Subsequent Judgments Research Articles

The Influence of Recent Experience on Perceptions of Attractiveness

Adults rate average faces as more attractive than most of the faces used in the creation of the average. One explanation for this is that average faces appear as both more familiar and more attractive because they resemble internal face prototypes formed from experience. Here we evaluated that explanation by examining the influence of recent experience on participants' subsequent judgments of attractiveness. Participants first performed a memory task lasting 8 min in which all of the female faces to be remembered had their features placed in a low, average, or high position, depending on experimental condition. In what was described as a separate experiment, participants then moved the features of a female face with averaged features to their most attractive vertical location. The most attractive location was affected by the faces seen during the memory task, with participants who saw faces with features in the high position placing features in higher locations than participants who saw faces with features in either the low or average positions. The results demonstrate that perceptions of attractiveness are influenced by recent experience, and suggest that internal face prototypes are constantly being updated by experience.

The Cascading of Contrast Effects on Auditors' Judgments in Multiple Client Audit Environments

Accounting decisions often involve similar types of judgments regarding different clients, projects, or employees. These tasks may use similar information items and be performed within the same work session. While independent consideration of the information for each respective decision may be desired, psychology research on contrast effects suggests that the information from a previous decision may be retained and compared to the information provided for a current judgment. Such contrast effects are potentially critical to accounting judgments because they suggest that the information associated with a given decision task will be evaluated differently depending on the nature of the prior contextual information. Using a multi-client audit context, we find that auditors are susceptible to contrast effects such that their judgments on a current client are influenced by their exposure to similar judgment information on a prior client. We also extend prior psychology and accounting research by examining and finding that for a current client, the magnitude of the contrast effect from an initial judgment task cascades to influence indirectly related subsequent judgment tasks for which no information from the prior client is available for comparison. We also find auditors' documentations of evidence are systematically affected by the contrast and cascading of contrast effects. Thus, our results provide support for contrast effects and, most important, the cascading of contrast effects to subsequent decisions.

Event-related potential correlates of repetition priming for ignored faces

An attentional capacity limit was recently suggested for faces, such that only one face can be processed at a time. We measured interference and repetition priming caused by irrelevant distractor faces. Participants initially performed male/female judgments for central faces or symbols flanked by distractor faces. Interference (slower responses for sex-incongruent target-distractor pairs) occurred for central symbols but was absent for central faces. In subsequent fame judgements, previously presented distractor faces had no repetition priming effect on response times. Relative to new faces, event-related brain potentials revealed a right occipitotemporal negativity approximately 400-600 ms for faces previously shown as distractors flanking central symbols (but not distractors flanking faces). These findings support a face-specific attentional capacity limit, showing that event-related brain potential priming effects can reveal covert distractor processing.

Planning to Reach for an Object Changes How the Reacher Perceives It

Three experiments assessed the influence of the Ebbinghaus illusion on size judgments that preceded verbal, grasp, or touch responses. Prior studies have found reduced effects of the illusion for the grip-scaling component of grasping, and these findings are commonly interpreted as evidence that different visual systems are employed for perceptual judgment and visually guided action. In the current experiments, the magnitude of the illusion was reduced by comparable amounts for grasping and for judgments that preceded grasping (Experiment 1). A similar effect was obtained prior to reaching to touch the targets (Experiment 2). The effect on verbal responses was apparent even when participants were simply instructed that a target touch task would follow the verbal task. After participants had completed a grasping task, the reduction in the magnitude of the illusion remained for a subsequent verbal-response judgment task (Experiment 3). Overall, the studies demonstrate strong connections between action planning and perception.

The cost of thinking about false beliefs: Evidence from adults’ performance on a non-inferential theory of mind task

Much of what we know about other people’s beliefs comes non-inferentially from what people tell us. Developmental research suggests that 3-year-olds have difficulty processing such information: they suffer interference from their own knowledge of reality when told about someone’s false belief (e.g., [Wellman, H. M., & Bartsch, K. (1988). Young children’s reasoning about beliefs. Cognition, 30, 239–277.]). The current studies examined for the first time whether similar interference occurs in adult participants. In two experiments participants read sentences describing the real colour of an object and a man’s false belief about the colour of the object, then judged the accuracy of a picture probe depicting either reality or the man’s belief. Processing costs for picture probes depicting reality were consistently greater in this false belief condition than in a matched control condition in which the sentences described the real colour of one object and a man’s unrelated belief about the colour of another object. A similar pattern was observed for picture probes depicting the man’s belief in most cases. Processing costs were not sensitive to the time available for encoding the information presented in the sentences: costs were observed when participants read the sentences at their own pace (Experiment 1) or at a faster or a slower pace (Experiment 2). This suggests that adults’ difficulty was not with encoding information about reality and a conflicting false belief, but with holding this information in mind and using it to inform a subsequent judgement.

Do Effects of Client Preference on Accounting Professionals' Information Search and Subsequent Judgments Persist with High Practice Risk?

Audit and tax professionals tend to make judgments consistent with their client's preference, even when that preference is aggressive. Client preference affects judgments directly and indirectly, via information search. In particular, professionals focus their search on information that supports the client's preferred position at the expense of considering information that does not. Biased search is associated with inflated assessments of the likelihood that a client's preferred position will be supported in court and recommendations that are inappropriately aggressive (Cloyd and Spilker 1999). In an experiment with tax professionals as participants, we examine whether high practice risk (i.e., exposure to monetary and nonmonetary costs of making inappropriate recommendations) mitigates these effects. We find that when facing a client with high (versus low) practice risk, professionals perform a more balanced search and this reduces the indirect impact of client preference on judgments. We also find that after controlling for the impact of information search, client preference has a direct, negative impact on recommendations for both high and low practice risk clients, indicating that professionals adjust their recommendations away from the client-preferred position. We interpret this as a conservative reaction to increased environmental risk for all client types. This study sheds light on the direct and indirect paths by which client preference effects occur and demonstrates that high practice risk serves as a boundary condition on confirmation bias and on client preference effects.

Cultural differences in the correction of social inferences: Does the dispositional rebound occur in an interdependent culture?

Although social observers have been found to rely heavily on dispositions in their causal analysis, it has been proposed that culture strongly affects this tendency. Recent research has shown that suppressing dispositional inferences during social judgment can lead to a dispositional rebound, that is relying more on dispositional information in subsequent judgments. In the present research, we investigated whether culture also affects this rebound tendency. First, Thai and Belgian participants took part in a typical attitude attribution paradigm. Next, dispositional rebound was assessed by having participants describe a series of pictures. The dispositional rebound occurred for both Belgian and Thai participants when confronted with a forced target, but disappeared for Thai participants when the situational constraints of the target were made salient. The findings are discussed in light of the current cultural models of attribution theory.

Things are sounding up: Affective influences on auditory tone perception

Recent studies have documented robust and intriguing associations between affect and performance in cognitive tasks. The present two experiments sought to extend this line of work with reference to potential cross-modal effects. Specifically, the present studies examined whether word evaluations would bias subsequent judgments of low- and high-pitch tones. Because affective metaphors and related associations consistently indicate that positive is high and negative is low, we predicted and found that positive evaluations biased tone judgment in the direction of high-pitch tones, whereas the opposite was true of negative evaluations. Effects were found on accuracy rates, response biases, and reaction times. These effects occurred despite the irrelevance of prime evaluations to the tone judgment task. In addition to clarifying the nature of these cross-modal associations, the present results further the idea that affective evaluations exert large effects on perceptual judgments related to verticality.

To do or not to do: Differences in user experience and retrospective judgments depending on the presence or absence of instrumental goals

Recently, Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) started to focus on experiential aspects of product use, such as affect or hedonic qualities. One interesting question concerns the way a particular experience is summarized into a retrospective value judgment about the product. In the present study, we specifically explored the relationship between affect, mental effort and spontaneity experienced while interacting with a storytelling system and retrospective judgments of appeal. In addition, we studied differential effects of the presence or absence of instrumental goals. In general, active instrumental goals did not only impact experience per se by, for example, inducing mental effort, but also the way subsequent retrospective judgments were formed. We discuss the implications of our findings for the practice of product evaluation in HCI specifically, and more general aspects, such as the role of affect in product evaluations and the importance of usage mode compatibility (i.e., a compatibility of the way one ought to and actually does approach a product).

The Impact of Visual Perspective and Anger on the Actor-Observer Bias Among Automobile Drivers

Objective. The present study was designed to examine the combined impact of the Actor-Observer Bias and driver anger on attributions of other drivers. Methods. Participants watched a simulated driving sequence in which a car swerved in front of a truck in near collision. Half viewed from the perspective of the offending motorist while the other half viewed from the perspective of a trailing motorist. Participants then rated the general riskiness of the offending motorist and the responsibility of the victim driver. Results. Findings support the visual perspective explanation of the Actor-Observer Bias in that attributions within a single event differed based on the random assignment of visual perspective. However, the nature of the attributions interacted with the level of anger experienced over the incident. Those viewing as a trailing motorist provided greater riskiness ratings for the offending motorist than did those viewing from the perspective of the offending motorist, but only when scoring/rating high on personal feelings of anger regarding the observed incident. Conclusion. The present study demonstrates that personal factors and common cognitive biases can influence how events in the traffic environment are perceived, and the subsequent judgments made of other drivers following negative events.

On emotional innumeracy: Predicted and actual affective responses to grand-scale tragedies

The present research demonstrates that people overestimate the intensity of their emotional responses to grand-scale tragedies. Participants predicted that they would feel significantly worse if thousands of people were killed in a disaster than if only a few people were killed, and yet they exhibited an “emotional flatline,” feeling equally sad regardless of the number of people killed. This unforeseeable emotional flatline was demonstrated in response to deaths stemming from human violence and natural disasters, both close to home and far away (including hurricanes in the United States, a forest fire in Spain, and the Iraq War). Participants’ actual emotional responses were calibrated with fatalities only when abstract death tolls were translated into concrete images. We argue that affective forecasts and emotional experiences may arise from separate systems, leading to reliable forecasting errors, as well as influencing subsequent judgments.

The effect of rider gender on performance at international equine eventing competitions

Analysis of environmental factors within equine sporting competition is critical to understanding potential effects on performance. If such effects are occurring they need careful consideration within any performance assessment mechanisms that are subsequently undertaken on the data. Such effects may have implications for competitor’s selectors and trainers. Additionally and importantly if the performance data is being related to breeding information, these environmental effects may be playing a significant role in our subsequent judgements and predictions within breed improvement models.

Nonverbal cues-based first impressions: Impression formation through exposure to static images

Consumers often make judgments about service providers based solely on their photograph (e.g., on a billboard, on the Internet) before interacting with them face-to-face. This first impression is important for marketers to understand because it influences service provider selection and evaluation. This research explores the nature and subsequent influence of initial judgments made from static images. The results of two studies indicate that (1) judgments based on nonverbal cues can be surprisingly accurate, particularly of personality traits relevant to the domain in which the target is being judged, and (2) initial nonverbal cues-based judgments influence subsequent judgments of a target’s actions.

How fatiguing is dispositional suppression? Disentangling the effects of procedural rebound and ego‐depletion

AbstractRecent work has shown that correcting a dispositional inference may lead social observers to over‐emphasize the role of dispositional factors in subsequent judgments. This effect has been explained as a procedural rebound following a phase of dispositional suppression. We conducted two experiments to test an alternative explanation in terms of ego‐depletion. In Experiment 1, we compared the effects of ego‐depletion and dispositional rebound by relying on the attitude attribution paradigm and the cookie paradigm. In Experiment 2, we turned to a difficult math task in order to induce fatigue. We were able to replicate the dispositional rebound and the ego‐depletion effects but none of the experiments supported an ego‐depletion explanation of post‐suppression dispositional rebound. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Implicit change identification: A replication of Fernandez-Duque and Thornton (2003).

Using a simple change detection task involving vertical and horizontal stimuli, I. M. Thornton and D. Fernandez-Duque (2000) showed that the implicit detection of a change in the orientation of an item influences performance in a subsequent orientation judgment task. However, S. R. Mitroff, D. J. Simons, and S. L. Franconeri (2002) were not able to replicate this finding after correcting for confounds and thus attributed Thornton and Fernandez-Duque's results to methodological artifacts. Because Mitroff et al.'s failure to replicate might in turn have stemmed from several methodological differences between their study and those of Thornton and Fernandez-Duque (2000) and Fernandez-Duque and Thornton, the current authors set out to conduct a further replication in which they corrected all known methodological biases identified so far. The results suggest that implicit change detection indeed occurs: People's conscious decisions about the orientation of an item appear to be influenced by previous undetected changes in the orientation of other items in the display. Implications of this finding in light of current theories of visual awareness are discussed.

Interference with judgments of control and attentional shift as a result of prior exposure to controllable and uncontrollable feedback

The experiment was carried out to determine whether exposure to an uncontrollable relationship between an action and its outcome during a non-aversive pretreatment phase would affect subsequent ratings of perceived control emitted by human participants. Its other aim was to investigate the effect of such pre-exposure on the attentional focus of humans on internal and external cues. Participants were assigned to one of three groups; an uncontrollable pretreatment, a controllable pretreatment, and no pretreatment. Participants exposed to uncontrollable outcomes (unsolvable problems) gave lower ratings of control over a produced outcome than the other two groups, indicating the interference with subsequent judgments of control. The exposure to uncontrollable outcomes also increased levels of distraction produced by an external cue in a reaction time experiment. Such an effect was not found in the groups who had not been exposed to uncontrollable outcomes. These dual effects are similar to those noted in non-humans subjected to uncontrollable outcomes.

Surface features of utterances, credibility judgments, and memory

Information acquired in conversation is often not credible, which makes monitoring its credibility critical. Listeners of conversations often use surface features of utterances, such as pause and intonation, to guide their credibility judgments. In this research, we explore whether listeners' delayed credibility judgments about remembered information are affected by the surface features of the speakers' utterances. In addition, we examine some of the specific factors involved in this issue: (1) how listeners' listening strategies influence their subsequent credibility judgments and (2) how the type of surface features of the utterances influences listeners' ability to make delayed credibility judgments. The results indicate that intonation of the utterances continues to influence listeners' assessment of the credibility of remembered information, that the influences of intonation depend on listening strategies, and that people have difficulty using/remembering pause length when making a delayed credibility judgment. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Self as a default target in thinking about traits

Two experiments provide evidence for the recruitment of self as a default target in thinking about traits. Results show that semantic processing of trait labels, when no specific target is named, facilitates subsequent trait judgments more for self than for other social exemplars, including exemplars of highly familiar others. The effect is not qualified by trait desirability. However, as predicted, such a privileged position of self in thinking about traits, applies to thinking about covert, unobservable, manifestations but not to thinking about overt, observable, manifestations of traits.

RETRACTED: Unfinished business: How completeness affects the impact of emotional states and emotion concepts on social judgment

In two studies, we compared the impact of cold emotion concept primes with induced hot emotional states on subsequent social judgments. We hypothesized that the completeness of the prime episode is an important determinant of whether accessible information will lead to emotionally congruent or incongruent judgments. We extend previous research on knowledge and emotion accessibility effects by demonstrating that the effects of incomplete versus completed prime episodes are independent of whether we prime emotion states or emotion concepts. That is, our results show that both hot and cold affective information activated by incomplete prime episodes leads to assimilation, whereas information activated by completed prime episodes leads to contrast effects. Implications for accessibility research are discussed. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Scents and Sensibility: When Do (In)Congruent Ambient Scents Influence Product Evaluations?

This research examines when and how ambient scents (i.e., scents that are present in the environment and do not emanate from a specific product) affect product evaluations. Consistent with theory in environmental psychology, the author predicts that such ambient scents can elicit emotional responses that can influence subsequent judgments, but only when specific conditions are met. Three factors are hypothesized to moderate the effects of pleasant ambient scents on evaluations: (1) the congruence of the scent with the product, (2) the salience of the scent, and (3) consumers’ motivation to correct for extraneous influences. The findings of three experiments suggest that as long as ambient scents are congruent with the product, they continue to affect consumers’ evaluations, even when their influence becomes salient or when consumers are sufficiently motivated to correct for extraneous influences. In addition, as long as the scent is not completely incongruent with the product, noncongruent scents are corrected for only when their influence becomes salient or when consumers are sufficiently motivated. These findings indicate that the impact of pleasant ambient scents on product evaluations may be stronger than that of other affective environmental cues.