Separating bias and sensitivity in judgments of associative memory
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1Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-2051, USA. bill.maki@ttu.edu
Abstract:
Ratings of the degree of association between words are linearly related to normed associative strengths, but the intercept is high, and the slope is shallow (the judgments of associative memory [JAM] function). Two experiments included manipulations intended to decrease the intercept and increase the slope. Discrimination training on many pairs of words and constraining ratings to sum to a constant both reduced the intercept but failed to change the slope. The intercept of the JAM function appears to contain a bias component that can be manipulated independently of the slope, which reflects sensitivity to associative strengths.
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