Decision time, subjective probability, and task difficulty

Wright, George; Ayton, Peter

doi:10.3758/bf03213487

Cited by 25 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…In addition, the results corroborate the notion that task difficulty is linearly related to reaction times. In this way, the present study complements the extensive literature on decision making and task difficulty (e.g., Wright & Ayton, 1988) with findings from a paired comparison paradigm. But the results also indicate that task difficulty should be closely scrutinized in all latency‐based measures of deviant sexual interest.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…Hypothesis 3 follows from the general finding in research on decision making that more difficult decisions require more time to be completed (e.g., Wright & Ayton, 1988). Palmer, Tepe Nasman, and Wilson (1994), for instance, found significantly slower reaction times for a match/mismatch procedure using same or different letters if the task difficulty was higher (i.e., categorical rather than physical similarity).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Judgment of age and attractiveness in a paired comparison task: Testing a picture set developed for diagnosing paedophilia

Mokros

Butz

Dombert

et al. 2011

Legal Criminol Psychol

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Purpose. The Not‐Real‐People picture set serves as stimulus material for assessing paedophilic sexual interest. The pictures were generated according to five stages of sexual maturation from infancy to adulthood. While experts seem to be able to discern between the pictures based on maturity levels for a nude variant of the stimuli, it remained unclear whether lay persons would be able to reliably distinguish between picture of clothed individuals from various maturity levels. Methods. Heterosexual university students (52 females, 50 males) participated in a paired comparison task, deciding which of the persons shown on two pictures was younger and which one was more attractive. Additionally, reaction times were recorded. Results. Both male and female judges were able to differentiate between stimuli from the opposite sex with regard to age: the perception of the stages of pubertal development conformed to a measurement on a ratio scale. Similarly, the decisions on attractiveness of the categories were in accordance with a ratio scale. Male participants favoured adolescent and adult female stimuli. Contrary to expectation, female participants did not show a preference for any single age category. Conclusions. The stimuli appear suitable for diagnostic purposes. The participants' decisions reflect the inherent maturity levels of the persons depicted. Reaction times in the paired comparison paradigm increase with task difficulty (i.e., similitude of pictures). The implications for indirect measures of sexual interest, based on reaction times, are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Judgment of age and attractiveness in a paired comparison task: Testing a picture set developed for diagnosing paedophilia

Mokros

Butz

Dombert

et al. 2011

Legal Criminol Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Our perspective is that the similar pattern of hard-easy effect in both domains is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for considering a general theoretical perspective of confidence in human judgment. However, when we add to this result the fact that the properties ofdecision times in cognitive tasks mirror those observed in sensory tasks (see, e.g., Baranski & Petrusic, 1995;Wright & Ayton, 1988), the argument should become more compelling. In particular, the latter result implicates a common decision process in sensory and cognitive tasks or, at the very least, decision processes with highly similar properties.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Realism of confidence in sensory discrimination

Baranski¹,

Petrusic

1999

Perception & Psychophysics

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Is there a common and general basis for confidence in human judgment? Recently, we found that the properties of confidence judgments in the sensory domain mirror those previously established in the cognitive domain; notably, we found underconfidence on easy sensory judgments and overconfidence on hard sensory judgments. In contrast, data from the Uppsala laboratory in Sweden suggest that sensory judgments are unique; they found a pervasive underconfidence bias, with overconfidence being evident only on very hard sensory judgments. Olsson and Winman (1996) attempted to resolve the debate on the basis of methodological issues related to features of the stimulus display in a visual discrimination task. A reanalysis of the data reported in Baranski and Petrusic (1994), together with the findings of a new experiment that controlled stimulus display characteristics, supports the position that the difference between the Canadian and the Swedish data is real and, thus, may reflect cross-national differences in confidence in sensory discrimination.We feel sure, our expectationbecomesconviction,long before we have the objective right to be anything more than moderatelyexpectant. (Titchener, 1905,pp. 53-55) Contemporary students of confidence in human judgment should find Titchener's assertion both curious and intriguing. We should find it curious because there was actually very little data at the time that bore directly on the issue of whether people are good assessors of their own judgments and capabilities. Moreover, the data that did exist-which were almost exclusively psychophysicalwere not entirely supportive of his claim. Ifanything, the available data suggested that the relation between degree of certainty and overt judgmental accuracy is largely an individual matter:

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“…According to the selfconsistency model of subjective confidence (Koriat, 2011a(Koriat, , 2011b, both confidence and response latency are based on the amount of deliberation and conflict a respondent experiences in attempting to choose the correct answer. Response latency would seem to reflect how difficult it is to reach a choice, and hence the likelihood that the choice is correct (Wright & Ayton, 1988). However, it would seem that the response latency of older children is more tuned to the intrinsic difficulty of the task than that of younger children.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response latency as a predictor of the accuracy of children's reports.

Ackerman

Koriat

2011

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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Researchers have explored various diagnostic cues to the accuracy of information provided by child eyewitnesses. Previous studies indicated that children's confidence in their reports predicts the relative accuracy of these reports, and that the confidence-accuracy relationship generally improves as children grow older. In this study, we examined the added contribution of response latency to the prediction of children's accuracy over and above that of confidence ratings. In Experiments 1 and 2, 2nd and 5th graders studied picture-event pairs and were tested using forced-choice, 2-alternative, or 5-alternative questions. In Experiment 3, children watched a slideshow depicting a story and were tested by 5-alternative questions about story details. The children indicated their confidence in each response, and response latency was measured. The results of all experiments suggested that children in both age groups relied on response latency as a cue for confidence, and this reliance contributed to the success with which they monitored the accuracy of their reports. When the test format was easy (Experiment 1), 2nd graders were as accurate as 5th graders in monitoring the accuracy of their answers, and the latency of their responses was no less predictive of accuracy. When the task was more difficult, age differences emerged. Nevertheless, in all experiments and for both age groups, response latency was found to have added value for predicting accuracy over and above that of confidence. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for predicting the accuracy of children's reports are discussed.

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Decision time, subjective probability, and task difficulty

Cited by 25 publications

References 26 publications

Judgment of age and attractiveness in a paired comparison task: Testing a picture set developed for diagnosing paedophilia

Judgment of age and attractiveness in a paired comparison task: Testing a picture set developed for diagnosing paedophilia

Realism of confidence in sensory discrimination

Response latency as a predictor of the accuracy of children's reports.

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