Different answers to different audiences: effects of social context on the accuracy-informativeness trade-off

Abstract

Research on conversational exchanges shows that people attempt to optimise their responses' relevance when they definitely know the correct answer (e.g., "What time is it?"). However, such certainty is often unavailable while speakers may still be under social pressure to provide an answer. We investigated how social context influences the informativeness level when answering questions under uncertainty. In three experiments, participants answered difficult general-knowledge questions placed in different social contexts (formal vs. informal). Participants generated their answers, then they were presented with a given context, and decided on the number of alternative responses they wanted to provide (single, with one alternative vs. plural, with several alternatives) and whether the answer should be reported or withheld (report option). Participants reported more answers in the informal context. In the formal context, single answers were preferred, and they were more frequently reported. We conclude that social context influences the level of informativeness in a conversation, affecting achievable accuracy. Our results also show the joint influence of the confidence and the social context on willingness to share information.

Considering the native land of witnesses

“…Hence, for individuals from individualistic cultures, the motivation to be self-expressive is likely to be high in a more formal context. That speculation is in line with previous research showing that in formal settings, individuals are more likely to provide more useful information than in informal settings (Martín-Luengo, Shtyrov, Luna, & Myachykov, 2018). Thus, because reporting to police assumes a formal setting, we speculate this may have facilitated detailed reporting more than an informal scenario such as reporting to a friend, for mock witnesses from the low PD (individualistic) cultural group.…”

Deliberative process in sharing information with different audiences: Eye-tracking correlates

“…In relation to the type of answer requested, we implemented in one step (see Figure 1) the combination of the plurality option (Luna, et al, 2011) along with the report option (Koriat & Goldsmith, 1994), and only the eye-tracking measures during the selection of these combined answers were the object of our analysis. Both plurality and report options are procedures used to study the informativeness-accuracy trade-off in memory reporting (Luna & Martín-Luengo, 2017;Martín-Luengo et al, 2018;Martín-Luengo et al, 2021). In case of the plurality option, participants are first requested to select or provide one candidate answer (i.e., single answer) and then to add more alternatives conforming to the plural answer.…”

“…As a result, it is important to investigate the processes associated with the communicational exchanges in order to gain a better understanding of how human relationships are shaped. These processes include the decisions we make about the information we want to share with others, and these decisions strongly depend on who our interlocutors may be (Ackerman & Goldsmith, 2008;Martín-Luengo, et al, 2021;Martín-Luengo, et al, 2018). Recent advances in technology allow us to obtain unbiased measures helping us understand the cognitive processes underlying these behaviours.…”

Russian Norms for 500 General-Knowledge Questions

“…Because the accuracy can vary depending on the alternatives included, it is not an easy task to adequately transform a free recall task to multiple-choice questions, while the other way around is easier. Moreover, multiple-choice questions are widely used in experimental, clinical, and neuroscience research (Luna et al, 2011 ; Arnold et al, 2013 ; Higham, 2013 ; Chua et al, 2017 ; Griffiths and Higham, 2018 ; Mangels et al, 2018 ; Martín-Luengo et al, 2018 ; Navajas et al, 2018 ; Williams et al, 2018 ; Coane and Umanath, 2019 ). Therefore, we decided to validate multiple-choice questions and provide the percentage of each alternative selected along with their corresponding confidence ratings.…”