Cue Redundancy Research Articles

Logical knowledge and cue redundancy in deductive reasoning.

This study clarified the basis of Hoch and Tschirgi's (1983) finding of good performance on abstract deductive reasoning problems based on Wason's (1966) four-card selection task. Different versions of the problem were developed through the addition of cues about antecedent-consequent relations redundant with the logical structure of the task. In all versions of the task, abstract symbols were used, and subjects were asked to test the truth or falsity of an implication rule. Twenty-five subjects from each of three education levels (high school, bachelor's, and master's) solved one of four versions of the task. Forty-eight percent of the master's subjects solved the original abstract version of the task compared to less than 10% of the high school and bachelor's subjects. When the problems contained redundant cues, performance improved dramatically, most notably in the bachelor's subjects. Reasoning performance seemed to be a function of both the general inferential abilities that subjects brought to the task and the redundant cues conveyed through problem content. Many of the master's subjects had adequate logical knowledge to solve the problems without the addition of redundant cues, though performance did increase when such cues were present. In contrast, high school subjects appeared to have so little understanding of the logical structure of conditionals that cue redundancy improved performance only slightly.

Talking about comparisons: a study of young children's comparative adjective usage

ABSTRACTThis study explores factors other than the concept of comparison which influence the learning of specific comparative adjective forms, namely, (a) the nature of the perceptual input, and (b) the nature of the event. Thirty subjects, age 4; 5 to 7; 9, were asked to describe objects reflecting various attribute differences in both multiple-object comparison and single-object, dynamic-change tasks. Children used comparative adjectives to talk about dynamic changes prior to static comparisons, and attributes based on visual or tactile input were easier than those based on both. These results are interpreted as indicating that perceptual cue redundancy and heterogeneity affects the learning of attribute dimensions, and that children first use the -er suffix in a non-comparative sense.

Cue redundancy and extra logical inferences in a deductive reasoning task.

This study investigated the influence of extraexperimental knowledge on deductive reasoning. Two groups of subjects solved modified abstract or concrete versions of Wason’s (1966) four-card selection problem in which the “if-then” implication rule provided the sole cue to underlying logical structure. Six other groups solved abstract or concrete comparison problems in which additional information was supplied by varying the relationship between antecedents and consequents in a manner consistent with logical structure. Selection responses and subjects’ explanations were analyzed using log-linear models of data arrayed in multiway contingency tables. Results showed improved performance for concrete over abstract problems and for both abstract and concrete problems that included relational information. Subjects capitalized upon the redundancy between the implication rule and the relational cues to reason effectively with either abstract or concrete stimuli.

Use of cue redundancy and positive reinforcement to accelerate production in two profoundly retarded workers.

Use of cue redundancy and positive reinforcement to accelerate production in two profoundly retarded workers.

A reevaluation of the effect of cue redundancy in multiple-cue probability learning.

A reevaluation of the effect of cue redundancy in multiple-cue probability learning.

Effectiveness of Multi-Image Presentations

This is an investigation of the effectiveness of viewing three types of visual presentations over different intervals of time. The treatment presentations were specifically designed to test the ability of viewers to recall cognitive information from a linear, two, and four image program. Evaluation of recall was measured by a multiple-choice test instrument administered immediately, twenty-four hours, and seven days after the treatment. Three 16mm motion picture presentations were made of forty still cartoons used for all treatment presentations. The findings of the investigation point the direction between the relationship of recall and retention in viewing multi-image programs when cue summation and redundancy are not considered.

A reevaluation of the effect of cue redundancy in multiple-cue probability learning.

A reevaluation of the effect of cue redundancy in multiple-cue probability learning.

Positive and negative cue redundancy in multiple cue probability learning

In two separate experiments, 80 introductory psychology students completed a two-cue probability learning task in which cue intercorrelation was positive or negative and cue validities were positive or negative. Results indicated that Ss did not learn the negative validity tasks. In addition, there were no significant differences between groups in achievement due to cue intercorrelation within any one experiment. However, the positive redundancy groups were significantly more consistent in the employment of their decision strategy than the negative redundancy groups when cue validities were positive. The negative redundancy groups were superior to positive redundancy groups in matching; again, when cue validities were positive.

Cue redundancy: Some overlooked analytical relationships in MCPL

Two characteristics of MCPL research efforts relating to the manipulation of cue redundancy are noted. First, the fairly prevalent problem of experimental confounding of cue redundancy with other task parameters, and second, the lack of an analytical development of the mathematical relationships among cue validities, task predictability, and regression weights as cue redundancy is varied systematically. This paper provides such an analysis, and shows that some of the confounding experienced by earlier researchers may be obviated.

Effectiveness of Multi-Image Presentations

This is an investigation of the effectiveness of viewing three types of visual presentations over different intervals of time. The treatment presentations were specifically designed to test the ability of viewers to recall cognitive information from a linear, two, and four image program. Evaluation of recall was measured by a multiple-choice test instrument administered immediately, twenty-four hours, and seven days after the treatment. Three 16mm motion picture presentations were made of forty still cartoons used for all treatment presentations. The findings of the investigation point the direction between the relationship of recall and retention in viewing multi-image programs when cue summation and redundancy are not considered.

Effects of drive level on cue utilization of spatially separated redundant relevant cues

Albino rats trained under either a moderate or high water-deprivation level did not differ in their acquisition rates of a simultaneous brightness discrimination task in which central and peripheral cues were present. Test trials, in which only one of the set of cues was present or in which the position of the cues was reversed, revealed that moderately deprived rats were more distracted from the central cues than were highly deprived rats. Type of cue redundancy was also found to effect distraction from the central cues.

A Monte Carlo evaluation of JAN: A technique for capturing and clustering raters' policies

The efficiency of the JAN (Judgment ANalysis) technique for grouping raters' strategies according to the similarity of their regression equations was tested under a variety of experimental conditions using a Monte Carlo method. Two groups of hypothetical raters were simulated, where the n raters in each group all had the same basic strategy (equation) and differed only as a function of a specified random error term in the basic equation. The variables manipulated were: the predictor variance-covariance matrix, the number of stimulus dimensions, the number of stimuli evaluated, the rater predictability, and the degree of strategy similarity between the two groups. Results showed that as cue redundancy increased, it became correspondingly more difficult for JAN to discriminate “properly” the members of one theortical basic strategy group from those of the other group. The difficulty was somewhat compounded when the data were based on fewer than 200 observations, only five predictors, and two highly similar basic policy groups whose members were rather inconsistent in their profile evaluations.

The influence of cue redundancy upon the human inference process for tasks of varying degrees of predictability

Nine groups of ten subjects each performed in a 200 trial typical multiple-cue learning situation. The groups were defined in terms of three levels of cue redundancy between the two cues ( r ij = .00, .40, .80) and three levels of total system predictability ( R e = .50, .70, .90). While both absolute and relative achievement was found to be significantly and directly related to r ij and R e, the effects of r ij were much greater at high R e levels. This interaction was attributed primarily to subject's increasing inability to match the total ecology at low R e levels as cue redundancy increased. Subject consistency also varied directly with r ij and R e, while subject's ability to develop proportional strategies varied only as a function of r ij. The obtained importance of cue redundancy as a variable in multiple cue inference tasks thus strongly supports Brunswik's argument for “representativeness” in probabilistic inference research.

A developmental study of attention to cue redundancy introduced following discrimination learning

Following original learning (OL) of a two-choice simultaneous visual discrimination problem by second and sixth grade Ss, the cues of the elevant and irrelevant dimensions were made 100% redundant during a 40 trial overtraining (OT) period. A control group received 40 OT trials without the redundancy. The effects of the redundancy pairing were assessed by a subsequent learning problem in which the only relevant cues were those which had been irrelevant in OL. For half the experimental Ss the OL-irrelevant cue which had been paired with the OL-positive cue during overtraining was made positive, while for the other half the cue paired with the negative OL stimulus was made positive. The data indicated that the redundancy period resulted in both instrumental response strength to the OL irrelevant cues, and a response to the dimension represented by them. Relative transfor effects for the two grade levels supported the interpretation that during the redundancy phase the younger children attended to the previously irrelevant stimuli more, i.e., “focused” on OL relevant stimuli less, than was the case with the older children. In a second study identical procedures were followed except that the correct and incorrect stimuli were identified for the S before the OL period began. The results for second grade Ss suggested that there might be decreased dimensional responding to the previously irrelevant cues during OT under these OL-instructed conditions.