Abstract
Two experiments investigating the effect of the direction of a relational judgment on the speed of the judgment are reported. In both experiments, college students required more time to select the smaller of a pair of large animals than to select the larger. Conversely, the smaller of a pair of small animals was selected more quickly than was the larger. The magnitude of this “cross-over effect” was fully graded, increasing regularly with extremity, but the variability of the response times in each direction was unrelated to extremity. Individual animals were classified as “small” or “large” with almost perfect consistency. This pattern of results is used to evaluate several models of relational judgment; of these, the congruency model is shown to be inconsistent with these data.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Reference Note
Petrusic, W. M., & Jamieson. D. G.Resolution time and the coding of arithmetic relations on supraliminally, different visual Paper submitted tot publication.
References
Audley, R. J. A stochastic model for individual choice behaviour.Psychological Review. 1960,67, 1–15.
Audley.R. J., &Pike, A. R., Some alternative stochastic models of choice.British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology. 1965,18, 207–255.
Audley.R. J., &Wallis.C. P. Response instructions and the speed of relative judgments. I. Some experiments on brightness discriminationBritish Journal of Psychology. 1964,55, 59–73.
Banks, W. P., Clark, H. H., &Lucy, P. The locus of the semantic congruity effect in comparative judgments.Journal Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 1975,1, 35–47
Clark, H. H., Caprenter, P. A., &Just, M. A. On the meeting of semantics and perception. In W. G. Chase (Ed.),Visual information processing. New York. Academic Press, 1973.
Coombs.C. H. Psychological scaling without a unit of measurement.Psychological Review. 1950,57, 145–158.
Ellis.S. H. Interaction of encoding and retrieval in relative age judgments: An extension of the “cross-over” effect.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1972,94, 291–294.
Greenberg, M. G. J-scale models for preferential choice behaviorPsychometrika, 1963,28, 205–271
Marks, D. F. Relative judgment: A phenomenon and a theory.Perception & Psychophysics. 1972,11, 156–160
Moyer, R. S. Comparing objects in memory: Evidence suggesting an internal psychophysics.Perception & Psychophysics. 1973,13, 180–184,
Shipley, W. C., Coffin, J. L., &Hadsell, K. C. Reaction time in judgment of color preference.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1945,35, 200–215.
Shipley, W. C., Norris, E. D., &Roberts, M. L. The effect of changed polarity of set on decision time of affective judgments.Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1946,36, 237–243.
Thomas, E. A. C. Sufficient conditions for monotone hazard rate: An application to latency-probability curves.Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1971,8, 303–332.
Wallis, C. P., &Audley.R. J. Response instructions and the speed of relative judgments. II. Pitch discrimination.British Journal of Psychology, 1964,55, 133–142.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported by a National Research Council of Canada postgraduate scholarship to Jamieson and by grants from the National Research Council of Canada and from Carleton University to Petrusic and from NRC to R. F. Dillon.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jamieson, D.G., Petrusic, W.M. Relational judgments with remembered stimuli. Perception & Psychophysics 18, 373–378 (1975). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204108
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204108