• Authors: Shirasuna, M., Honda, H., Matsuka, T., & Ueda, K.
  • Title: Familiarity-matching: An ecologically rational heuristic for the relationships-comparison task
  • Journal(書誌情報): Cognitive Science
  • doi: 10.1111/cogs.12806
  • 論文URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cogs.12806
  • Abstract: Previous studies have shown that people often use heuristics in making inferences and that subjective memory experiences, such as recognition or familiarity of objects, can be valid cues for inferences. So far, many researchers have used the binary choice task in which two objects are presented as alternatives (e.g., “Which city has the larger population, city A or city B?”). However, objects can be presented not only as alternatives but also in a question (e.g., “Which country is city X in, country A or country B?”). In such a situation, people can make inferences based on the relationship between the object in the question and each object given as an alternative. In the present study, we call this type of task a “relationships-comparison task.” We modeled the three inference strategies that people could apply to solve it (familiarity-matching [FM; a new heuristic we propose in this study], familiarity heuristic [FH], and knowledge-based inference [KI]) to examine people’s inference processes. Through Studies 1, 2, and 3, we found that (a) people tended to rely on heuristics, and that FM (inferences based on similarity in familiarity between objects) well explained participants’ inference patterns; (b) FM could work as an ecologically rational strategy for the relationships-comparison task since it could effectively reflect environmental structures, and that the use of FM could be highly replicable and robust; and (c) people could sometimes use a decision strategy like FM, even in their daily lives (consumer behaviors). The nature of the relationships–comparison task and human cognitive processes is discussed.
  • 著者Contact先の email: ueda[at]cs.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp([at]を@に変更してください。)
  • 日本語によるコメント(オプション,200-300字で):ヒューリスティックの生態学的合理性(ecological rationality)を検討する際にしばしば使用される,人口推定問題などの二択問題(binary choice task)にかわる課題として,問題文中に出現する一つの対象と,選択肢に出現する二つの対象のそれぞれとの関係を判断する関係比較課題(relationships-comparison task)を提案し,それを解く際にどのようなヒューリスティックがもっともよく使用されるのかを,心理実験とその結果の計算論モデリングによる検討から明らかにしました。その結果,人口推定課題とは異なり,familiarity-matchingと呼ぶべきこれまで報告されていないヒューリスティックがもっともよく使用されていること,このヒューリスティックが生態学的合理性を有すること,日常の購買判断でもこのヒューリスティックが使用されている可能性があること,を明らかにしました。ヒューリスティック研究のスコープを広げると同時に,心理実験データを計算論モデリングによって検討することの重要性を認識させる研究だと言えます。