Retrieval from memory and cue complexity both trigger exemplar-based processes in judgment^*

* Data of experiment available at: https://osf.io/swdyz/.

ABSTRACT

Judgments and decisions can be achieved by a rule-based integration of cues or by retrieving similar exemplars from memory. In judgments based on currently available object descriptions (on-line judgments), people tend to rely on rules unless the cue-criterion relations are difficult to extract. In memory-based decisions, more evidence for exemplarbased reasoning has been found, but hitherto restricted to conditions with unknown cue polarity. These conclusions are threatened by methodological confounds concerning materials, training regime, and type of judgment task. In a factorial experiment, memory-based vs. on-line judgments as well as obvious vs. unknown cue polarity conditions were pitted against each other. Participants judged disease severity based on symptoms. Using the measurement model RulEx-J, we confirmed that both memory retrieval and unknown cue polarity have additive effects on the use of exemplar-based processes. This corroborates the idea that exemplar-based strategies are used as a backup if cue abstraction is unfeasible.

KEYWORDS:

• Judgment
• exemplar models
• memory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* Data of experiment available at: https://osf.io/swdyz/.

1 Although the term “on-line” has an internet connotation some 30 years after Hastie and Parks’ (1986) introduction of this term, we stuck with it here for compatibility with the literature.

2 In some applications, they receive additional information about the actual criterion value of both compared objects (Persson & Rieskamp, 2009, Study 2; Bröder et al., 2010).

3 The two extreme patterns were left out for the purely pragmatic reason to keep the learning material manageable in a reasonable amount of time. Earlier experiments used 10 up to 13 cue patterns maximum (e.g. Persson & Rieskamp, 2009), and each additional pattern increases learning time and frustrates participants.

4 In the dimension and feature cue format conditions, participants needed on average 7.43 versus 5.47 blocks to reach the learning criterion (t(58) = 2.78, p = .01), and the performance was 84.4% and 87.1%, respectively (t(58) = 1.48, p = .14).

5 F values are based on Pillai’s Trace criterion. Greenhouse-Geisser-corrected univariate F values yield the same pattern of results except for an also conventionally significant novelty x cue format interaction.

6 Note that the “main effect” in the decision task is the interaction with pattern novelty, since the latter effect measures generalisation.

7 Switching will result in markedly inferior model fits, however (Bröder et al., 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grant BR 2130/9-1 awarded to the first author as a part of the Research Unit “Contextualized Decision Making” (FOR 2140).