Determinanten schneller und einfacher Entscheidungen mit der Rekognitionsheuristik: Ein Kosten-Nutzen-Ansatz
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The second funding phase of our project included four subprojects. Subproject 1 focused on experimental tests of our optimization theory of recognition-based inferences. This subproject was very successful in showing that RH-use monotonically decreases with (a) the difference between knowledge and recognition validities in the underlying decision domains, β – α, and (b) increases with the cognitive effort required to retrieve and utilize knowledge about decision-relevant objects. Three publications in the current funding phase next to three publications in the previous funding phase yielded supportive evidence. However, a third major prediction of the optimization theory has not been supported convincingly so far, namely, that the ability to identify the optimal decision strategy decreases with working memory load. Given the evidence we have so far, we attribute the incoherent pattern of our results to the difficulties in identifying decision domains with appropriate recognition and knowledge validities. More research is needed to clarify this issue. The second subproject focused on the Memory State Heuristic, an extension of the RH according to which the memory strengths underlying recognition judgments determine inferences, not recognition judgments themselves. This idea was convincingly supported in three publications of the current funding phase. The only study that did not work as predicted made use of artificial choice objects with memory strengths manipulated experimentally. We attribute this failure to the difficulties in designing experimental materials that mimic choice objects in real-world decision scenarios. Subproject 3 targeted intra- and individual differences in RH-use and resulted in three publications. We identified developmental trajectories of RH-use across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood that are somewhat surprising. Importantly, based on hierarchical MPT modeling, we additionally made sure that RH-use is a stable personality characteristic that appears to be determined by fluid intelligence and need for cognition in the first place. However, our attempts to explain individual RH-use in terms of the Big 5 personality dimensions did not converge to a convincing explanatory model so far. Last, but not least, our fourth subproject entailed innovative MPT models of judgment and decision making that we did not foresee in our project proposal. Four publications described and applied such innovative models. The arguably most consequential publication is a Psychological Review paper with its core result that an information integration model of decision making like PCS can better account for almost all of our data than a model assuming fast-and-frugal decision heuristics. It is important to see that this result does not invalidate the conclusions we have drawn from Subprojects 1 to 3. It might be necessary, however, to re-interpret what we called “recognitionheuristic use” as “dominance of the recognition cue” in an information-integration model of decision making. In other words, rather than using decision heuristics in a certain sequence, people might actually integrate multiple pieces of information by default. In this integration process, however, the recognition cue can receive a weight that is so strong that it can never be overruled by any combination of other pieces of information, thus transforming the recognition cue in a noncompensatory cue de facto.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
- (2013). Conjoint measurement of disorder prevalence, test sensitivity, and test specificity: Notes on Botella, Huang, and Suero's multinomial model. Frontiers in Psychology, 4:876
Erdfelder, E., & Moshagen, M.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00876) - (2013). Effort reduction after self-control depletion: The role of cognitive resources in use of simple heuristics. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25, 267-276
Pohl, R. F., Erdfelder, E., Hilbig, B. E., Liebke, L., & Stahlberg, D.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2012.758101) - (2014). The impact of subjective recognition experiences on recognition heuristic use: A multinomial processing tree approach. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21, 1131-1138
Castela, M., Kellen, D., Erdfelder, E., & Hilbig, B. E.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0587-4) - (2015). The advantages of model fitting compared to model simulation in research on preference construction. Frontiers in Psychology, 6:140
Erdfelder E., Castela, M., Michalkiewicz, M., & Heck, D. W.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00140) - (2015). Whatever the cost? Information integration in memory-based inferences depends on cognitive effort. Memory & Cognition, 43, 659-671
Hilbig, B. E., Michalkiewicz, M., Castela, M., Pohl, R. F., & Erdfelder, E.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-014-0493-z) - (2016). Individual differences in use of the recognition heuristic are stable across time, choice objects, domains, and presentation formats. Memory & Cognition, 44, 454-468
Michalkiewicz, M., & Erdfelder, E.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-015-0567-6) - (2016). The limited use of the fluency heuristic: Converging evidence across different procedures. Memory & Cognition, 44, 1114-1126
Pohl, R. F., Erdfelder, E., Michalkiewicz, M., Castela, M., & Hilbig, B. E.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-016-0622-y) - (2017). Do smarter people employ better decision strategies? The influence of intelligence on adaptive use of the recognition heuristic. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
Michalkiewicz, M., Arden, K., & Erdfelder, E.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2040) - (2017). Further evidence for the memory state heuristic: Recognition latency predictions for binary inferences. Judgment and Decision Making, 12, 537-532
Castela, M., & Erdfelder, E.
- (2017). Linking process and measurement models of recognitionbased decisions. Psychological Review, 124, 442-471
Heck, D. W., & Erdfelder, E.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000063) - (2017). Measuring age-related differences in using a simple decision strategy: The case of the recognition heuristic. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 225, 20-30
Pohl, R. F.
(Siehe online unter https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1027/2151-2604/a000283) - (2017). The memory state heuristic: A formal model based on repeated recognition judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43, 205-225
Castela, M., & Erdfelder, E.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-017-0689-0) - (2017). Use of the recognition heuristic depends on the domain‘s recognition validity, not on the validity of selected sets of objects. Memory & Cognition, 45, 776-791
Pohl, R. F., Michalkiewicz, M., Erdfelder, E., & Hilbig, B. E.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-017-0689-0)
