Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 20, 2025
08:08
Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
Published on: April 1, 2016
9.4K
Range-frequency effects can explain and eliminate prevalence-induced concept change.
1Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, United States of America; Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.
Cognition
|June 9, 2022
Summary
Human perception adjusts concept boundaries based on stimulus rarity. This study reveals a range-frequency compromise explains this phenomenon, offering insights into consistent judgment and perception.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Computational Neuroscience
- Social Cognition
Background:
- Human observers exhibit a phenomenon known as prevalence-induced concept change.
- Decreasing stimulus prevalence leads observers to expand their conceptual boundaries for those stimuli.
- This perceptual shift can have significant social implications for tasks requiring consistent judgments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify the underlying computational process driving prevalence-induced concept change.
- To evaluate computational models from cognitive and social sciences against human behavioral data.
Main Methods:
- Review of theoretical models explaining prevalence-induced concept change.
- Trial-level computational modeling to predict human data.
- Intervention study manipulating stimulus intensity based on prevalence.
Main Results:
- Human data is best explained by a range-frequency compromise in judgment.
- A range-frequency compromise model accurately predicts prevalence-induced concept change.
- Increasing stimulus intensity as rarity decreases effectively eliminates the phenomenon.
Conclusions:
- Prevalence-induced concept change is a computationally driven process.
- The range-frequency compromise provides a robust explanation for this perceptual phenomenon.
- Interventions modulating stimulus intensity can mitigate concept change, ensuring judgment consistency.
More Related Videos
05:22Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies
Published on: May 9, 2019
5.5K
09:25Detecting Pre-Stimulus Source-Level Effects on Object Perception with Magnetoencephalography
Published on: July 26, 2019
7.0K
Related Concept Videos
01:21Frequency-dependent Selection
22.3K
When the fitness of a trait is influenced by how common it is (i.e., its frequency) relative to different traits within a population, this is referred to as frequency-dependent selection. Frequency-dependent selection may occur between species or within a single species. This type of selection can either be positive—with more common phenotypes having higher fitness—or negative, with rarer phenotypes conferring increased fitness.
22.3K
01:19Expected Frequencies in Goodness-of-Fit Tests
2.7K
A goodness-of-fit test is conducted to determine whether the observed frequency values are statistically similar to the frequencies expected for the dataset. Suppose the expected frequencies for a dataset are equal such as when predicting the frequency of any number appearing when casting a die. In that case, the expected frequency is the ratio of the total number of observations (n) to the number of categories (k).
2.7K
01:08Prevalence and Incidence
842
In statistical epidemiology and health sciences, two essential metrics—prevalence and incidence—are fundamental for understanding disease dynamics within a population. These measures enable public health officials, epidemiologists, and researchers to assess the burden of diseases, allocate resources effectively, and design impactful public health policies and interventions.
Prevalence indicates the proportion of individuals in a population who have a specific disease or health...
Prevalence indicates the proportion of individuals in a population who have a specific disease or health...
842
01:27Confounding in Epidemiological Studies
280
Confounding in statistical epidemiology represents a pivotal challenge, referring to the distortion in the perceived relationship between an exposure and an outcome due to the presence of a third variable, known as a confounder. This variable is associated with both the exposure and the outcome but is not a direct link in their causal chain. Its presence can lead to erroneous interpretations of the exposure's effect, either exaggerating or underestimating the true association. This...
280
01:26Causes of Similarity-Dissimilarity Effect
7
The similarity-dissimilarity effect, a fundamental concept in social psychology, explains how interpersonal similarities and differences influence attraction and social interactions. This effect is supported by three key psychological perspectives: balance theory, social comparison theory, and consensual validation.Balance Theory and Cognitive ConsistencyBalance theory, developed by Fritz Heider, posits that individuals seek cognitive consistency in their relationships. When two people share...
7
01:26Scaling
325
In designing and analyzing filters, resonant circuits, or circuit analysis at large, working with standard element values like 1 ohm, 1 henry, or 1 farad can be convenient before scaling these values to more realistic figures. This approach is widely utilized by not employing realistic element values in numerous examples and problems; it simplifies mastering circuit analysis through convenient component values. The complexity of calculations is thereby reduced, with the understanding that...
325