Jasper John D, Kunzler J Scott, Prichard Eric C, Christman Stephen D
University of Toledo, United States.
University of Toledo, United States.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2014 May;148:115-22. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.01.004. Epub 2014 Feb 7.
The order in which information is received alters the evaluation of causal hypotheses. Specifically, research suggests that the last piece of information oftentimes has the greatest impact on the evaluation and that the difference in subjective value between two pieces of information is an important factor influencing the magnitude of this recency effect. The present paper extends this line of work by exploring individual differences in this phenomenon via one's degree of handedness. Two hundred and five participants were given two hypothetical scenarios and related causal hypotheses accompanied by two pieces of additional information and asked to revise their belief in each hypothesis as information accumulated. Results confirmed predictions that 1) inconsistent/mixed-handers (those who use their non-dominant hand for at least some activities) show a larger effect with two pieces of inconsistent weak or strong information, and 2) neither mixed-handers nor consistent/strong-handers (those who use their dominant hand for almost all activities) show an effect with strong and weak pieces of consistent information. Mixed-handers' susceptibility to persuasive arguments and Ramachandran's (1995; Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1998) belief-updating theory centered around communication between the two halves of the brain and functional access to the right hemisphere are used to account for these data.
信息接收的顺序会改变对因果假设的评估。具体而言，研究表明，最后一条信息往往对评估的影响最大，并且两条信息之间主观价值的差异是影响这种近因效应大小的一个重要因素。本文通过探索用手习惯程度导致的这一现象中的个体差异，扩展了这一研究方向。205名参与者被给予两个假设情景和相关的因果假设，并伴有两条额外信息，要求他们随着信息的积累修改对每个假设的信念。结果证实了以下预测：1）不一致/混合用手者（那些至少在某些活动中使用非优势手的人）在面对两条不一致的弱信息或强信息时表现出更大的效应；2）无论是混合用手者还是一致/强用手者（那些几乎在所有活动中都使用优势手的人）在面对一致的强信息和弱信息时都没有表现出效应。混合用手者对说服性论据的敏感性以及拉马钱德兰（1995年；拉马钱德兰和布莱克斯利，1998年）围绕大脑两半球之间的交流以及右半球功能通路展开的信念更新理论被用来解释这些数据。
