Arndt Bröder

Decision making with the "adaptive toolbox": influence of environmental structure, intelligence, and working memory load.

In 2 experiments with a total of 220 participants, the tendency to use simple heuristics such as the take the best heuristic in an adaptive manner was investigated. In a simulated stock market paradigm, the payoff structure of environments was varied, favoring either compensatory or noncompensatory decision strategies in terms of expected long-term payoff. In both experiments, the majority of participants were classified as using strategies that were adequate for the environment, supporting the notion of adaptive strategy selection. These strategy shifts were moderated by intelligence, as measured with common tests. Neither an additional learning phase (Experiment 1) nor working memory load or working memory capacity (Experiment 2) had additional effects on strategy selection.

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.

Sequential processing of cues in Memory-based multiattribute decisions

When probabilistic inferences have to be made from cue values stored in long-term memory, many participants appear to use fast and frugal heuristics, such as “take the best” (TTB), that assume sequential search of cues. A simultaneous global matching process with cue weights that are appropriately chosen would mimic the decision outcomes, albeit assuming different cognitive processes. We present a reanalysis of response times (RTs) from five published experiments (n 5 415) and one new experiment (n 5 82) that support the assumption of sequential search. In all instances in which decision outcomes indicated the use of TTB’s decision rule, decision times increased monotonically with the number of cues that had to be searched in memory. Furthermore, RT patterns fitted the outcome-based strategy classifications, which further validates both measures.

Ein Inventar zur Erfassung von zwei Faktoren sozialer Erwünschtheit

Zusammenfassung. Vorgestellt wird die Entwicklung einer deutschsprachigen Version des “Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding“ (Paulhus, 1994), eines zweifaktoriellen Inventars zur Messung sozial erwunschter Antworttendenzen. Die aus einer empirischen Itemselektion resultierende Endfassung besteht aus zwei Skalen mit jeweils 10 Items. Sie erlauben es, zwei unterscheidbare Teilaspekte sozialer Erwunschtheit zu erfassen: Selbst- und Fremdtauschung. In drei Kreuzvalidierungsstudien zeichneten sich beide Subskalen durch befriedigende psychometrische Kennwerte, eine klare zweifaktorielle Ladungsstruktur und gute konvergente und diskriminante Validitat aus.

Variations in risk taking behavior over the menstrual cycle: An improved replication.

Evidence that women are less likely to be raped near ovulation than at other times in the ovarian cycle may reflect behavioral adaptations against the risk of fertile insemination by rapists. Chavanne and Gallup [Evol. Hum. Behav. 19 (1998) 27] proposed that women selectively reduce behaviors that expose them to a risk of rape during the ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle, and reported supportive evidence. However, their study suffered from certain methodological shortcomings. In an improved test involving 51 subjects, repeated measurement, and an explicit distinction between risky and nonrisky activities, we confirmed all predictions: During the ovulatory phase, naturally cycling women reduced risky behaviors and increased nonrisky ones. Women using contraceptives causing hormonal suppression of ovulation showed neither effect.

Test anxiety versus academic skills : A comparison of two alternative models for predicting performance in a statistics exam

BACKGROUND Two competing theoretical models to explain academic performance were proposed. The interference model stresses the detrimental effect of task-irrelevant thoughts during the test-taking situation whereas the deficit model suggests Study Habits and domain-specific skills as main predictors of test performance. AIMS The study compares the two models by determining the relative contribution of Test Anxiety, Study Habits, and Maths Skill to performance in a statistics exam. SAMPLE Sixty-six undergraduate students who were enrolled in the first semester of two parallel introductory statistic courses participated in the study. METHOD Hierarchical regression analyses were performed on the performance in the final statistics exam. The unique variance attributable to Test Anxiety, Study Habits, and Maths Skill was calculated. RESULTS Both Maths Skill and Test Anxiety added unique variance in explaining performance, whereas Study Habits did not. Although Maths Skill emerged as relatively more important than Test Anxiety, a purely deficit-based account nevertheless appears untenable because interfering effects of Test Anxiety during the examination also contributed an important portion of variance. CONCLUSIONS It is recommended that cognitive-attentional accounts stressing test anxiety be supplemented by a deficit formulation, and that multimodal counselling address both Test Anxiety and skill deficits. COMMENT Methodological problems in investigating the causal relationship between skill deficits, anxiety, and performance are discussed.

Recognition ROCs Are Curvilinear―or Are They? On Premature Arguments Against the Two-High-Threshold Model of Recognition

Recent reviews of recognition receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) claim that their curvilinear shape rules out threshold models of recognition. However, the shape of ROCs based on confidence ratings is not diagnostic to refute threshold models, whereas ROCs based on experimental bias manipulations are. Also, fitting predicted frequencies to actual data is a more sensitive method for model comparisons than ROC regressions. In a reanalysis of 59 published data sets, the 2-high-threshold model (2HTM) fit the data better than an unequal variance signal detection model in about half of the cases. Three recognition experiments with experimental bias manipulation were conducted that yielded linear ROCs and a better fit of the 2HTM in all cases. On the basis of actual data and a simulation, the authors argue that both models are at least equally valid as measurement tools and can perhaps be integrated theoretically.

Adaptive flexibility and maladaptive routines in selecting fast and frugal decision strategies.

Decision routines unburden the cognitive capacity of the decision maker. In changing environments, however, routines may become maladaptive. In 2 experiments with a hypothetical stock market game (n = 241), the authors tested whether decision routines tend to persist at the level of decision strategies rather than at the level of options in strategy selection. The payoff structure of the task was changed after 80 decision trials, rendering a new strategy optimal with respect to expected payoff. Whereas most participants detected the appropriate strategy at the beginning of the task, they tended to retain it even when it was no longer optimal. A hint about a possible change had only a small influence on this maladaptive routine; a monetary incentive had none. Switching to a similar but not identical task relaxed the routine, but not much.

Measuring source memory

Abstract. The investigation of source monitoring (SM) as a special faculty of episodic memory has gained much attention in recent years. However, several measures of source memory have been used in research practice that show empirical and theoretical shortcomings: First, they often confound various cognitive processes like source memory, item memory and response bias, and second, they do not do justice to the multitude of processes involved in SM according to the framework of Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay (1993). We therefore review model-based measurement approaches, focusing on multinomial models, and we distinguish between theorizing about source memory and the pragmatics of source memory measurement as two partly separate goals of research. Whereas signal detection models seem to be more adequate theories of the underlying source monitoring process, multinomial models have some pragmatic advantages that nevertheless recommend them as viable measurement tools.

Recognition memory models and binary-response ROCs: A comparison by minimum description length

Model comparison in recognition memory has frequently relied on receiver operating characteristics (ROC) data. We present a meta-analysis of binary-response ROC data that builds on previous such meta-analyses and extends them in several ways. Specifically, we include more data and consider a much more comprehensive set of candidate models. Moreover, we bring to bear modern developments in model selection on the current selection problem. The new methods are based on the minimum description length framework, leading to the normalized maximum likelihood (NML) index for assessing model performance, taking into account differences between the models in flexibility due to functional form. Overall, NML results for individual ROC data indicate a preference for a discrete-state model that assumes a mixture of detection and guessing states.