Doherty M E, Chadwick R, Garavan H, Barr D, Mynatt C R
Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, OH 43403, USA.
Mem Cognit. 1996 Sep;24(5):644-54. doi: 10.3758/bf03201089.
Two lines of prior research into the conditions under which people seek information are examined in light of two statistical definitions of diagnosticity. Five experiments are reported. In two, subjects selected information in order to test a hypothesis. In the remaining three, they selected information in order to convince someone else of the truth of a known hypothesis. A total of 567 university students served as subjects. The two primary conclusions were as follows: (1) When the task is highly structured by the environment, subjects select information diagnostically, and (2) when the task is less structured, so that subjects must seek relevant information not manifest, they select information pseudodiagnostically. Possible relations to other laboratory inference tasks and to clinical judgment are discussed.
根据诊断性的两种统计定义，对关于人们在何种条件下寻求信息的两条先前研究路线进行了考察。报告了五项实验。其中两项实验中，受试者选择信息以检验一个假设。在其余三项实验中，他们选择信息是为了使其他人相信一个已知假设的真实性。共有567名大学生作为受试者。两个主要结论如下：（1）当任务由环境高度结构化时，受试者会以诊断性的方式选择信息；（2）当任务结构化程度较低，以至于受试者必须寻找不明显的相关信息时，他们会以伪诊断性的方式选择信息。还讨论了与其他实验室推理任务和临床判断的可能关系。
