The direct measurement of hypothesis-sampling strategies

Millward, Richard B.; Spoehr, Kathryn T.

doi:10.1016/0010-0285(73)90002-9

Cited by 27 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Specifically, we consider a model based on sequential hypothesis testing that is representative of a large body of work on mle leaming (Gregg & Simon, 1967;Millward & Spoehr, 1973;Nosofsky & Palmeri, 1998;Trabasso & Bower, 1968), The model makes two key assumptions that differ from the Bayesian model. First, rather than consider all possible category boundaries between "skip" and "sink," it assumes that the leamer considers only a single hypothesis on each trial.…”

Section: Sequential Hypothesis Testing and The Hypothesisdependent Samentioning

confidence: 99%

Is it better to select or to receive? Learning via active and passive hypothesis testing.

Markant¹,

Gureckis²

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

131

182

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People can test hypotheses through either selection or reception. In a selection task, the learner actively chooses observations to test his or her beliefs, whereas in reception tasks data are passively encountered. People routinely use both forms of testing in everyday life, but the critical psychological differences between selection and reception learning remain poorly understood. One hypothesis is that selection learning improves learning performance by enhancing generic cognitive processes related to motivation, attention, and engagement. Alternatively, we suggest that differences between these 2 learning modes derives from a hypothesis-dependent sampling bias that is introduced when a person collects data to test his or her own individual hypothesis. Drawing on influential models of sequential hypothesis-testing behavior, we show that such a bias (a) can lead to the collection of data that facilitates learning compared with reception learning and (b) can be more effective than observing the selections of another person. We then report a novel experiment based on a popular category learning paradigm that compares reception and selection learning. We additionally compare selection learners to a set of "yoked" participants who viewed the exact same sequence of observations under reception conditions. The results revealed systematic differences in performance that depended on the learner's role in collecting information and the abstract structure of the problem.

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Section: Sequential Hypothesis Testing and The Hypothesisdependent Samentioning

confidence: 99%

Is it better to select or to receive? Learning via active and passive hypothesis testing.

Markant¹,

Gureckis²

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

131

182

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“…Many of the difficulties encountered in rule discovery tasks appear to stem from selective hypothesis testing. Studies of concept identification show that, rather than starting with a set of alternative hypotheses in mind that are gradually eliminated trial by trial, subjects typically adopt a win-stay/lose-shift strategy in which they continue to use a reinforced hypothesis until it is no longer reinforced (Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1956;Levine, 1966Levine, , 1970Millward & Spoehr, 1973;Restle, 1962;Trabasso & Bower, 1968). Often, little consideration is given to alternative hypotheses in the testing ofa focal hypothesis.…”

Section: Rule Discoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

Selective hypothesis testing

Sanbonmatsu

Posavac

Kardes

et al. 1998

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

134

121

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A diverse set of biases that have been found to characterize judgment may be similarly mediated by a process ofselective hypothesis testing. Our paper begins with a definition ofselective hypothesis testing and an explanation of how and when this process leads to error. We then review a diverse and often disconnected set of fmdings in the person perception, judgment, cognition, attitudes, attribution, and rule discovery literatures that can be explained by this process, Finally, we examine the question of why the selective testing of hypotheses occurs. Although the psychological literature suggests that selective hypothesis testing contributes to a variety of errors, in many contexts it may be a useful and efficient strategy that leads to satisfactory judgment.

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“…Second, focusing requires considerable cognitive effort to design an efficient sequence of tests and considerable memory demands to keep track of eliminated sets of hypotheses. Subjects sometimes do eliminate more than one hypothesis at a time, but considering the mental effort and memory capacity required by the normative strategy, it is not surprising that a basic +test heuristic predominates instead (Levine, 1966(Levine, , 1970Millward & Spoehr, 1973;Taplin, 1975).…”

Section: Concept Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confirmation, disconfirmation, and information in hypothesis testing.

Klayman¹,

Ha²

1987

Psychological Review

1,870

1,334

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Strategies for hypothesis testing in scientific investigation and everyday reasoning have interested both psychologists and philosophers. A number of these scholars stress the importance of disconnrmation in reasoning and suggest that people are instead prone to a general deleterious "confirmation bias." In particular, it is suggested that people tend to test those cases that have the best chance of verifying current beliefs rather than those that have the best chance of falsifying them. We show, howevei; that many phenomena labeled "confirmation bias" are better understood in terms of a general positive test strategy. With this strategy, there is a tendency to test cases that are expected (or known) to have the property of interest rather than those expected (or known) to lack that property. This strategy is not equivalent to confirmation bias in the first sense; we show that the positive test strategy can be a very good heuristic for determining the truth or falsity of a hypothesis under realistic conditions. It can, however, lead to systematic errors or inefficiencies. The appropriateness of human hypothesis-testing strategies and prescriptions about optimal strategies must be understood in terms of the interaction between the strategy and the task at hand.

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The direct measurement of hypothesis-sampling strategies

Cited by 27 publications

References 10 publications

Is it better to select or to receive? Learning via active and passive hypothesis testing.

Is it better to select or to receive? Learning via active and passive hypothesis testing.

Selective hypothesis testing

Confirmation, disconfirmation, and information in hypothesis testing.

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