Categorization processes in mental comparisons.

Abstract

Five experiments explore categorization and category-based congruity effects in mental comparisons. The first 4 experiments concentrate on categorization of infinite-set small items. The experiments vary the additional items presented and whether those items appear once (Experiments 1-2) or repeatedly (Experiments 3-4). Additional items include other small items (Experiment 1), relatively large items (Experiments 2-4), and items involving nonsize dimensions (Experiment 4). The critical small items show a complete congruity effect only in Experiments 1 and 3. Results suggest that categorization of infinite-set items may be based on range information alone (Experiment 1) but that multiple categorizations based on multiple ranges (Experiment 2) may require attentional effort. Results implicate categorization as a central process in mental comparison, despite differences in ease of categorization across paradigm.

Revisiting the picture-superiority effect in symbolic comparisons: Do pictures provide privileged access?

“…As mentioned earlier, one possibility is that salient near comparisons may have reflected extreme positions on the target dimension, whereas nonsalient near comparisons reflected more intermediate positions on the dimension. As mentioned earlier, extreme pairs tend to be responded to more quickly than intermediate pairs (Čech & Shoben, 2001; Moyer & Dumais, 1978; Shoben & Wilson, 1998). Thus, the interaction revealed in Experiments 1 and 3A might have been due to salient near pairs being facilitated because they fell at the extreme of their dimensions (cf.…”

“…Put another way, salient concrete attributes reduced the standard distance effect. It is important to note that this effect was obtained even when comparison magnitude was controlled, and thus the potential influence of a differential serial position effect (see Čech & Shoben, 2001; Shoben & Wilson, 1998) on the response latencies was removed. The other important finding is that a picture-superiority effect was again not evident.…”

“…2We chose animals as our semantic category because calibration of their concrete and abstract attributes is readily available in the symbolic-comparison literature (Čech & Shoben, 2001; Holyoak & Mah, 1981; Marschark, 1983; Paivio & Marschark, 1980; Shoben & Wilson, 1998). Moreover, concrete-abstract attribute calibration is not readily available (or even possible) for other categories such as furniture, tools, food, and so forth.…”

Judgments of alphabetical order and mechanisms of congruity effects.

“…Memory researchers interested in the JOR procedure have made little contact with a closely related paradigm, comparative judgment, which typically examines comparisons of perceptual judgments of physical magnitudes, such as luminance levels (Cattell, 1902), pitch (Audley & Wallis, 1964; Banks & Root, 1979), size and weight (Masin, 1995; Paivio, 1975). This approach was later extended to the symbolic domain, including judgments of size, such as the concept of an elephant versus a mouse (e.g., Banks et al, 1983; Cech & Shoben, 2001), and subjective dimensions like preferences (Birnbaum & Jou, 1990), relative age (Ellis, 1972), probability of events (Marks, 1972) and demographic knowledge (Schweickart & Brown, 2013).…”