Frequency Judgments Research Articles

The relationship of frequency judgments to recognition: Facilitation of recognition and comparison to recognition-confidence judgments.

The relationship of frequency judgments to recognition: Facilitation of recognition and comparison to recognition-confidence judgments.

The relationship of frequency judgments to recognition: Facilitation of recognition and comparison to recognition-confidence judgments.

The relationship of frequency judgments to recognition: Facilitation of recognition and comparison to recognition-confidence judgments.

Concreteness as a Variable in Word Recognition

Two experiments using five lists of words were conducted to explore the effects of the concreteness or abstractness of words on their tachistoscopic recognition. The first experiment, using two lists patterned after those of Galbraith and Underwood, was inconclusive. The second experiment showed a consistent effect of concreteness. It is argued that this effect is a result of effective (personal) word frequency over the course of development, rather than semantic factors. Galbraith and Underwood (1973) investigated the perceived frequency of concrete and abstract English words. They used pairs of words whose members represented opposite ends of the dimension from concreteness to abstractness; the members of a pair were equated on measured frequency of occurrence, length, and number of syllables. In paired-comparison tasks, their subjects rated the abstract words as more frequent in usage than the concrete words of the same measured (objective) frequency in natural language. Since Howes (1954) had previously found that judged frequency of occurrence in a paired-comparison task was highly correlated with measured frequency of occurrence in Thorndike and Lorge's (1944) word count, Galbraith and Underwood showed that Howes's conclusion needed to be qualified to include the finding that concreteness alters perceived frequency of usage. The present studies explored the relevance of these results for theories of word recognition. In studies of word recognition, word frequency has been shown to influence recognition thresholds (Howes and Solomon, 1951). An obvious question is whether that relationship is altered by concreteness or abstractness in the same manner that judgments of frequency are. Thus, words matched for frequency, length, and number of syllables, but either concrete or abstract, were presented for recognition in the tachistoscope. The basic research questions were whether the recognition thresholds for concrete words would differ from those for abstract words, and if so, the direction of that difference.

The Effects of Frequency and Recency on Judgments of Frequency and Recency

Using a continuous-list procedure, the frequency of presentation, the spacing of repetitions, and the position of occurrence of an item were manipulated as within-list variables. Separate groups of subjects made comparative judgments of either frequency or recency. The results showed the judgments of frequency to be independent of recency, whereas the judgments of recency were markedly influenced by frequency, the latter effect increasing when the repetitions of the items were spaced (i.e., distributed rather than massed). A response strategy is proposed to account for the observed effects of frequency on the judgments of recency. In a previous study, subjects were presented sets of A-B A-C pairs - that is, pairs with common stimulus words and different response words (Galbraith, 1975). One pair of a set was arbitrarily classified as correct, the other as incorrect. The presentation of the pairs within a set was such that the incorrect pair occurred with either lesser, equal, or greater frequency than the correct pair of the set. Subjects were instructed that they would be asked to judge the relative frequency of the pairs of a set, or the correctness of the pairs, or both. The performance of the subjects on these two attributes, relative frequency and associative correctness, proved strikingly divergent. The judgments of frequency showed pronounced effects of relative frequency, while the judgments of associative correctness appeared nearly devoid of any influence of relative frequency. It was inferred from these results that the subjects' performance reflected an independence of utilization of the attributes of frequency and correctness. The present experiment attempted to extend the generality of this 'independence' by investigating performance with the attributes of frequency and recency. Some previous work with the judgment of frequency has shown it to be independent of recency (Hintzman, 1969). Also, prior research on the judgment of recency has given some support to its inde

Metacontrast suppression and criterion content: A discriminant function analysis

Three test and three mask energies of a metacontrast display were varied orthogonally and randomly over trials. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) separating them was varied over blocks of trials from 0 to 180 msec in 30-msec steps. Both the accuracy in judging the test and the coherence (consistency) of the judgments were U-shaped functions of SOA. Thus, metacontrast suppression is in part due to inadequate information. In addition, mask energy was found to correlate negatively with judgments of the test at short SO As but positively at longer SOAs. This indicates that part of the masking effect is due to inappropriate use of information. Certain similarities were noted between these findings and those obtained with judgments of frequency in the auditory-recognition masking paradigm. In general, the results indicate that subjects respond to different features of the stimulus situation as SOA varies.

Picture-word differences and conceptual frequency judgments

Recent evidence suggests that while pictures are more easily recognized, discriminated, associated, and recalled than their corresponding verbal labels, this is not the case in concept acquisition/utilization tasks. If such evidence is interpreted in terms of a "frequency theory" perspective, one would expect the typically obtained frequency judgment differences between pictures and words to be reduced if "conceptual" frequency judgments are required. This expectation was confirmed in three experiments.

Memory and frequency estimation processes in a decision task

Two experiments examined the role of information storage and frequency estimation processes in a simple decision task. On each trial from one to five simultaneous sequences of information were presented, and subjects were required to monitor and respond to each sequence. In one study independent groups of subjects gave decisions, recognition responses. or frequency judgments. In a second study recall responses were obtained from subjects as part of the decision and frequency judgment tasks. Changes in performance as the number of simultaneous sequences increased suggested an independence of decisions from memory for specific information. Performance on the decision and frequency judgment tasks exceeded at times that which was possible on the basis of specific information available. Other data suggested that subjects in the frequency estimation tasks maintained an accurate frequency count when possible, but in the decision task kept little more than a record of their currently favored hypothesis. When direct counting was prevented in the second experiment. performance in the two tasks was not significantly different, suggesting that the two processes are very similar under such conditions.

Effects of orienting task and spacing of repetitions on frequency judgments.

Effects of orienting task and spacing of repetitions on frequency judgments.

Frequency judgments and the spacing effect: Immediate and delayed performance

A study was conducted using a continuous paired-associate task varying the retention interval after one or two presentations of a pair of words. The lag between presentations was also varied. Half of the items were tested immediately, and all of the items were tested after a delay. Subjects were instructed to recall the response and to indicate the presentation frequency for each item. The results indicated a lag effect only for items correctly judged as repetitions at the time of test on both immediate and delayed tests. Overall responding was generally greater for items given an immediate test in contrast to those only given the delayed test. The role of variable encodings and the representation of frequency in memory is discussed.

Effects of orienting task and spacing of repetitions on frequency judgments.

Effects of orienting task and spacing of repetitions on frequency judgments.

The cognitive side of probability learning.

paradigms. In the present approach, a common theoretical framework is sought in concepts of coding and organization in memory. Following the theoretical analysis, an observation-t ransfer paradigm is developed that permits the study of predictive behavior depending on categorical, as distinguished from episodic, memory. This paradigm yields evidence that probability learning and transfer derive from frequency learning. The individual categorizes events and forms representations in memory of relative frequencies of event categories. When the different cues in a multiple-cue, probability learning situation occur equally often, this process yields predictive behavior closely reflecting the probabilities that the alternative events associated with a cue will occur when the cue is present. But when cue frequencies are unequal, the categorical memory model implies (correctly) that predictive behavior may be grossly out of line with actual probabilities. In general, depending on task requirements, predictive responses are either direct reflections of relative frequency judgments or are governed by strategies involving an additional

Further evidence regarding instructional effects on frequency judgments

Previous experimental reports have provided contradictory evidence regarding instructional effects on frequency judgments. An experiment was performed to clarify these findings, in which frequency discrimination was compared for two groups of subjects. One group was instructed as to the nature of the forthcoming frequency judgment task, while the other was told to prepare for an unspecified memory task. To avoid the possibility of response bias effects, the frequency discrimination coefficient, a correlational measure, was used to assess performance. Howell’s 1973 finding of no instructional effects on frequency judgments was replicated. An attempt is made to reconcile this result with the finding by Begg and Rowe that subjects in a continuous frequency judgment task gave unusually accurate mean frequency judgments compared to subjects who were tested following study of all items.

Frequency Judgments for the 'Gist' of Sentences

The subjects were shown a series of sentences in which some sentences were repeated in either identical or paraphrased form and with 0, 4, or 8 sentences between repetitions. At test, frequency judgments were requested on the basis of either the exact wording or the underlying meaning, the gist, of the sentences. The results indicated that frequency can be indexed independently for both wording and meaning. A spacing effect was found for the judgments of repeated identical sentences but not for those of repeated gists of sentences.

What causes the spacing effect? Some effects of repetition, duration, and spacing on memory for pictures

Three experiments examined effects of the spacing of repetitions on memory for pictures. In Experiment I, the duration of the first presentation (P(1)) was manipulated, as was P(1)-P(2) spacing. The effect of spacing on judged frequency was independent of P(1) duration. In Experiment II, pictures were given M massed presentations just prior to the P(M)-P(M+1) spacing interval. The form of the spacing curve was independent of M. Neither experiment confirmed the prediction of "overhabituation," derived from the habituation-recovery explanation of the spacing effect. In Experiment III, subjects made both duration and frequency judgments. The duration judgment results were not consistent with the notion that subjects remember multiple massed presentations as single occurrences of especially long duration. Some evidence from Experiments I and III suggests that an interrupted stimulus is recognized better than one that is not interrupted-a finding that, if replicable, would support the habituation-recovery account of the spacing effect.

Stimulus frequency judgments and latency of stimulus frequency judgments as a function of constant and variable response conditions.

Stimulus frequency judgments and latency of stimulus frequency judgments as a function of constant and variable response conditions.

Semantic encoding and judgments of background and situational frequency for homographs.

Semantic encoding and judgments of background and situational frequency for homographs.

Semantic encoding and judgments of background and situational frequency for homographs.

Semantic encoding and judgments of background and situational frequency for homographs.

Stimulus frequency judgments and latency of stimulus frequency judgments as a function of constant and variable response conditions.

Stimulus frequency judgments and latency of stimulus frequency judgments as a function of constant and variable response conditions.

Depth of processing in a frequency judgment task

In Experiment I, situational frequency judgments were obtained for words presented in either the same or a different type of print on each repetition. In contrast with previous findings showing a large effect on frequency judgments of variation in word meaning, orthographic variation produced no effect, suggesting that the representation of situational frequency involves semantic encoding but is relatively insensitive to changes in nonsemantic attributes. Experiment II used an incidental learning paradigm to compare frequency judgments as a function of semantic versus nonsemantic levels of processing. The results suggest that frequency judgments are dependent on the level of processing activated by the presented words.

Overestimation of subjective probabilities

Abstract.— When asked to estimate the probability of outcomes of draws from a binomial population, student subjects tend to report p values that clearly exceed the objective ones. The probability of specific binomial sequences was found to be even more overestimated, while the answers became much more conservative when the outcomes were grouped into a few categories. These findings were replicated in a second experiment, where the probability of heights in a male and a female student population was estimated. When the task was to estimate frequency of occurrence, instead of probability, the answers became more realistic. The conclusion is drawn that the direct p estimates are relatively independent of frequency judgments, the chief determinant being the properties of the particular sample to be evaluated, irrespective of the number and probabilities of other possible samples.