Lec 4

Question 1

Decoy effect in the economist
- what are the two explanations?

Answer 1

1. Print tells u the price, it’s quite expensive so it’s a good deal for (P+O)
2. Easy comparison

Question 2

Modified decoy (Print is 114)
if anchoring is key, then…
if easy comparison/free is key, then…
=> results

Answer 2

If it is anchoring (1) that is key, then bias towards it

If it is abt easy comparison and getting smth free, should be much less effective bc there;s a trade off (do i want to pay the extra 5 dollars?)

=> in between, results that show, so works almost as well as decoy
- more of an anchoring effect

Question 3

Stages where you could have mismatches between the frequency and the world, and the ease of recall

Answer 3

World: if an event gets reported much more often => bias

Exposures: are not equally memorable, deviation from original objective
=> use retrieval from memory

Memory: encoding stage (is it biased?) - some things tend to stick out more, while others don’t

Question 4

Attribute substitution
(How likely is X?)
- representativeness
- availability
(How good/bad/likely is X?)
- recognition

Answer 4

-how well it fits an example or prototype?

• how easy to generate examples?

substitute w/ sense of familiarity

Question 5

Recognition heuristic
(football players

Answer 5

Can it (familiarity) provide some valid info?
- yes, it can work bc smth being more common is not random, usually it means they are better or smth like else
- but recognition is subjective

Question 6

Gigerenzer
- What is the mediator?

Answer 6

Mediator: mass media
- better quality players gain more attention (on average this is the case)

Question 7

Recognition validity

Answer 7

Relation bet.
Objective quality and subjective familiarity
- varies in range, extent that the amount of exposure is correlated
- poor validity if sampling is not representative
- exposure is not proportional to quality (eg high attention but not related to performance)

Question 8

Can you manipulate recognition?

Answer 8

• sense that familiarity
• eg in advertisement, companies invest so that u see it more often on the football jerseys
• see it more, feels familiar
• familiarity and recognition are used to infer quality!!

Question 9

Jacoby et al: becoming famous overnight

Answer 9

Test and 24 hrs later the same test => false alarms about famous names (they are familiar)

Question 10

Ilusión of truth effect and explanation

Answer 10

• bias toward “true” in T/F statements when judged the second time
  => familiarity is used as a cue for validity (familiar,t Hereford is true)

Question 11

Failure of Source memory

Answer 11

Not being able to remember the source of the info / knowledge (we are not very good at source knowledge)
- famous overnight is also an example of this

Question 12

Familiarity and money (Alter and Oppenheimer)

Answer 12

1 dollar (common) 2 dollars (uncommon)
- judge that can buy more with the two 1dollar bills (more familiar)
=> perceive it more familiar and valuable (judgment estimate uses familiarity as a standard for value)

Question 13

Familiarity and novelty in arts

Answer 13

We do prefer novelty to some extent (can get bored w familiarity)

Stronger force:
Belke et al (2010)

Question 14

Schwartz’s study
- 2 vs 8 to disassociate the content of retrieved memory, from the EASe of retrieval

Answer 14

=> 2 examples i can come up, so yes i believe pollution will decrease. Can’t come up with 8, so pollution will not improve
=> can come up with 2 examples of why pollution is not improving, but I can’t with 8, so i believe it will improve

Question 15

Fluency

Answer 15

• sense of easy or difficulty
  => may unconsciously use fluency as a substitute to judge other attributes (eg recognition,
  availability
• availability may be a fluency effect (even if unrelated to the task)

Question 16

Difficulty rating (Schwartz)
=> not ease of retrieval, but in general

Answer 16

• read descriptions and judge how difficult from 1-10
• the difference was the font in 2 groups
  => the font that is more difficult rates the same exercise as more difficult
  Difficulty in/of processing influenced judgments

Question 17

Why does processing fluency influence judgment?

Answer 17

Processing fluency is using info (attribute substitution)
We hv awareness of how hard or easy smth is, so could provide more info

Question 18

Thinking of mental processes / heuristics as meta cognition

Answer 18

Sense how difficult or easy to process/imagine
*still subjective (exposure to mass media)