Overdistribution illusions: Categorical judgments produce them, confidence ratings reduce them.

Abstract

Overdistribution is a form of memory distortion in which an event is remembered as belonging to too many episodic states, states that are logically or empirically incompatible with each other. We investigated a response formatting method of suppressing two basic types of overdistribution, disjunction and conjunction illusions, which parallel some classic illusions in the judgment and decision making literature. In this method, subjects respond to memory probes by rating their confidence that test cues belong to specific episodic states (e.g., presented on List 1, presented on List 2), rather than by making the usual categorical judgments about those states. The central prediction, which was derived from the task calibration principle of fuzzy-trace theory, was that confidence ratings should reduce overdistribution by diminishing subjects’ reliance on noncompensatory gist memories. The data of three experiments agreed with that prediction. In Experiment 1, there were reliable disjunction illusions with categorical judgments but not with confidence ratings. In Experiment 2, both response formats produced reliable disjunction illusions, but those for confidence ratings were much smaller than those for categorical judgments. In Experiment 3, there were reliable conjunction illusions with categorical judgments but not with confidence ratings. Apropos of recent controversies over confidence-accuracy correlations in memory, such correlations were positive for hits, negative for correct rejections, and the two types of correlations were of equal magnitude.

Testing the foundations of signal detection theory in recognition memory.

“…However, it would be unwise to interpret our results as legitimizing the general use of confidence ratings to estimate yes-no ROCs. Our reluctance comes from the fact that confidence judgments often do not behave as expected and/or can change the phenomena being studied (see Benjamin et al, 2013;Brainerd, Nakamura, Reyna, & Holliday, 2017;Kellen & Klauer, 2015;Miyoshi, Kuwahara, & Kawaguchi, 2018). Also relevant is the way in which confidence judgments are requested (e.g., one-step versus two-step procedure; see Moran, Teodorescu, & Usher, 2015;Stephens, Dunn & Hayes, 2019).…”

Fuzzy-trace theory and false memory: Meta-analysis of conjoint recognition.

“…That change is not trivial as various authors have argued that confidence ratings alter the content of retrieved memories, relative to categorical judgments (Busey et al, 2000). For instance, Brainerd et al (2017) reported that shifting to confidence ratings suppresses false memories, relative to traditional accept-reject judgments, by simultaneously increasing verbatim retrieval and decreasing gist retrieval.…”

Consumers’ willingness to pay for plants protected by beneficial insects—Evidence from two stated-choice experiments with different subject pools

“…Inspired by experimental papers in psychology (e.g. Brainerd et al, 2017;Chu and Kita, 2011;Gray et al, 2014), we refrain from reporting only one single experiment ("business as usual" in the vast majority of experimental papers in economics). There are at least two good reasons for this procedure.…”