Knowledge-based information acquisition: Norms and the functions of consensus information.

Mill's (1872/1973) method of difference prescribes that the lay scientist should use consensus information as a control condition for the person and distinctiveness information as a control condition for the stimulus when analyzing their causal effects on the occurrence of the target event. However, in studies of information acquisition, subjects have shown a consistent preference for distinctiveness information when answering causal questions about the person, and for consensus information when answering causal questions about the stimulus. To explain this discrepancy, we distinguish between the evaluative, contrastive, and corroborative functions of consensus and distinctiveness information. In addition, we suggest that Ss seek consensus information only if it is relevant to the question posed to them, and if they cannot supply it from their own presupposed knowledge of behavioral norms. We report 4 information acquisition experiments that provide support for our analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sampling of similar and dissimilar comparison persons and objects as a function of the generality of attribution goal.

Conducted an information-search procedure in which Ss were asked to seek information regarding persons and objects in order to validate a given person or object cause. Four hypotheses were tested: When asked to validate a person cause, Ss are more likely to select distinctiveness information than target-object consensus information. When asked to validate an object cause, Ss are more likely to select target-object consensus information than distinctiveness information. As the generality of person inference increases, progressively dissimilar object comparisons are sought. As the generality of object inference increases, progressively dissimilar person comparisons are sought. In Exp I, 26 undergraduates read attitude statements and answered judgment goals or questions about the statement's generality or object inference. 52 undergraduates in Exp II completed a similar task. The first 3 hypotheses were supported in both Exp I and Exp II, whereas the 4th hypothesis received only mixed support in Exp I and was not supported in Exp II. Unlike Exp I, Exp II did not include cues suggesting the relevant type of information to be sought. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consequences of responsiveness in dyadic interaction: Effects of probability of response and proportion of content-related responses on interpersonal attraction.

"Responsiveness" is defined in terms of 2 sequential response contingencies: (a) the probability with which each person in an interaction responds to the communicative behaviors of the other and (b) the proportion of responses that are related in content to the preceding behaviors of the other. Two experiments examined the effects of responsiveness in a verbal exchange on attraction. Under the guise of a study of the "acquaintanceship process," 176 male and female undergraduates exchanged information about themselves with another S (actually a same-sex confederate) by taking turns choosing and answering 1 of either 2 or 3 questions about themselves on each trial. For Exp I, Ss were required to answer on all trials, whereas the probability and frequency with which the confederate responded to the S were orthogonally manipulated. For Exp II, the proportion of content-related responses was varied. The confederate answered the same question as the S on either 80 or 20% of the trials. Both the probability of response and the proportion of content-related responses were positively related to (a) attraction to the confederate, (b) Ss' perceptions of the confederate's attraction to themselves, and (c) the degree to which Ss felt that they and the confederate had become acquainted with one another. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Schematic approach to the attributional processing of actions and occurrences.

Measured the time 64 undergraduates took to read and comprehend information (consensus vs distinctiveness) regarding a behavioral event (actions vs occurrences) and how long they took to answer various questions about the event. For each of 32 trials, a computer recorded Ss' event-comprehension time, information-comprehension time, and question-answering time. Results indicate that both information-comprehension and question-answering times were relatively shorter for experimental conditions involving actions/distinctiveness and occurrences/consensus. When Ss had to make inferences that were based on person attribution, question-answering times were shorter for actions; when the inferences were based on object attribution, question answering times were shorter for occurrences. Findings are consistent with the model linking actions with reasons and occurrences with causes and support the hypothesis that people develop attributional schemas of the types action–reasons–distinctiveness and occurrences–causes–consensus. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieval selectivity in memory-based impression judgments.

Judgments about others are often based on memory for information about the persons being judged. Three studies with a total of 92 undergraduates are reported that used decision time to determine what information Ss selectively recall when they make memory-based person judgments. Each study employed a sequential judgment paradigm in which an S first made an impression judgment about a person on one dimension while stimulus information was continuously available. Immediately therafter, the S made a 2nd judgment about the same person on a different dimension without the stimulus information being available. It is concluded that Ss' memory-based judgments were based on memory for their 1st impression judgments combined with a selective memory search for negative stimulus information. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading skill and memory scanning.

Four experiments using a total of 48 3rd–4th graders investigated differences between skilled and less skilled readers in the rate with which they scan memory. In each experiment, Ss read 1–3 unrelated statements, then answered a yes–no question pertaining to 1 of the statements. The primary result from Exps I and II, in which Ss read all material aloud, was that skilled readers answered questions approximately .6 sec faster than less skilled readers when reading time was partialed out. In Exp III, similar results were found for silent reading. In Exp IV, the difference in answering time found in Exps I–III was no longer significant when the scan component in answering was minimized. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal involvement and strategies for making contingency judgments: A stake in the dating game makes a difference.

Examined the relation between the degree of involvement in a task and the complexity of strategy that Ss apply to the task. 48 female university volunteers were randomly assigned to either a dating (high-involvement) condition or 1 of 2 (low-involvement) control conditions. In addition, Ss in each condition were assigned to a person information or an abstract information condition. Ss in the person information condition received information about a particular male's dating preferences; those in the high-involvement condition were told that they would date this person. All Ss then performed a covariation judgment task (involving the male's dating preferences) for which the likelihood of their using simple or complex strategies was calculated. High-involvement Ss used more complex strategies and tended to be more accurate. These data are discussed in terms of the functionality of human information processing, heuristic analyses of inference strategies, and the importance of considering level of personal involvement in analyses of task performance. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Remembering the location and content of sentences in a prose passage.

Two experiments, with 16 college students, examined how people remember the location of a sentence in a passage and how they make use of the locative information in retrieving content information. Ss read a passage and were questioned about the content or the location of certain items in the passage. Performance was measured by monitoring response latencies and eye fixations. Exp I showed that Ss barely retain or use any locative information from disorganized passages that they memorize. In contrast, Exp II showed that Ss do retain and make use of locative information for both organized and disorganized passages if the passage is in view at the time they are answering the questions. Apparently the locative information provides an index to the spatial distribution of sentences in the passage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social judgeability: The impact of meta-informational cues on the use of stereotypes.

According to a social judgeability analysis, a crucial determinant of impression formation is the extent to which people feel entitled to judge a target person. Two experiments, with a total of 113 undergraduates, tested the impact of the subjective availability of individuating information on a social judgment independent of its actual presence. In Exp 1, Ss made a stereotypical judgment when they believed individuating information was present even if no information was in fact given. In Exp 2, Ss who thought they received individuating information made more extreme and confident judgments than Ss who thought they received category information. This indicates that Ss' judgments were not simply a function of implicit demand: The illusion of receiving individuating information led Ss to believe they possessed the necessary evidence for legitimate decision making. This result supports the existence of rules in the social inference process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pictures and young children's learning from oral prose.

Reports 4 experiments examining the effects of overt illustration on 1st graders' learning from oral prose. A total of 132 Ss participated. In all experiments, Ss heard prose selections after (or during) which they illustrated selection content with plasticized figure cutouts and background scenes. Control Ss copied or colored geometric forms during the illustration period. After hearing 3 or 5 passages, Ss orally recalled passage content and answered simple factual questions about each passage. Illustration facilitated prose learning only when the S was given the correct pieces for his illustration or had the illustration done for him. When Ss selected the pieces for each illustration out of a common pool of 20-30 cutouts, illustration activity had either negative or no effect. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparative effects of adjunct postquestions and instructions on learning from text.

Two experiments investigated whether instructions to students about how and what to learn can facilitate learning as effectively as adjunct postquestions. In Exp I, 4 groups of 20 undergraduates each were tested: a read-only control group, an adjunct-question group, an instruction group, and an adjunct question plus instruction group. All groups performed significantly better than the control group on a test that required recall of verbatim factual information. Incidental questions were answered somewhat better by instruction Ss than by adjunct-question Ss. The 2nd experiment, with 87 adult males, replicated Exp I, except that the adjunct and test questions were derived by paraphrasing factual information from the text. Instructions on how to study for paraphrase test questions were developed for the instruction groups. All groups performed significantly better than the control group. When adjunct postquestions were repeated on the final test, they were answered somewhat better by the 2 adjunct question groups than by the instruction group. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overattribution and unit formation: When behavior engulfs the person.

Conducted 2 experiments with 112 undergraduates to investigate whether there may be circumstances in which observers overattribute behavior to situational causes while adjusting insufficiently for information about an actor's dispositions. Although Ss were clearly informed of the prior attitude of a target person who wrote an attitude-congruent essay under free-choice instructions, they nevertheless attributed the essay in part to essay-congruent features of the target's situation. This did not depend on whether essays were composed by experimenters or by actual undergraduate target persons, although only essay readers, not essay writers, drew such essay-congruent situational inferences. Results are consistent with an anchoring/adjustment model of sequential attributional processes. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counselor hypothesis-testing strategies.

Conducted 2 experiments relevant to the questioning strategies counselors use in testing their hypotheses about clients. In Exp I, 60 undergraduates were asked to select 12 questions from a list of 38 that would be most helpful in getting to know someone. Ss were asked to test a hypothesis that the other person was an extravert or introvert. The questions were categorized by the experimenters as extraverted, introverted, unbiased, or irrelevant. Most Ss selected a strategy that favored unbiased questions over biased ones. In Exp II, 40 Ss played the roles of clients, and 40 advanced doctoral students in counseling or clinical psychology played the roles of counselors. Counselors were advised that they would soon meet with their client to test a hypothesis that the client possessed or lacked self-control. Counselors were instructed to compose 10 questions to ask the client. The actual interviews were then recorded. The frequency with which counselors developed questions that were confirmatory, disconfirmatory, irrelevant, or unbiased in regard to the hypothesis was not influenced by the specific hypothesis. Results of both experiments do not confirm the hypothesis that counselors preferentially seek information to confirm hypotheses about clients. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive strategies and the client conceptualization process.

Used perspectives from cognitive psychology to (1) examine the manner in which 27 doctoral-level counseling psychology students formulated conceptualizations of a client and (2) describe cognitive strategies employed to accommodate additional information about, and observations of, the client over time. Ss read a brief paragraph about and viewed a 5-min videotape of a client being interviewed. Ss then answered questions about the foci for counseling this client and the questions they would ask. Convergent or divergent conceptual strategies were identified and were found to be associated significantly with Ss' amount of previous counseling experience and with the extent of their formal training. Ss with more experience showed greater early convergence. Ss' confidence in their conceptualizations was related significantly to gender and to amount of exposure to the client. Females were consistently more confident than males. Findings are discussed in terms of cognitive capabilities and of students' self-perceptions and expectations. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading both high-coherence and low-coherence texts: Effects of text sequence and prior knowledge.

Determined if (1) the advantage for the low-coherence text is due to inferences made while reading, or alternatively, due to inferences generated during testing as a result of less information being available from the low-coherence text; (2) the inferences must rely on prior knowledge, or if inferences based on the text (or recently presented information) are sufficient; and (3) reading 2 different text versions is advantageous for readers. Ss were 80 university students who were assigned to 1 of 4 conditions representing if the Ss read the high-coherence text followed by either the high- or low-coherence text, or the low-coherence text followed by either the high-or the low-coherence text. Methodology involved reading the texts, answering questions about the text, and answering prior knowledge questions. The results indicate that high-knowledge readers benefited from the low-coherence only text when it was read first. Further, low-knowledge readers benefited from the high-coherence text, regardless of whether it was read first, second, or twice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of attention in "lie-detection."

Randomly assigned 80 male college students to 1 of 4 groups. Tape-recorded instructions directed Ss in Groups 1 and 2 to evaluate a psychological case history or a newspaper story, respectively. Group 3 read about a kidnapping after being told they were participating in a lie-detection experiment and would be questioned on the material later. Group 4 was given the same information as Group 3, but was told that they should not reveal the information when questioned. Galvanic skin responses (GSRs) were measured as Ss listened to tape-recorded questions on the material read; no verbal responses were made. The E then attempted to determine "blindly" which target information S had received by examining the GSRs. The number of Ss whose given information was successfully detected was significant in Groups 2, 3, and 4. Results suggest that simply attending to or focusing upon relevant information is a sufficient condition for detectability in a lie-detection situation. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)