Reynolds Angus, Garton Roderick, Kvam Peter, Sauer James, Osth Adam F, Heathcote Andrew
Department of Psychology.
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2021 Jan;150(1):42-66. doi: 10.1037/xge0000770. Epub 2020 Jun 18.
We propose a dynamic theory of decisions not to choose which of 2 options is correct. Such "do not-know" judgments are of theoretical and practical importance in domains ranging from comparative psychology, psychophysics, episodic memory, and metacognition to applied areas including educational testing and eyewitness testimony. However, no previous theory has provided a detailed quantitative account of the time it takes to make both definitive and do not-know responses and their relative frequencies. We tested our theory, the multiple threshold race (MTR), in 1 recognition memory experiment where participants had to pick a previously studied target out of 2 similar faces and another where targets and lures were tested 1 at a time. In both experiments we manipulated similarity through face morphing. High similarity made decisions difficult, encouraging do not-know responses. We also tested the MTR's ability to account for other manipulations that aimed to affect the speed and probability of do not-know responses, including increasing penalties for making an error (with no penalty for a do not-know response) and emphasizing either response speed or accuracy. We found that there were marked individual differences in do not-know use, and that the MTR was able to account for the intricate pattern of effects associated with our manipulations, both on average and in terms of individual differences. We discuss how estimates of MTR's parameters illuminate the psychological mechanisms that govern the interplay between definitive and do not-know responding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
我们提出了一种关于不确定两个选项中哪一个正确时的决策动态理论。这种“不知道”的判断在从比较心理学、心理物理学、情景记忆、元认知到包括教育测试和目击证人证词等应用领域都具有理论和实践意义。然而，以前没有任何理论对做出确定性回答和“不知道”回答所需的时间及其相对频率提供详细的定量描述。我们在1个识别记忆实验中测试了我们的理论——多阈值竞赛（MTR），在该实验中，参与者必须从2张相似的面孔中挑选出之前研究过的目标，在另一个实验中，目标和诱饵是一次测试1个。在这两个实验中，我们通过面部变形来操纵相似性。高相似性使决策变得困难，从而促使做出“不知道”的回答。我们还测试了MTR解释其他旨在影响“不知道”回答速度和概率的操纵的能力，包括增加错误惩罚（对“不知道”回答不惩罚）以及强调回答速度或准确性。我们发现，在使用“不知道”回答方面存在显著的个体差异，并且MTR能够解释与我们的操纵相关的复杂效应模式，无论是平均水平还是个体差异方面。我们讨论了MTR参数的估计如何阐明控制确定性回答和“不知道”回答之间相互作用的心理机制。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2021美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
