Text-Based Decisions: Changes in the Availability of Facts over Time.
Abstract
Real life decisions and judgments are typically made partly on the basis of memory for information presented at an earlier time but no longer available in memory. For example, while it may be of no special significance, a deeply processed fact could have a greater influence on delayed judgment than another poorly processed fact. In this experiment, certain facts were distinguished during incidental encoding either by repetition or by presentation in concrete (as opposed to abstract) form. These facts were shown to have a disproportionate impact on later judgments in three domains (stock market, medical diagnosis and criminal trial). This judgmental bias appeared to be directly connected to better memory for concrete or repeated facts and independent of any difference in weight or importance of retained facts. The results of this study are interpreted in terms of a theoretical control schema that operates on input (text) so as to fill pre-established slots with decision-specific information. Repetitions and concrete statements provide representations that are more available for retrieval at time of judgment. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1981
- Accession Number
- ADA105657
Entities
People
- Lyle E. Bourne Jr.
- Steven Antos
- Walter Kintsch
Organizations
- University of Colorado Boulder