The salience of part-whole relatedness on reasoning about relative magnitude

Three experiments demonstrate that part-whole pairs (e.g., tree-leaf) are processed much differently than pairs of unrelated objects in comparative judgment tasks. In Experiment 1 subjects verified the relative size of part-whole pairs and unrelated controls. The effect of symbolic distance was much smaller for part-whole pairs than for unrelated controls. This attenuation of the symbolic distance effect is inconsistent with most models of comparative judgment because they propose that relative magnitude is computed from a comparison of absolute magnitude. Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that the relative magnitude of part-whole pairs is determined by directly retrieving relational information. Subjects judged which of two objects was closer to a third reference object. Subjects were reliably faster for triples with part-whole pairs only when the part-whole relation could be used to infer which of the two objects was closer to the reference object. This result indicates that the attenuation of symbolic distance in Experiment 1 is attributable to the use of relational information. Finally, an introduction of a SOA between stimulus pair and question in Experiment 3 provided evidence that some of the advantage of part-whole pairs is attributable to an early encoding advantage.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology, Experimental

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Sailor, Kevin Matthew

Contributors dc:contributor

• Shoben, Edward J.

• Psychology, Experimental

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1991 Sailor, Kevin Matthew

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

AAI9124480
(UMI)AAI9124480

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/23535