Brunswik's Lens Research Articles

Beyond Intensity: Spectral Features Effectively Predict Music-Induced Subjective Arousal

Emotions in music are conveyed by a variety of acoustic cues. Notably, the positive association between sound intensity and arousal has particular biological relevance. However, although amplitude normalization is a common procedure used to control for intensity in music psychology research, direct comparisons between emotional ratings of original and amplitude-normalized musical excerpts are lacking. In this study, 30 nonmusicians retrospectively rated the subjective arousal and pleasantness induced by 84 six-second classical music excerpts, and an additional 30 nonmusicians rated the same excerpts normalized for amplitude. Following the cue-redundancy and Brunswik lens models of acoustic communication, we hypothesized that arousal and pleasantness ratings would be similar for both versions of the excerpts, and that arousal could be predicted effectively by other acoustic cues besides intensity. Although the difference in mean arousal and pleasantness ratings between original and amplitude-normalized excerpts correlated significantly with the amplitude adjustment, ratings for both sets of excerpts were highly correlated and shared a similar range of values, thus validating the use of amplitude normalization in music emotion research. Two acoustic parameters, spectral flux and spectral entropy, accounted for 65% of the variance in arousal ratings for both sets, indicating that spectral features can effectively predict arousal. Additionally, we confirmed that amplitude-normalized excerpts were adequately matched for loudness. Overall, the results corroborate our hypotheses and support the cue-redundancy and Brunswik lens models.

A Brunswik lens model of consumer health judgments of packaged foods

ABSTRACTConsumer health judgments of packaged food were compared with an objective healthfulness criterion using a Brunswik lens model. Consumer judgments were obtained from a representative consumer sample (N = 1329) who evaluated the healthfulness of 198 packaged food products. The objective healthfulness criterion was calculated for each product according to its specific nutrition values using a validated nutrition profile. The lens model included explicit cues such as nutrition values, nutrition and health claims, food category, and brand and implicit cues such a packaging design and category representativeness. The study revealed that the objective healthfulness criterion is highly predictable on the basis of cues such as the food category, brand, carbohydrate content, and whether the food is a typical “light” product. However, consumer judgments of food healthfulness are based almost entirely on the food category and to a lesser extent on the brand and consumer familiarity with the product. The results are in conflict with consumers' self‐reported use of nutrition information but are in accordance with findings from studies using implicit methods. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Aging and social perception: so far, more similarities than differences.

Despite the pervasiveness of social perception in everyday life, relatively little is known about how the way we see ourselves and other people changes with age. The central questions to consider are if and how the perceiver's age and the perceived person's age affect fundamental processes of social perception. The current collection of 9 articles addresses both questions. Taking Brunswik's lens model of social perception as an overarching theoretical framework, this introduction concludes on the basis of these 9 articles that age as a characteristic of the perceiver does not appear to have a strong effect on social judgments. In contrast, the age of the perceived person or group seems to affect the perceiver's social inferences, interpretation of facial stimuli, or expectations of gains and losses in various domains of functioning. Thus, the articles presented here suggest that, although age is an important social category when perceiving another person, processes of social perception demonstrate more similarities than differences between age groups.

Why do lie-catchers fail? A lens model meta-analysis of human lie judgments.

Decades of research has shown that people are poor at detecting lies. Two explanations for this finding have been proposed. First, it has been suggested that lie detection is inaccurate because people rely on invalid cues when judging deception. Second, it has been suggested that lack of valid cues to deception limits accuracy. A series of 4 meta-analyses tested these hypotheses with the framework of Brunswik's (1952) lens model. Meta-Analysis 1 investigated perceived cues to deception by correlating 66 behavioral cues in 153 samples with deception judgments. People strongly associate deception with impressions of incompetence (r = .59) and ambivalence (r = .49). Contrary to self-reports, eye contact is only weakly correlated with deception judgments (r = -.15). Cues to perceived deception were then compared with cues to actual deception. The results show a substantial covariation between the 2 sets of cues (r = .59 in Meta-Analysis 2, r = .72 in Meta-Analysis 3). Finally, in Meta-Analysis 4, a lens model analysis revealed a very strong matching between behaviorally based predictions of deception and behaviorally based predictions of perceived deception. In conclusion, contrary to previous assumptions, people rarely rely on the wrong cues. Instead, limitations in lie detection accuracy are mainly attributable to weaknesses in behavioral cues to deception. The results suggest that intuitive notions about deception are more accurate than explicit knowledge and that lie detection is more readily improved by increasing behavioral differences between liars and truth tellers than by informing lie-catchers of valid cues to deception.

A Different Personal Perspective through the Behavioral Accounting Literature

INTRODUCTION was delighted to receive the Notable Lifetime Contribution in Behavioral Accounting Literature Award. The previous winners were: Bob Ashton, Jake Birnberg, Mark Dirsmith, Anthony Hopwood, Bob Libby, Ken Merchant, Ted Mock, Bill Waller, and Michael Shields. All ave had some influence on my research, particularly the early research of Bob Ashton and Bob ibby. Last year, Mike Shields 2009 provided a personal perspective of his trip through the ehavioral accounting literature. The perspective in Shields 2009 is through a management ccounting lens while my perspective considers the audit judgment and decision-making JDM iterature from the 1970s to present. It is not intended to be a comprehensive literature review but utlines some of the changes in the audit JDM research that directly impacted my own work. It lso illustrates the perspective of a non-American researcher including the opportunities and hallenges faced. The initial study to systematically examine auditor judgments was Ashton 1974 , which onsidered consensus, stability, and cue usage of individual auditor judgments. At the same time here was judgment research using the Brunswik lens model by Libby 1975 looking at individual redictions of corporate failures and research on human information processing in accounting nformation systems Driver and Mock 1975 . In the auditing arena there were lots of extensions of Ashton 1974 particularly in Journal f Accounting Research . These extensions tested for various moderating variables and the genralizability of the earlier results. With hindsight, the literature could have moved faster if the

The effects of clinical experience on nurses’ critical event risk assessment judgements in paper based and high fidelity simulated conditions: A comparative judgement analysis

Background Paper based simulated patients are widely used to analyse nurses’ clinical judgements. However, developments in the physical simulation of clinical environments offer exciting, but relatively underexploited, opportunities for exploring nurses’ judgements. Critical event risk assessment is an element of acute care practice which lends itself well to simulation and in which more clinical experience is often assumed to lead to better quality judgements. Objectives To model nurses’ judgements of critical event risk using physical and paper simulation and to examine whether improving fidelity via physical clinical simulation impacts on the apparent benefits of clinical experience on nurses’ judgement performance. Design A comparative clinical judgement analysis. Setting A university in Northern England. Methods Sixty-three nursing students and 34 experienced nurses made dichotomous risk assessment judgements (“at risk” or “not at risk”) in response to 25 paper and physical simulated scenarios. These were randomly generated from a dataset of real patient case records. Clinical outcomes (the judgement criteria) for a ‘correct’ judgement were derived from the same case records. Logistic regression models were constructed to derive statistics for each nurse representing various measures of judgement performance: achievement ( r a ), consistency ( R s ) and clinical information use ( G). These statistics were known as Lens Model statistics (from the psychological theory of Brunswik's Lens Model of judgement). Performance measures for novice and experienced nurses were compared. Results No significant differences in judgemental achievement ( r a ) between experienced nurses and students were observed in either paper or high fidelity clinical simulations. Similarly, there were no significant differences in the nurses’ abilities to correctly match the ways they synthesised clinical information with the optimum synthesis required by the task (policy matching) ( G). When faced with “paper patients” experienced nurses exercised more cognitive control/consistency ( R s ) than students ( P = 0.04). However, this heightened control in experienced nurses was absent when those same nurses made judgements in the higher fidelity clinical simulation environment. Conclusion Clinical experience made no difference to nurses’ judgement achievement (accuracy) in either the lower fidelity paper scenarios or the higher fidelity setting of the clinical simulation unit. The significant impact of clinical experience on judgement consistency was negated by the increases in fidelity offered through clinical simulation.

Avatars as information: Perception of consumers based on their avatars in virtual worlds

AbstractThe presence of consumers and companies in the virtual worlds has increased in recent years. It is predicted that 80% of active Internet consumers and Fortune 500 companies will have an avatar or presence in a virtual community, including social networks, by the end of 2011 (eMarketer,2007). The increase in the number of consumers with avatars emphasizes the need for a better understanding of who these consumers behind the avatars really are in order to convert these individuals to online and real‐world customers. The objective of this paper is to investigate how avatars reflect the personality of their creators (targets) in virtual worlds. Using the Brunswik Lens Model as the theoretical framework, an investigation of real consumers in the virtual worldSecond Lifereveals that perceivers who view targets' avatar use particular thin‐slices of observations such as avatar cues (e.g., attractiveness, gender, hairstyle) to form accurate personality impressions about targets. The findings support the premise that real‐life companies that intend to expand to virtual worlds can use member avatars as a proxy for member personality and lifestyles. As a future research direction, avatars and other consumer‐generated media could be used as the basis for targeting and segmentation of online consumers. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Judgment and Decision Making by Individuals and Teams: Issues, Models, and Applications

Consistent with technological advances, the role of the operator in many human factors domains has evolved from one characterized primarily by sensory and motor skills to one characterized primarily by cognitive skills and decision making. Decision making is a primary component in problem solving, human-automation interaction, response to alarms and warnings, and error mitigation. In this chapter we discuss decision making in terms of both front-end judgment processes (e.g., attending to and evaluating the significance of cues and information, formulating a diagnosis, or assessing the situation) and back-end decision processes (e.g., retrieving a course of action, weighing one's options, or mentally simulating a possible response). Two important metatheories—correspondence (empirical accuracy) and coherence (rationality and consistency)—provide ways to assess the goodness of each phase (e.g., Hammond, 1996, 2000; Mosier, 2009). We present several models of decision making, including Brunswik's lens model, naturalistic decision making, and decision ladders, and discuss them in terms of their point of focus and their primary strategies and goals. Next, we turn the discussion to layers in the decision context: individual variables, team decision making, technology, and organizational influences. Last, we focus on applications and lessons learned: investigating, enhancing, designing, and training for decision making. Drawing heavily on sources such as the Human Factors journal, we present recent human factors research exploring these issues, models, and applications.

Can Nonverbal Cues be Used to Make Meaningful Personality Attributions in Employment Interviews?

This study examines the role of personality attributions in understanding the relationships between nonverbal cues and interview performance ratings. A structured behavioral interview was developed for identifying management potential in a large, national company. Using a concurrent design to validate the interview, managers were interviewed and the interviews were videotaped (n = 110). These videotapes were used as stimuli for raters in this study. Results indicate that raters can make personality attributions using only one channel of information and these attributions partly explain the relationships between nonverbal cues and performance measures. Furthermore, conscientiousness attributions explain the relationship between visual cues and interview ratings, extraversion attributions mediate the relationship between vocal cues and interview ratings. Neuroticism attributions had a suppressing effect for both visual and vocal cues. No matter how much an interview is structured, nonverbal cues cause interviewers to make attributions about candidates. If we face this fact, rather than consider information from cues as bias that should be ignored, interviewers can do a better job of focusing on job-related behavior and information in the interview, while realizing that the cues are providing information that must be attended to. This study isolated the sources of information provided to raters to either the vocal or the visual channel to examine their impact individually. A Brunswik lens model shows the potential impact of personality attributions predicting both job and interview performance ratings when both channels of information are used.

Nurses’ critical event risk assessments: a judgement analysis

To explore and explain nurses' use of readily available clinical information when deciding whether a patient is at risk of a critical event. Half of inpatients who suffer a cardiac arrest have documented but unacted upon clinical signs of deterioration in the 24 hours prior to the event. Nurses appear to be both misinterpreting and mismanaging the nursing-knowledge 'basics' such as heart rate, respiratory rate and oxygenation. Whilst many medical interventions originate from nurses, up to 26% of nurses' responses to abnormal signs result in delays of between one and three hours. A double system judgement analysis using Brunswik's lens model of cognition was undertaken with 245 Dutch, UK, Canadian and Australian acute care nurses. Nurses were asked to judge the likelihood of a critical event, 'at-risk' status, and whether they would intervene in response to 50 computer-presented clinical scenarios in which data on heart rate, systolic blood pressure, urine output, oxygen saturation, conscious level and oxygenation support were varied. Nurses were also presented with a protocol recommendation and also placed under time pressure for some of the scenarios. The ecological criterion was the predicted level of risk from the Modified Early Warning Score assessments of 232 UK acute care inpatients. Despite receiving identical information, nurses varied considerably in their risk assessments. The differences can be partly explained by variability in weightings given to information. Time and protocol recommendations were given more weighting than clinical information for key dichotomous choices such as classifying a patient as 'at risk' and deciding to intervene. Nurses' weighting of cues did not mirror the same information's contribution to risk in real patients. Nurses synthesized information in non-linear ways that contributed little to decisional accuracy. The low-moderate achievement (R(a)) statistics suggests that nurses' assessments of risk were largely inaccurate; these assessments were applied consistently among 'patients' (scenarios). Critical care experience was statistically associated with estimates of risk, but not with the decision to intervene. Nurses overestimated the risk and the need to intervene in simulated paper patients at risk of a critical event. This average response masked considerable variation in risk predictions, the need for action and the weighting afforded to the information they had available to them. Nurses did not make use of the linear reasoning required for accurate risk predictions in this task. They also failed to employ any unique knowledge that could be shown to make them more accurate. The influence of time pressure and protocol recommendations depended on the kind of judgement faced suggesting then that knowing more about the types of decisions nurses face may influence information use. Practice developers and educators need to pay attention to the quality of nurses' clinical experience as well as the quantity when developing judgement expertise in nurses. Intuitive unaided decision making in the assessment of risk may not be as accurate as supported decision making. Practice developers and educators should consider teaching nurses normative rules for revising probabilities (even subjective ones) such as Bayes' rule for diagnostic or assessment judgements and also that linear ways of thinking, in which decision support may help, may be useful for many choices that nurses face. Nursing needs to separate the rhetoric of 'holism' and 'expertise' from the science of predictive validity, accuracy and competence in judgement and decision making.

Mutual liking and meta‐perception accuracy

AbstractThe present study investigated the underlying mechanism yielding a positive correlation between dyad members' mutual liking and meta‐accuracy (i.e., dyad members who like each other tend to be accurate in judging how their partner sees them). Two pilot studies were first conducted to confirm the presence of the positive correlation. The main study was conducted to test several possible explanations for the observed positive correlation. In the main study, each participant took part in a series of brief interactions with an unacquainted opposite‐sex partner three times. In each interaction, participants rated their liking for the partner, evaluated their impression of the partner on 15 items, and finally inferred the partner's impression of them on the same 15 items. The meta‐accuracy was operationally defined as the correlation between the partner's impression and the participant's inference. Neither of the two types of unilateral liking (i.e., participant's liking for the partner nor the partner's liking for the participant) predicted meta‐accuracy. However, when both members found the partner likeable (i.e., mutual liking was present), the within‐dyad average meta‐accuracy tended to be high. The implications of these results for meta‐perception research are discussed on the basis of Brunswik's lens model framework. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Determinants of linear judgment: A meta-analysis of lens model studies.

The mathematical representation of E. Brunswik's (1952) lens model has been used extensively to study human judgment and provides a unique opportunity to conduct a meta-analysis of studies that covers roughly 5 decades. Specifically, the authors analyzed statistics of the "lens model equation" (L. R. Tucker, 1964) associated with 249 different task environments obtained from 86 articles. On average, fairly high levels of judgmental achievement were found, and people were seen to be capable of achieving similar levels of cognitive performance in noisy and predictable environments. Further, the effects of task characteristics that influence judgment (numbers and types of cues, inter-cue redundancy, function forms and cue weights in the ecology, laboratory versus field studies, and experience with the task) were identified and estimated. A detailed analysis of learning studies revealed that the most effective form of feedback was information about the task. The authors also analyzed empirically under what conditions the application of bootstrapping--or replacing judges by their linear models--is advantageous. Finally, the authors note shortcomings of the kinds of studies conducted to date, limitations in the lens model methodology, and possibilities for future research.

Forecasting with cue information: A comparison of multiple regression with alternative forecasting approaches

Multiple linear regression (MLR) is a popular method for producing forecasts when data on relevant independent variables (or cues) is available. The accuracy of the technique in forecasting the impact on Greek TV audience shares of programmes showing sport events is compared with forecasts produced by: (1) a simple bivariate regression model, (2) three different types of artificial neural network, (3) three forms of nearest neighbour analysis and (4) human judgment. MLR was found to perform relatively poorly. The application of Theil’s bias decomposition and a Brunswik lens decomposition suggested that this was because of its inability to handle complex non-linearities in the relationship between the dependent variable and the cues and its tendency to overfit the in-sample data. Much higher accuracy was obtained from forecasts based on a simple bivariate regression model, a simple nearest neighbour procedure and from two of the types of artificial neural network.

Determinants of Linear Judgment: A Meta-Analysis of Lens Model Studies

The mathematical representation of Brunswik's lens model has been used extensively to study human judgment and provides a unique opportunity to conduct a meta-analysis of studies that covers roughly five decades. Specifically, we analyze statistics of the lens model equation (Tucker, 1964) associated with 259 different task environments obtained from 78 papers. In short, we find - on average - fairly high levels of judgmental achievement and note that people can achieve similar levels of cognitive performance in both noisy and predictable environments. Although overall performance varies little between laboratory and field studies, both differ in terms of components of performance and types of environments (numbers of cues and redundancy). An analysis of learning studies reveals that the most effective form of feedback is information about the task. We also analyze empirically when bootstrapping is more likely to occur. We conclude by indicating shortcomings of the kinds of studies conducted to date, limitations in the lens model methodology, and possibilities for future research.

Modeling the Task Environment: Act-R and the Lens Model

Human factors requires modeling techniques that capture how cognition and behavior are sensitive to environmental design. As such, techniques such as Anderson's rational analysis and Brunswik's lens model framework should be of interest to human performance modelers because they provide ways to analyze tasks and behavior as adaptive to environmental structure. We briefly describe both techniques and contrast them in the context of modeling visual search behavior. We conclude that these techniques can provide complementary resources for human performance modeling in human factors.

Identification of Important Attributes in Textbook-Sales Websites: A Lens Model Approach

Textbook-sales websites have enjoyed increasing popularity in both the U.S. and other countries, and are of particular interest to students. However, no study has been done to identify the specific attributes of these sites that contribute to an ultimate purchasing decision. The current study aims to address this issue through the application of a lens model approach, and to inform the design of future textbook-sales websites. A modified Brunswik lens model using eight cues, four pertaining to commercial website features and four pertaining to usability issues, was generated from the data of 233 U.S. college students, 95 Chinese college students, and six usability experts. Overall, the three groups were found to have similar website judgment policies, weighting product price, site security, and ease of purchase higher than general usability features such as easiness to navigate and aesthetics. Surprisingly, the usability experts did not use the usability attributes in their judgments. However, the small sample size of the usability experts might be a limiting factor in generalizability of this finding. The U.S. and Chinese college students differed in their weightings of the attributes, but generally still had a high agreement in their judgment policies.

The effects of integrated cognitive feedback components and task conditions on training in a dental diagnosis task

As more organizations rely on computer-based training, greater emphasis should be placed on useful feedback. In this study, 36 trainees, mostly dental students, and 36 medically untrained participants engaged in a simulated diagnostic task consisting of 50 trials. Participants received cognitive feedback (CFB) based on Brunswik's Lens Model, a decision framework useful for measuring differences between participant decision strategies and the optimal strategy given the statistical structure of the task environment. Performance and consistency initially declined with the introduction of integrated feedback, but recovered after some experience with interpreting the detailed feedback. Overall, medically trained participants performed better with feedback in the form of task information. However, the integration of CFB information into the display allowed untrained participants to perform at similar levels to trainee participants. The impact of different ecological predictability levels and implications for future research are also discussed.

The policy of preemption and its consequences: Iraq and beyond.

In this article we apply research in the field of judgment and decision making to the policy of preemption. We use Brunswik's lens model to frame the policy of preemption as the integration of multiple fallible indicators under conditions of uncertainty. We use the Taylor-Russell diagram to demonstrate how the policy of preemption increases judgment uncertainty and error. The continuation of a policy of preemption will inevitably lead to an increase in false positives (mistaken military engagements), an increase in tension and dispute among U.S. allies (and foes) over these engagements, and a growing world perception that the United States is an aggressor nation. Post-9/11 policymakers and the public are explicitly focused on reducing false negatives at the implicit cost of increasing false positives. Greater appreciation of the inverse relationship between false positives and false negatives is needed to understand the consequences of the policy of preemption.

Improving judgmental forecasts with judgmental bootstrapping and task feedback support

AbstractThis study examines the utility of two widely advocated methods for supporting judgmental forecasts—providing task feedback and providing judgmental bootstrapping support. In a simulated laboratory based experiment that focused on producing composite sales forecasts from three individual components, we compared the effectiveness of these two methods in improving final judgmental forecasts. In the presence of cognitive feedback task, feedback led to better forecasts than providing judgmental bootstrap forecasts. Simply providing bootstrap forecasts was of no additional benefit over a control condition. This was true in terms of the Brunswik Lens model measures of achievement, knowledge, and consistency, and in terms of forecast accuracy. This occurred both in stable environments and when special events (unusual one‐time events requiring adjustments to the forecasts) arose. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Investigating Dynamic Environments Using the Game of Diplomacy

Cognitive engineers are constantly exploring human performance in naturalistic environments. Recently, cognitive engineering techniques have been utilized by the intelligence community as potential tools to improve human performance. In this study, the game of Diplomacy was used as a testbed for applying Brunswik's Lens Model to dynamic environments containing multiple agents. The game of Diplomacy is based on the diplomatic relationships between the seven Great Powers of Europe just prior to the start of World War I. In contrast to many two-player strategic games, the game of Diplomacy includes seven independent players moving simultaneously, players creating and breaking alliances, and an historically-based playing board; yet one game can be completed in a few hours. This study, which was based on archival data, compares the judgmental policies of seven decision makers from two completed games. Limitations of this study and possibilities for using Diplomacy variants for future research are discussed.