordinate, similar to what is found in syllogistic reasoning (e.g., R. Revlin et al; see record 1979-22790-001), or they were given divergent category terms that do not possess a common superordinate (similar to R. A. Griggs; see record 1977-11973-001). The perceived commonality among the category terms affected the interpretations of the narrative relations and determined the pattern of inferences that students were willing to draw. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critical inferences and the multidimensionality of feedback.

Used an information-processing model to study the critical inferences involved in evaluating the usefulness of job performance feedback. 20 undergraduates were asked to imagine themselves in a variety of job situations in which they received different types of feedback and to evaluate its usefulness. Findings indicate that a multidimensional model was required to represent the evaluation process and that individuals differed both in terms of the feedback dimensions they attended to and the importance they ascribed to each dimension. Results are discussed in terms of feedback's potential effect on behavior. It is suggested that the best strategy for providing feedback is to emphasize those dimensions that are most useful to the feedback recipient. (French abstract) (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural differences and inferences about psychological processes.

Discusses the inadequacy of experimental evidence and logical considerations in current theories of intellectual deficits caused by cultural deprivation. Reports on the presence or absence of competence have been based on noncomparable experimental situations. Deficit interpretations have assumed that absence of performance reflects absence of a particular psychological process. A strategy is proposed which combines usual experimental approaches with ethnographic methods for the study of cognitive processes. (44 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical inferences about depression and physical disability.

Individuals who are physically disabled are often expected to be depressed and to mourn their condition. It is relatively unknown, however, how these expectations influence psychologists' inferences about the emotional status of those who have a physically stigmatizing condition. Sixty-nine doctoral students in the American Psychological Association approved clinical and counseling psychology programs rated their expectations for depression in a person after viewing a videotape of the person in varied conditions of physique and affect. The results indicate that the presence of physical disability did not moderate the assessment of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Take The Best versus simultaneous feature matching: Probabilistic inferences from memory and effects of reprensentation format.

In 4 experiments, the tendency to use the simple heuristic Take The Best (TTB; G. Gigerenzer & D. Goldstein, 1996) was explored for probabilistic multiattribute inferences from memory. In a newly developed procedure, participants first learned attribute patterns that formed the basis for inferences in a second phase. A Bayesian method classified strategies as TTB, compensatory, or guessing. Experiment 1 had a high rate (64%) of participants classified as TTB users when inferences were made from memory. Experiment 2 showed that this was no mere materials effect. In Experiments 3 and 4, the authors examined effects of the representational format of the attribute information. Experiment 4 showed that the representational format may be an important moderating variable for strategy use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deductive rationality in validating and testing conditional inferences.

We asked people to validate conditional inferences (e.g., "A, therefore C" with "if A then C"). People are more likely to look for falsifications ("A and not-C") versus confirmations ("A and C") given a forced choice. Second, falsification rates are lower for logically valid versus invalid inferences. Logically valid inferences are inferences that follow necessarily. Experiment 1 (N = 96) shows that emphasising this logicality constraint increases falsification rates in the validation task and corroborates that validation-by-falsification increases logically correct inference evaluations. Experiment 2 (N = 41) corroborates the other way round that people who are more likely to make logically correct evaluations, show higher falsification performance in the validation task. The results support mental-models theory and suggest alternative theories similarly need to specify how people would go about looking for counterexamples. We proffer such a specification for two alternatives to the model theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension.

Describes a constructionist theory that accounts for the knowledge-based inferences that are constructed when readers comprehend narrative text. Readers potentially generate a rich variety of inferences when they construct a referential situation model of what the text is about. The proposed constructionist theory specifies that some, but not all, of this information is constructed under most conditions of comprehension. The distinctive assumptions of the constructionist theory embrace a principle of search (or effort) after meaning. According to this principle, readers attempt to construct a meaning representation that addresses the reader's goals, that is coherent at both local and global levels, and that explains why actions, events, and states are mentioned in the text. This study reviews empirical evidence that addresses this theory and contrasts it with alternative theoretical frameworks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)