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Sources of confidence judgments in implicit cognition
1School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, England. rjt@psychology.nottingham.ac.uk
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|August 9, 2005
Summary
Confidence judgments in artificial grammar learning depend on the rating scale. Binary confidence ratings reflect both grammar and item similarity, unlike continuous ratings which only reflect grammar.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Artificial Grammar Learning
Background:
- Subjective confidence reports are common measures of awareness in artificial grammar learning.
- Limited understanding exists regarding the information sources influencing confidence judgments and their relation to awareness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the information used for confidence judgments in artificial grammar learning.
- To determine if confidence ratings discriminate between grammatical and similarity-based information.
Main Methods:
- Replication of Vokey and Brooks (1992) experiment.
- Grammaticality decisions and confidence ratings (continuous and binary scales) were collected.
- Analysis of the relationship between confidence, grammaticality, and item similarity to study exemplars.
Main Results:
- Continuous confidence ratings correlated with grammaticality but not similarity.
- Binary confidence ratings correlated with both grammaticality and similarity.
- Binary ratings were more sensitive to low awareness than continuous ratings.
Conclusions:
- Participants appear conscious of all acquired information in artificial grammar learning.
- The scale used for confidence ratings significantly impacts the information reflected.
- Binary confidence scales may offer a more nuanced measure of awareness in artificial grammar learning.
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