Abstract
Six experiments studied relative frequency judgment and recall of sequentially presented items drawn from 2 distinct categories (i.e., city and animal). The experiments show that judged frequencies of categories of sequentially encountered stimuli are affected by certain properties of the sequence configuration. We found (a) a first-run effect whereby people overestimated the frequency of a given category when that category was the first repeated category to occur in the sequence and (b) a dissociation between judgments and recall; respondents may judge 1 event more likely than the other and yet recall more instances of the latter. Specifically, the distribution of recalled items does not correspond to the frequency estimates for the event categories, indicating that participants do not make frequency judgments by sampling their memory for individual items as implied by other accounts such as the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) and the availability process model (Hastie & Park, 1986). We interpret these findings as reflecting the operation of a judgment heuristic sensitive to sequential patterns and offer an account for the relationship between memory and judged frequencies of sequentially encountered stimuli.
Highlights
We often attempt to understand and make inductions about temporal sequences of events
In support of this view studies of the judged frequency of stimuli have established both that people are highly sensitive to the frequency with which events occur and that frequency information appears to be processed with little effort or constraint by cognitive-capacity limitations (e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1979)
Six experiments explore the hypothesis that frequency judgments, across different perceptual modalities are influenced by the presence of certain configurations of sequences that do not influence free recall
Summary
We often attempt to understand and make inductions about temporal sequences of events (e.g., busy and quiet business days, people’s good and bad moods, sunny and rainy days). Other accounts, related to the dual-processing theory of automatic and controlled processing (e.g., Schneider & Chein, 2003; Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977), propose that frequency information is automatically encoded with minimal demand on attentional resources (Zacks & Hasher, 2002), independently of ability to subsequently recall individual instances In support of this view studies of the judged frequency of stimuli have established both that people are highly sensitive to the frequency with which events occur and that frequency information appears to be processed with little effort or constraint by cognitive-capacity limitations (e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1979). A possible strategy fitting this requirement is to exploit simple patterns or characteristics of the sequence that may be indicative of frequency (cf. Chater, 1996)
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