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Frequency processing: A twenty-five year perspective.
Abstract
We first proposed that frequency of occurrence information is 'automatically' encoded in the context of a general theoretical framework relating attention and memory encoding (Hasher and Zacks 1979). This chapter begins with a description of the origins of that framework, focusing on earlier evidence indicating that people of all ages and under a very broad range of circumstances reliably and unintentionally encode information about the relative frequencies of events. Notwithstanding challenges to the automatic encoding view, we believe this empirical generalization remains valid today. Additionally, we describe recent examples of findings from research on language processing and statistical reasoning that add to earlier evidence of the critical contribution of frequency knowledge to cognitive and social functioning. Finally, we note that, in a number of respects, the broader intellectual climate in psychology today is more consistent with our approach to memory encoding than was the intellectual climate of the 1970s. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Perhaps most relevant to the present study, participants learn relations among cues that co-occur while completing tasks that do not require learning such relations, such as identifying when a shape repeats in a sequential stream of shapes (Turk-Browne et al., 2005). Even outside of awareness, participants are sensitive to co-occurrence frequencies in their environment (Hasher & Chromiak, 1977;Hasher & Zacks, 1979, 1984Turk-Browne et al., 2005;Wattenmaker, 1991Wattenmaker, , 1993Zacks & Hasher, 2002). If people are sensitive to colour-concept co-occurrences when using colour is nonessential, then associative learning could enable them to continually form and update colour-concept associations through daily activities that do not require using colour. ...
... Overall, participants formed stronger colour-concept associations as co-occurrence frequency increased, however this effect was stronger for participants who reported noticing colour related patterns during alien category learning. The frequency effect is consistent with evidence that people continually detect statistics from their environment (Austerweil & Griffiths, 2013;Fiser & Aslin, 2001Hasher & Chromiak, 1977;Hasher & Zacks, 1984;Park et al., 2018;Saffran et al., 1996;Turk-Browne et al., 2005;Turk-Browne et al., 2008;Wattenmaker, 1991Wattenmaker, , 1993Yu & Zhao, 2018;Zacks & Hasher, 2002;Zhao & Yu, 2016), even if those statistics are not essential to the task at hand. ...
Colour-concept associations influence fundamental processes in cognition and perception, including object recognition and visual reasoning. To understand these effects, it is necessary to understand how colour-concept associations are formed. It is assumed that colour-concept associations are learned through experiences, but questions remain concerning how association formation is influenced by properties of the input and cognitive factors. We addressed these questions by first exposing participants to colour-concept co-occurrences for novel concepts (“Filk” and “Slub” alien species) using a category learning task. We then assessed colour-concept associations using an association rating task. During alien category learning, colour was a noisy cue and shape was 100% diagnostic of category membership, so participants could ignore colour to complete the task. Nonetheless, participants learned systematic colour-concept associations for “seen” colours during alien category learning and generalized to “unseen” colours as a function of colour distance from the seen colours (Experiment 1). Association formation not only depended on colour-concept co-occurrences during alien category learning, but also on cognitive structure of colour categories (e.g., degree to which an observed red colour is typical of the colour category “red”) (Experiment 2). Thus, environmental and cognitive factors combine to influence colour-concept associations formed from experiences in the world.
... Practically, psychologists need to estimate how often words occur in a language in order to investigate how word frequency affects lexical processing (Brysbaert & New, 2009); applied linguists need to estimate word frequencies (especially when these are not available) so as to select materials that are worth teaching (McCrostie, 2007). Theoretically, investigations of word frequency intuition can contribute to models of human memory (Zacks & Hasher, 2002) and decision-making (Tversky, 1974). In the field of L2 acquisition, many researchers (e.g., Ellis & Gries, 2015;Ellis, Romer, & O'Donnell, 2016) have held that language users are attuned to frequency of input and that language users can acquire knowledge of frequency and other probabilistic information after decades of language use. ...
... Inconsistencies regarding the accuracy of statistical intuitions also echo a longlasting debate over whether humans can accurately estimate the statistical information underlying natural events and language use. According to Zacks and Hasher (2002), people automatically track and encode frequencies and probabilities, and their estimations of frequency and of probability are accurate, regardless of age, practice, and task manipulations. On the other hand, scholarsespecially those in the field of decision making (Tversky, 1974)-hold that judgments of frequency and of probability are unavoidably error prone because they involve not only the retrieval of statistical representations but also taskirrelevant variables such as the use of strategies (judgmental heuristics). ...
This study investigated the accuracy of L1 and L2 speakers’ intuitions of phrasal frequency and association strength of collocations, as well as the linguistic influences that give rise to such estimations. L1 and L2 speakers of English judged 180 adjective-noun collocations as one of the following: high frequency, medium frequency, or low frequency, and high association, medium association, or low association. Results showed that neither L1 nor L2 speakers demonstrated accurate intuitions of phrasal frequency and association strength. Both groups of participants employed linguistic information at phrase and single-word levels when giving intuitive statistical estimates. Interestingly, judgments of phrasal frequency and association strength were found to be intertwined for both L1 and L2 speakers. Taken together, such findings shed new insight on our understanding of language users’ statistical knowledge of multiword sequences.
... Research in psychology indicates that people use frequency-related information to make judgments and decisions (see Zacks and Hasher [50] for a review). People instinctively ask questions about event frequency (e.g., how many times? ...
Corporate donation is an important business strategy, but not all donations can yield the expected positive outcomes. Thus, it is urgent to know what donation strategies firms should use to obtain positive responses from different stakeholders. By conducting two experimental studies, we explore which donation frequency strategy, one-time or multiple-time donations, drives more positive investor responses and the difference in the mediating roles of altruistic/egoistic bidirectional motive attributions. The results show that for donation projects supporting ongoing causes, a multiple-time strategy leads to investors having more positive judgments of a firm’s future earnings prospects and higher investment desirability rather than a one-time strategy because it induces more altruistic attributions. Although investors make both altruistic and egoistic attributions for both strategies, only the mediating role of altruistic attribution exists, whereas that of egoistic attribution does not. Our research contributes to the study of corporate donation strategies and corporate social responsibility (including corporate donation) motive attribution, providing valuable insights for academic research, corporate decision makers, and stakeholders invested in responsible business practices.
... In fact, individual differences in learning rate or memory decay during EBDs are associated with neurodegenerative disease status (e.g., Busemeyer & Stout, 2002), delinquent behavior (Yechiam, Busemeyer, Stout, & Bechara, 2005), and age-related changes in impulsive decisionmaking (e.g., Wood, Busemeyer, Koling, Cox, & Davis, 2005). More generally, there is an extensive and longstanding literature on the basic psychological mechanisms underlying frequency or probability learning that reveals biases (e.g., toward recently experienced outcomes, attention to wins versus losses, etc.) in how people estimate probabilities or assign salience to outcomes (see, e.g., Estes, 1976;Gonzalez, 2013;Zacks & Hasher, 2002). ...
When making decisions based on probabilistic outcomes, people guide their behavior using knowledge gathered through both indirect descriptions and direct experience. Paradoxically, how people obtain information significantly impacts apparent preferences. A ubiquitous example is the description-experience gap: individuals seemingly overweight low probability events when probabilities are described yet underweight them when probabilities must be experienced firsthand. A leading explanation for this fundamental gap in decision-making is that probabilities are weighted differently when learned through description relative to experience, yet a formal theoretical account of the mechanism responsible for such weighting differences remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate how various learning and memory retention models incorporating neuroscientifically-motivated learning mechanisms can explain why probability weighting and valuation parameters are often found to vary across description and experience. In a simulation study, we show how learning through experience can lead to systematically biased estimates of probability weighting when using a traditional cumulative prospect theory model. We then use hierarchical Bayesian modeling and Bayesian model comparison to show how various learning and memory retention models capture participants’ behavior over and above changes in outcome valuation and probability weighting, accounting for description and experience-based decisions in a within-subject experiment. We conclude with a discussion of how substantive models of psychological processes can lead to insights that heuristic, statistical models fail to capture.
... In fact, individual differences in learning rate/memory decay during EBDs are associated with neurodegenerative disease status (e.g., Busemeyer & Stout, 2002), delinquent behavior (Yechiam, Busemeyer, Stout, & Bechara, 2005), and age-related changes in impulsive decisionmaking (e.g., Wood, Busemeyer, Koling, Cox, & Davis, 2005). More generally, there is an extensive and longstanding literature on the basic psychological mechanisms underlying frequency/probability learning that reveals biases (e.g., toward recently experienced outcomes, attention to wins versus losses, etc.) in how people estimate probabilities or assign salience to outcomes (see, e.g., Estes, 1976;Zacks & Hasher, 2002). Although a comprehensive review of the frequency learning literature is outside the scope of the current study, the models that evolved from frequency learning research now fall under the general umbrella of instance-based learning models described by Equation 3 above. ...
When making decisions based on probabilistic outcomes, people guide their behavior using knowledge gathered through both indirect descriptions and direct experience. Paradoxically, how people obtain information significantly impacts apparent preferences. A ubiquitous example is the description-experience gap: individuals seemingly overweight low probability events when probabilities are described yet underweight them when probabilities must be experienced firsthand. A leading explanation for this fundamental gap in decision-making is that probabilities are weighted differently when learned through description relative to experience, yet a formal theoretical account of the mechanism responsible for such weighting differences remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate how various learning and memory retention models incorporating neuroscientifically-motivated learning mechanisms can explain why probability weighting and valuation parameters are often found to vary across description and experience. In a simulation study, we show how learning through experience can lead to systematically biased estimates of probability weighting when using a traditional cumulative prospect theory model. We then use hierarchical Bayesian modeling and Bayesian model comparison to show how various learning and memory retention models capture participants’ behavior over and above changes in outcome valuation and probability weighting, accounting for description and experience-based decisions in a within-subject experiment. We conclude with a discussion of how substantive models of psychological processes can lead to insights that heuristic, statistical models fail to capture.
This brief report presents the results of a re-analysis of data by Yi, Man, and Maie (2023), who investigated L1 and L2 intuitive knowledge of phrasal frequency and collocation strength in multiword sequences. We utilized an individual-differences approach and examined which participant variables (age of onset, length of residence, language use, and L2 proficiency) predicted the participants' accuracy in judging the phrasal frequency and association strength of multiword sequences in English. We found that the demographic variables were only related to the accuracy in judging association strength, but those variables differentially predicted the accuracy depending on whether the collocations were of high or medium association strength.
Auditors are expected to identify and resolve material misstatements (MMs) in management's financial statements. However, beyond the audit opinion, the audit process is opaque. To address this, we independently survey 462 audit partners and interview 24 audit partners, CFOs, and audit committee members on how partners assess and address MM risk, resolve MMs, and the consequences of MMs. Partners identify MMs in approximately 9% (15%) of public (private) engagements and use qualitative factors to waive some MMs. Loan covenant and going‐concern issues increase MM risk more than earnings benchmark issues. Partners point to a variety of both auditor and client factors as threats to audit effectiveness. Partners often rely on rapport with management and involve the national office and audit committee in resolving MMs. Partner incentives around restatements are context‐specific. Our results provide new insights into the auditor's role in financial reporting that are relevant to academics, practitioners, and regulators.
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The mere-exposure effect, in which repeated stimuli are liked more than novel stimuli, is a well-known effect. However, little research has studied adult age differences in mere-exposure effects, despite possible applications in helping older adults transition to new living environments. Here, we report four experiments assessing mere-exposure to neutral-face stimuli in groups of older and younger adult participants tested online. In each experiment, repeated face exposure did not increase liking within either age group; rather, Bayesian evidence favored the null hypothesis of no effect. Older adults reported higher overall liking ratings relative to younger adults, and both groups preferred younger faces, though this tendency was stronger in the younger group. Further exploratory analysis considering factors such as gender or race of the faces and participants did not reveal any consistent results for the mere-exposure effect. We discuss these findings in relation to other recent studies reporting mixed evidence for mere-exposure effects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
The ratio of males and females in a population (the sex ratio) has been documented as an important factor in calibrating mating behaviors. This implies mental processes of attention, perception, categorization, and memory to obtain these environmental sex ratios. Although recent work has indicated that sex ratio information can be processed quickly, accurately, and with little effort, there are still open questions about whether sex ratio information is cognitively privileged or prioritized, relative to other environmental information. The present experiments used an ensemble coding paradigm with larger, more complex matrices of stimuli and with a more feasible range of ratios (between 7:13 to 13:7) than many prior studies on sex ratio perception. Experiment 1 found that sex ratio estimates are sensitive to actual seen ratios (of a 4 × 5 matrix of faces, shown for about 500 ms), and that those judgments are more accurate than similarly presented ensemble coding judgments for vehicles (ratios of cars and truck) or for animals (ratios of cats and dogs). Experiment 2 found that sex ratio estimates and hair color ratio estimates are about equal in accuracy. These results together suggest that faces are a privileged content for frequency tracking, relative to other aspects of the environment. Further research can extend this work by disambiguating factors such as complexity and discriminability of various facial cues and the stage of processing at which those cues are being used. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
In a nonverbal counting task derived from the animal literature, adult human subjects repeatedly attempted to produce target numbers of key presses at rates that made vocal or subvocal counting difficult or impossible. In a second task, they estimated the number of flashes in a rapid, randomly timed sequence. Congruent with the animal data, mean estimates in both tasks were proportional to target values, as was the variability in the estimates. Converging evidence makes it unlikely that subjects used verbal counting or time durations to perform these tasks. The results support the hypothesis that adult humans share with nonverbal animals a system for representing number by magnitudes that have scalar variability (a constant coefficient of variation). The mapping of numerical symbols to mental magnitudes provides a formal model of the underlying nonverbal meaning of the symbols (a model of numerical semantics).
Three experiments with approximately 490 undergraduates examined the process by which frequency-of-occurrence information is registered in memory. Based on the hypothesis that this information is encoded automatically, performance on a frequency discrimination task was predicted to be insensitive to a variety of manipulations expected to influence free recall. A task requiring considerable effortful processing was therefore used as a counterpoint to the frequency task. Results confirm these expectations. Frequency performance did not increase with practice, was unaffected by appropriateness of practice, was not influenced by accuracy of test expectations, and was not hindered by competing demands. No stable individual differences were obtained in discriminating relative frequency, and strategy effects were small. Data conform to automatic processing criteria. However, free-recall performance was in direct contrast to frequency performance. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Tested the 2-process theory of detection, search, and attention presented by the current authors (1977) in a series of experiments. The studies (a) demonstrate the qualitative difference between 2 modes of information processing: automatic detection and controlled search; (b) trace the course of the learning of automatic detection, of categories, and of automatic-attention responses; and (c) show the dependence of automatic detection on attending responses and demonstrate how such responses interrupt controlled processing and interfere with the focusing of attention. The learning of categories is shown to improve controlled search performance. A general framework for human information processing is proposed. The framework emphasizes the roles of automatic and controlled processing. The theory is compared to and contrasted with extant models of search and attention. (31/2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Anthropologists have long recognized that cultural evolution critically depends on the transmission and generation of information. However, between the selection pressures of evolution and the actual behaviour of individuals, scientists have suspected that other processes are at work. With the advent of what has come to be known as the cognitive revolution, psychologists are now exploring the evolved problem-solving and information-processing mechanisms that allow humans to absorb and generate culture. The purpose of this book is to introduce the newly crystallizing field of evolutionary psychology, which supplied the necessary connection between the underlying evolutionary biology and the complex and irreducible social phenomena studied by anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and historians.
Publisher Summary
This chapter reviews the research on the effects of repetition conducted in the laboratory. Repetition is one of the most powerful variables affecting memory. The chapter discusses experiments called the “method of memory judgments.” In this technique, a list of items is presented, and the subject is then presented with each test item and asked to judge from memory some aspect of its presentation in the list. Judgments of recency, frequency, exposure duration, list membership, input modality, spacing, and serial position have all been used, singly and in combination. Judgments reveal much more about the richness of information encoded in memory than can be inferred from more traditional recall and recognition measures. Memory judgments have been particularly revealing where effects of repetition on memory are concerned. The chapter examines how frequency or number of occurrences is represented in memory. It reviews research on effects on memory of the spacing of repetitions and presents evidence on the role of repetitions as retrieval cues.
The subjects were shown a series of sentences in which some sentences were repeated in either identical or paraphrased form and with 0, 4, or 8 sentences between repetitions. At test, frequency judgments were requested on the basis of either the exact wording or the underlying meaning, the gist, of the sentences. The results indicated that frequency can be indexed independently for both wording and meaning. A spacing effect was found for the judgments of repeated identical sentences but not for those of repeated gists of sentences.
A recent report demonstrated that 8-month-olds can seg- ment a continuous stream of speech syllables, containing no acoustic or prosodic cues to word boundaries, into wordlike units after only 2 min of listening experience (Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996). Thus, a powerful learning mechanism capable of extracting statistical informa- tion from fluent speech is available early in development. The present study extends these results by documenting the particular type of statis- tical computation—transitional (conditional) probability—used by infants to solve this word-segmentation task. An artificial language corpus, consisting of a continuous stream of trisyllabic nonsense words, was presented to 8-month-olds for 3 min. A postfamiliarization test compared the infants' responses to words versus part-words (tri- syllabic sequences spanning word boundaries). The corpus was con- structed so that test words and part-words were matched in frequency, but differed in their transitional probabilities. Infants showed reliable discrimination of words from part-words, thereby demonstrating rapid segmentation of continuous speech into words on the basis of transi- tional probabilities of syllable pairs.
Two experiments investigated the performance of first- grade children and adults on an incidental language-learning Leaming entailed word segmentation from continuous speech, an initial and crucial component of language acquisition Subjects were briefiy exposed to an unsegmented artificial language, pre- sented auditorily, in which the only cues to word boundaries were the transitional probabilities between syllables Subjects were not told that they were listening to a language, or even to listen at all, rather, they were engaged in a cover task of creating computer illustrations Both adults and children learned the words of the language Moreover, the children performed as well as the adults These data suggest that a statistical learning mechanism (transi- tional probability computation) is able to operate incidentally and. trprismgly, as well in children as m adults Language acquisition by children is an instinctive, and appar- ently effortless, process, which typically occurs amidst a vast array of other sensory and intellectual experiences The process of acquiring language is thus incidental in the sense that the child's inmary task is presumably understanding, rather than acquiring, language (e g , Chomsky, 1975, Krashen, 1985) Moreover, lan- guage IS acquired by infants and young children, who are unlikely to be engaged in exphcit, conscious learning However, little research has examined the charactenstics of incidental learning pertinent to the process of children's language acquisition