Cha Oakyoon
Department of Psychology, Sogang University, Seoul, 04107, Republic of Korea.
Department of Psychology, Sungshin Women's University, Seoul, 02844 , Republic of Korea.
Sci Rep. 2025 Mar 27;15(1):10531. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-93760-5.
The present study explored the potential of categorical frequency judgments as effective ensemble judgments, motivated by the observation that most studies on ensemble judgments have focused on univariate statistics, such as mean and variance. However, these univariate statistics may not fully capture the complexity of real-world tasks that require judgments on complex object features. In such cases, categorical statistics like mode (the most frequent instance in a set) and diversity (the number of different instances in a set) may provide more relevant information. For instance, when a speaker enters an auditorium and scans her audience, relative frequencies of different emotional expressions could be more useful than the representation of the average face with a potentially faint expression. Study 1 examined the relationship between mode judgment and diversity comparison in facial identities, while Study 2 extended the examination of mode judgments across different object categories (faces and blobs). The results indicate that categorical frequency judgments share behavioral variability across tasks and object categories, supporting their potential as effective ensemble judgments. Future research may explore how these categorical frequency judgments interact with univariate statistical judgments to enhance our understanding of ensemble judgments.
本研究探讨了类别频率判断作为有效整体判断的潜力，这一研究的动机源于以下观察结果：大多数关于整体判断的研究都集中在单变量统计上，如均值和方差。然而，这些单变量统计可能无法完全捕捉需要对复杂对象特征进行判断的现实世界任务的复杂性。在这种情况下，诸如众数（一组中出现频率最高的实例）和多样性（一组中不同实例的数量）等类别统计可能会提供更相关的信息。例如，当一位演讲者走进礼堂并扫视观众时，不同情感表达的相对频率可能比具有潜在微弱表情的平均面部表征更有用。研究1考察了面部识别中众数判断与多样性比较之间的关系，而研究2则将众数判断的考察扩展到不同的对象类别（面部和斑点）。结果表明，类别频率判断在不同任务和对象类别中具有行为变异性，支持了它们作为有效整体判断的潜力。未来的研究可以探索这些类别频率判断如何与单变量统计判断相互作用，以增进我们对整体判断的理解。
