Norman H. Anderson

Effects of concomitant verbal recall on order effects in personality impression formation

Summary In two experiments, S s were read sets of 6 or 8 personality adjectives, and asked to rate their liking of the person so described. In some conditions, S was also requested to recall the adjectives just read. The personality impression data showed a primacy (first impression) effect when recall was not required. Introduction of recall reduced the primacy and, in one condition, caused a recency effect. These results were interpreted as indicating that the primacy was primarily caused by decreased attention to the later adjectives, and that the use of concomitant recall destroyed this primacy by causing S to attend to the later adjectives more completely. The serial recall curves showed a small to moderate primacy component, and a very strong recency component. Further detailed analyses of the recall data were also given. Two implications were drawn from the data. First, it was concluded that the impression memory is distinct from the verbal memory for the adjectives. This conclusion was based on contrasts between the observed impression effects and those that would be expected if the impression depended on the verbal memory. Three objections to this conclusion, based on the possibility that recall probability was an inappropriate index of verbal-memory strength, were also discussed. Second, it was tentatively suggested that a linear model, together with the attention decrement notion, gave the best account of the data. It was finally noted that the linear model also provides a representation of the impression memory that is in harmony with the first conclusion.

Cognitive Algebra: Integration Theory Applied to Social Attribution1

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the theoretical overview of cognitive algebra. It considers some of the interrelations between attribution theory and theory of information integration. Both integration theory and attribution theory have been much concerned with person perception, but there has been little interaction between them. One reason has been their orientation toward different aspects of the judgment process. Attribution theory has been concerned primarily with questions of valuation, and integration itself has received little attention. In contrast, the first concern of integration theory is how information is combined or integrated. Three main types of algebraic models have been used in the study of information integration: adding, averaging, and multiplying models. The chapter explores a few relevant results of these models. In certain experiments, a stimulus person is portrayed subject to two or more forces. These forces may be internal or external, and they may be parallel or opposed in direction. The judgments required of the subject typically involve the mediation of a force model imputed by the subject to account for the behavior of the stimulus person.

Application of an Additive Model to Impression Formation.

A simple mathematical model, based on the hypothesis that the psychological process underlying behavior is additive, was applied to the data of an experiment on the formation of personality impressions. Of 12 subjects, only three made responses which deviated by statistically significant amounts from responses predicted from the additive model, and these discrepancies were relatively small.

Cross-task validation of functional measurement

Ss judged average heaviness of two unseen lifted weights on a 20-step rating scale. They also rated heaviness of a single visible object of variable size and weight. The data for each task obeyed the parallelism prediction of the linear integration model. This within-task consistency validates jointly the model and the response scale. Functional measurement procedure yielded independent scales of subjective heaviness from each task. These were linearly related, a criterion of external consistency. The plot of subjective heaviness against objective weight was slightly negatively accelerated. These results disagree with those that have been obtained with magnitude estimation. Since the rating data satisfy both internal and external consistency, they constitute the true measure of sensation. Magnitude estimation, in contrast, must be biased and invalid.

Averaging model applied to the size-weight illusion

A theoretical model was given for the size-weight illusion based on a principle of information integration. Judged heaviness of lifted weights was assumed to be an average of two pieces of information, weight and size, with the latter receiving negative weighting in the model formulation. Two experiments based on a Weight by Size design gave fair support to the parallelism prediction of the integration model. The hypothesis that Ss were really judging density was shown to imply a divergence prediction, contrary to the data. The theoretical analysis was generalized to include negative, positive, and comparative illusions; these were differentiated according to whether the contextual information was integrated with negative weighting, positive weighting, or served as a yardstick of judgment.

Combining Visual And Verbal Information In An Impression-formation Task

40 FEMALE STUDENTS RATED MALES USING A PHOTOGRAPH AND 2 PERSONALITY-TRAIT ADJECTIVES IN TERMS OF DESIRABILITY AS A DATE, TO TEST INTEGRATION OF THESE 3 PIECES OF INFORMATION TO FORM THE OVERALL IMPRESSION. RESULTS SUPPORTED THE HYPOTHESIS THAT THE 2 ADJECTIVES WERE SIMPLY AVERAGED TOGETHER, BUT THERE WAS A STRONG INTERACTION BETWEEN ADJECTIVES AND PHOTOGRAPH. THE ADJECTIVES HAD LESS EFFECT IN THE CONTEXT OF LESS DESIRABLE PHOTOGRAPHS, WHICH WORKED AS A DISCOUNTING EFFECT. IT WAS NOTED THAT THE AVERAGING MODEL WOULD BE CONSISTENT WITH THE INTERACTION IF DISCOUNTING PRODUCED LOWER VALUES OF THE WEIGHT PARAMETERS OF THE ADJECTIVES. THE AVERAGING FORMULATION WAS ALSO CONSISTENT WITH THE COMPARISONS BETWEEN RATINGS OF PHOTOGRAPHS ALONE AND PHOTOGRAPHS PLUS ADJECTIVES. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

An information integration approach to phenomenal causality

Phenomenal causality was studied by using Michottes launch event, in which successive motion of two objects evokes an immediate perception that the first motion causes the second. Information integration theory was used to address the complementary issues of invariant perceptual structure and individual differences in phenomenal causality. Three informational cues were varied conjointly: temporal and spatial contiguity of the two motions, and the ratio of their speeds. The dependent measure was a judgment of degree of causality or naturalness. The results showed that individual differences were related to these instruction conditions; the subjects showed five distinctive response patterns. Two were the modal patterns elicited by the instructions, and the others fell in between. The averaging model gave a good account of the data, with meaningful parameter estimates. Individual differences were localized in cueevaluation, whereas theirintegration into a unified judgment followed an invariant averaging rule. The results allow some reconciliation between Michotte and his critics.

Bisection of loudness

In a loudness bisection task, subjects varied one sound to lie halfway between two given sounds in terms of loudness. The two given sounds were varied from 30 to 90 dB in a 4 by 9 factorial design. Functional measurement methods based on monotone analysis provided good support for the bisection model, and yielded a loudness scale with an exponent of about .3, except for a falloff at lower intensities. Two other tasks, judging average loudness and difference in loudness of the two given sounds, yielded mixed results. In Experiment 2, in particular, the differencing judgments were not additive, even under monotone transformation. These analyses also indicated that previous applications of monotone analysis have typically lacked adequate power to allow any conclusion about the operative model. Overall, the present bisection scale agrees with Garner’s lambda scale, and the present theoretical approach agrees with that of Garner in its emphasis on algebraic models as a foundation for psychological measurement.

Note on functional measurement and data analysis

The guiding idea of functional measurement is that measurement theory and substantive theory form an organic unity. Psychological scales are inherent in the statement of quantitative psychological laws, and these laws themselves form the base and frame for psychological measurement. Valid scales thus depend on empirically valid laws. But establishing empirical validity of any law requires appropriate data analysis. Several statistical problems are discussed with respect to simple algebraic laws. To illustrate the necessity for proper tests of goodness of fit for algebraic models, five sets of experimental data are reanalyzed. In each case, the factorial plot and the analysis of variance showed that the data were nonadditive. Nevertheless, an additive model was fit to the data. The correlations between the data and the predictions from the additive model were extremely high, ranging from .964 to .9997. The corresponding observed-predicted scatterplots also gave little sign of the deviations from additivity. These correlation-scatterplot analyses conceal and obscure what the factorial plot and the analysis of variance reveal and make clear. Other topics discussed are accepting and rejecting the null hypothesis, the use of nonmetric smoothing for parameter estimation, and problems of stimulus-response-model generality. An extension of functional measurement is suggested for a practicable error theory for nonmetric analysis.

Component ratings in impression formation

Given three traits that described a person, Ss judged the person and then the traits. Ratings of each trait were displaced towards the other traits. An averaging model gave a reasonably good account of this positive context effect. An interpretation in terms of change in meaning was also noted.