Impression formation of tests: retrospective judgments of performance are higher when easier questions come first

Jackson, Abigail; Greene, Robert L.

doi:10.3758/s13421-014-0439-5

Cited by 20 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Jones & Oberauer, 2013); they may occur because initial information receives more rehearsal (Tan & Ward, 2008), more attention at encoding (Farrell & Lewandowsky, 2002;Page & Norris, 1998), or because initial information is more distinct in the absence of proactively interfering information (Brown et al, 2007;Henson, 1998). Importantly, primacy effects have also been reported in impression formation (Anderson & Hubert, 1963;Asch, 1946;Belmore, 1987;Dreben, Fiske, & Hastie, 1979;Jackson & Greene, 2014; also see Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992;van Overwalle & Labiouse, 2004) and long-term memory (Copeland, Radvansky, & Goodwin, 2009;Li, 2010;Nairne, 1991;Neath, 2010;Rubin, 1977). For example, when judging a person after receiving a series of descriptors, initial items have a stronger influence on the retrospective judgment than later ones (e.g., Dreben et al, 1979); when recalling a novel, the first chapters of the novel show a recall advantage (Copeland et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

He did it! She did it! No, she did not! Multiple causal explanations and the continued influence of misinformation

Ecker

Lewandowsky

Cheung

et al. 2015

Journal of Memory and Language

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a b s t r a c tTwo types of misinformation effects are discussed in the literature-the post-event misinformation effect and the continued influence effect. The former refers to the distorting memorial effects of misleading information that is presented after valid event encoding; the latter refers to information that is initially presented as true but subsequently turns out to be false and continues to affect memory and reasoning despite the correction. In two experiments, using a paradigm that merges elements from both traditions, we investigated the role of presentation order and recency when two competing causal explanations for an event are presented and one is subsequently retracted. Theoretical accounts of misinformation effects make diverging predictions regarding the roles of presentation order and recency. A recency account-derived from time-based models of memory and reading comprehension research suggesting efficient situation model updating-predicts that the more recently presented cause should have a stronger influence on memory and reasoning. By contrast, a primacy account-derived from primacy effects in impression formation and story recall as well as findings of inadequate memory updating-predicts that the initially presented cause should be dominant irrespective of temporal factors. Results indicated that (1) a cause's recency, rather than its position (i.e., whether it was presented first or last) determined the emphasis that people place on it in their later reasoning, with more recent explanations being preferred; and (2) a retraction was equally effective whether it invalidated the first or the second cause, as long as the cause's recency was held constant. This provides evidence against the primacy account and supports time-based models of memory such as temporal distinctiveness theory.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

He did it! She did it! No, she did not! Multiple causal explanations and the continued influence of misinformation

Ecker

Lewandowsky

Cheung

et al. 2015

Journal of Memory and Language

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“…1 Research in social and cognitive psychology has found a disproportionate influence of early hypotheses on final judgments. [2][3][4][5][6] This has been attributed to the working memory being less loaded at the start of a judgment task; therefore, initial information receives more attention and is better encoded. 3 Early impressions can be maintained and carried through to the final judgment via biased information search 7 and/or biased information processing.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Role of Physicians’ First Impressions in the Diagnosis of Possible Cancers without Alarm Symptoms

et al. 2016

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Background. First impressions are thought to exert a disproportionate influence on subsequent judgments; however, their role in medical diagnosis has not been systematically studied. We aimed to elicit and measure the association between first impressions and subsequent diagnoses in common presentations with subtle indications of cancer. Methods. Ninety UK family physicians conducted interactive simulated consultations online, while on the phone with a researcher. They saw 6 patient cases, 3 of which could be cancers. Each cancer case included 2 consultations, whereby each patient consulted again with nonimproving and some new symptoms. After reading an introduction (patient description and presenting problem), physicians could request more information, which the researcher displayed online. In 2 of the possible cancers, physicians thought aloud. Two raters coded independently the physicians’ first utterances (after reading the introduction but before requesting more information) as either acknowledging the possibility of cancer or not. We measured the association of these first impressions with the final diagnoses and management decisions. Results. The raters coded 297 verbalizations with high interrater agreement (Kappa = 0.89). When the possibility of cancer was initially verbalized, the odds of subsequently diagnosing it were on average 5 times higher (odds ratio 4.90 [95% CI 2.72 to 8.84], P < 0.001), while the odds of appropriate referral doubled (OR 1.98 [1.10 to 3.57], P = 0.002). The number of cancer-related questions physicians asked mediated the relationship between first impressions and subsequent diagnosis, explaining 29% of the total effect. Conclusion. We measured a strong association between family physicians’ first diagnostic impressions and subsequent diagnoses and decisions. We suggest that interventions to influence and support the diagnostic process should target its early stage of hypothesis generation.

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“…Previous research has demonstrated that starting a test with easy questions leads to more optimistic evaluations of performance after the test (Jackson & Greene, 2014;Weinstein & Roediger, 2010, 2012. The current studies were conducted to determine whether exposure to general knowledge questions in a particular difficulty order would diminish the question order bias in evaluations of test performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Effect of Question Order on Evaluations of Test Performance: Can the Bias Dissolve?

Bard

Weinstein

2017

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Question difficulty order has been shown to affect students' global postdictions of test performance. We attempted to eliminate the bias by letting participants experience the question order manipulation multiple times. In all three experiments, participants answered general knowledge questions and self-evaluated their performance. In Experiment 1, participants studied questions and answers in easy-hard or hard-easy question order prior to taking a test in the same order. In Experiment 2, participants took the same test twice in the opposite question order (easy-hard then hard-easy, or hard-easy then easy-hard). In Experiment 3, participants took two different tests in the opposite question order (easy-hard then hard-easy, or hard-easy then easy-hard). In all three experiments, we were unable to eliminate the bias, which suggests that repeated exposure is insufficient to overcome a strong initial anchor.

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Impression formation of tests: retrospective judgments of performance are higher when easier questions come first

Cited by 20 publications

References 10 publications

He did it! She did it! No, she did not! Multiple causal explanations and the continued influence of misinformation

He did it! She did it! No, she did not! Multiple causal explanations and the continued influence of misinformation

The Role of Physicians’ First Impressions in the Diagnosis of Possible Cancers without Alarm Symptoms

The Effect of Question Order on Evaluations of Test Performance: Can the Bias Dissolve?

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