The relativity of ‘absolute’ judgements

Laming, Donald

doi:10.1111/j.2044-8317.1984.tb00798.x

Cited by 184 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(27 reference statements)

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“…On the other hand, absolute accounts predict that data from experiments with unequally spaced stimuli should not be radically different from standard data. To illustrate the point, consider the relative judgment models of Laming (1984), Holland and Lockhead (1968), and Stewart et al (2005) and, for simplicity of the example, ignore sequential effects. These models depend critically on a single estimate for the difference between adjacent stimulus magnitudes.…”

Section: Methods Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The theoretical debate has progressed mainly by pairwise comparison of particular absolute and relative models-for example, Marley and Cook (1984) versus Laming (1984); Petrov and Anderson (2005) versus Stewart et al (2005); and Stewart et al (2005) versus Brown et al (2008). There have been one or two attempts at a more general comparison, but these have proven less diagnostic than was hoped (see, e.g., Brown, Marley, & Lacouture, 2007;Stewart, 2007;Stewart et al, 2005, Experiment 2).…”

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Purely relative models cannot provide a general account of absolute identification

Brown

Marley

Dodds

et al. 2009

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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Unidimensional absolute identification-identifying a presented stimulus from an ordered set-is a common component of everyday tasks. Laboratory investigations have mostly usedAbsolute identification requires participants to identify which stimulus has been presented from a prespecified set. In general, people are unable to accurately identify more than about 8-10 stimuli that vary on a single psychological dimension, which is surprising when comparative judgments with the same stimuli (i.e., judging whether one stimulus is less than, equal to, or greater than another stimulus) are completely accurate. For over 20 years, theories of absolute identification have been divided along a continuum from purely absolute accounts to purely relative accounts (for reviews, see Brown, Marley, Donkin, & Heathcote, 2008;Stewart, Brown, & Chater, 2005). Absolute models assume some form of memory for the magnitude of each stimulus in the set-a set of long-term referents that represent the stimuli. Relative models make a more parsimonious assumption by representing the stimuli with a limited set of partial information. Usually, relative models assume that the only long-term memory is for a single scale factor related to the spacing of the stimuli-that is, to the magnitude differences between adjacent stimuli. The relative approach has proven successful in magnitude estimation tasks (e.g., Luce & Green, 1974;Marley, 1976), and the superficial similarity between the tasks suggests that the same approach may work in absolute identification.The theoretical debate has progressed mainly by pairwise comparison of particular absolute and relative models-for example, Marley and Cook (1984) Here, we present a classwise comparison based on key differences in the way absolute and relative models map from the stimulus to the response space. Rather than relying on small differences in quantitative goodness of fit, we identify a qualitative failure of relative models, caused by their core structure. In particular, we show that relative models make very strong and surprising predictions for experiments in which unequally spaced stimuli are used. We then test these predictions with a new experiment that addresses a potential limitation of past research.We focus on absolute identification experiments with unequally spaced stimuli presented with feedback, which means that participants are informed of the correct response after each trial. Feedback is almost always presented in numeric format (e.g., as a digit on a computer screen), and so researchers have used the term numeric feedback (Holland & Lockhead, 1968, p. 412). The numeric nature of feedback is important in our discussion of relative models, especially of the relative judgment model (RJM;Stewart et al., 2005). In fact, we show that relative models-including the RJM-are unable to account for certain aspects of data from experiments with unequally spaced stimuli. Although it is not the model described by Stewart et al., an extended version of the RJM can account very accurately for unequal...

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Section: Methods Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Purely relative models cannot provide a general account of absolute identification

Brown

Marley

Dodds

et al. 2009

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…Such an assumption is intuitive, but also appears in various forms across a range of psychological theories (e.g., Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992; see also relative judgment models of perceptual differences, Laming, 1984;Stewart, Brown & Chater, 2005).…”

Section: A Qp Theory Model For Constructive Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One psychological assumption concerns the impact of introducing the second stimulus (i.e., a fixed rotation, relative to the initial state; Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992;Laming, 1984;Stewart et al, 2005).…”

Section: A Qp Theory Model For Constructive Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sometimes it does hurt to ask: The constructive role of articulating impressions

2014

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Payne, Bettman & Johnson, 1993;Sharot, Velasquez, & Dolan, 2010;Sherman, 1980). In this work we explore the constructive role of just articulating an impression, for a presented visual stimulus, as opposed to making a choice (specifically, the judgments we employ are affective evaluations). Using quantum probability theory, we outline a cognitive model formalizing such a constructive process. We predict a simple interaction, in relation to how a second image is evaluated, following the presentation of a first image, depending on whether there is a rating for the first image or not. The interaction predicted by the quantum model was confirmed across three experiments and a variety of control manipulations. The advantages of using quantum probability theory to model the present results, compared with existing models of sequence order effects in judgment (e.g. Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992) or other theories of constructive processes when a choice is made (e.g. Festinger, 1957;Sharot et al., 2010) are discussed. Permanent repository link

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“…A model that uses only absolute processes is one where decisions are made about stimulus magnitudes on the basis of comparisons with some longer term referents (e.g., the context-coding component of Braida et al, 1984;Lacouture & Marley, 1995, 2004 or a longer-term frame of reference (e.g., Marley & Cook, 1984). On the other hand, a model that uses only relative processes (e.g., Laming, 1984;Lockhead, 2004;Stewart et al, 2005) posits that decisions are made using only comparisons with recent stimuli and responses. Range and set size effects have most often been attributed to absolute processes (e.g., Braida et al, 1984;Marley & Cook, 1984).…”

Section: Local Effects: Sequential Effect On Accuracy and Errorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated model of choices and response times in absolute identification.

Brown¹,

Marley²,

Donkin³

et al. 2008

Psychological Review

101

165

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Recent theoretical developments in the field of absolute identification have stressed differences between relative and absolute processes, that is, whether stimulus magnitudes are judged relative to a shorter term context provided by recently presented stimuli or a longer term context provided by the entire set of stimuli. The authors developed a model (SAMBA: selective attention, mapping, and ballistic accumulation) that integrates shorter and longer term memory processes and accounts for both the choices made and the associated response time distributions, including sequential effects in each. The model's predictions arise as a consequence of its architecture and require estimation of only a few parameters with values that are consistent across numerous data sets. The authors show that SAMBA provides a quantitative account of benchmark choice phenomena in classical absolute identification experiments and in contemporary data involving both choice and response time.Keywords: absolute identification, absolute identification models, response time, response time distributions, sequential effects Performance in absolute identification tasks has fascinated researchers for over 50 years (e.g., Garner, 1953;Miller, 1956;Pollack, 1952Pollack, , 1953. Research in the past 35 years has emphasized both data and formal theories (e.g., Braida & Durlach, 1972;Durlach & Braida, 1969;Laming, 1984;Lockhead, 2004;Luce, Nosofsky, Green, & Smith, 1982;Marley & Cook, 1984;Petrov & Anderson, 2005;Stewart, Brown, & Chater, 2005;Treisman & Williams, 1984) and, most recently, has been concerned with both the choices made and the time it takes to make them (Kent & Lamberts, 2005;Lacouture & Marley, 1991, 1995, 2004. As Shiffrin and Nosofsky (1994, p. 358) stated in an article reassessing the significance of Miller's (1956) classic paper, "absolute identification has captured the imagination . . . not only because the empirical results are so startling . . . but also because [they] provide perplexing problems for classic psychophysical models." Luce (1986, chapter 10) gave an excellent summary of data and theory to that date, and Lockhead (2004) summarized data and theory most relevant to relative interpretations of absolute identification, where the relativity is with respect to stimuli and responses from previous trials. Stewart et al. (2005) and Petrov and Anderson (2005) provided comprehensive reviews of choice data and the related theory, with emphasis on theoretical approaches over the past 20 years.A typical absolute identification task requires a participant to identify, on each trial, which stimulus has been presented from a relatively small prespecified set. In general, people are unable to accurately identify more than about 8 -10 stimuli that vary on a single physical dimension. For example, the stimuli might be a set of 10 lines varying only in length, with the shortest line labeled 1 and the longest 10. A participant previews the entire labeled set and is then shown the lines one at time, over numerous trials, and asked t...

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The relativity of ‘absolute’ judgements

Cited by 184 publications

References 19 publications

Purely relative models cannot provide a general account of absolute identification

Purely relative models cannot provide a general account of absolute identification

Sometimes it does hurt to ask: The constructive role of articulating impressions

An integrated model of choices and response times in absolute identification.

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