ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIORAND HUMAN PERFORMANCE20, 184--202 (1977)

The Encoding and Recognition of Probabilistic

Information in a Decision Task

CHRISTOPHER A. HAMILOS 1 AND G O R D O N F . PITZ

Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

A recognition test was used to explore people's encoding of quantitative

probabilistic information. Information was presented as part o f a decision task
in which subjects had to predict future outcomes. Either before or after the
decision task they were shown additional information, and asked whether it
had been seen earlier. Experiment 1 showed that subjects were more confident
that they had seen new items if those items were near the middle of the
distribution o f old items, This was true even if only a recognition test was used,
without the decision task. In addition, discriminability o f old from new items
was better for extreme values, the minimum and maximum of the old items.
This increased discriminability did not occur for the recognition only condi-
tion. Experiment 2 was a partial replication of Experiment 1, but also showed
that subjects' recognition judgments were determined by the skewness and
variance of the information. The results were taken to imply the existence of a
task-independent prototype abstraction process and a task-dependent process
of learning extreme values.

A large literature exists describing man's ability to function as an "in-

tuitive statistician," processing probabilistic information and making de-
cisions based on that information. Much of the early literature has been
reviewed by Peterson and Beach (1967), who concluded that normative
models of statistics would serve as a useful first approximation in describ-
ing human decision making. More recent research has been reviewed by
Slovic and Lichtenstein (1971) and Tversky and Kahneman (1974), whose
conclusions concerning man's abilities were rather less generous.
Most of this literature has been concerned with a process that might be
described as the subjective decision rule, the way in which a person uses
relevant information in making a decision. Often, however, the relevant
information is not given directly, but is retrieved from a person's knowl-
edge. Hence, a person's decision performance is jointly dependent on his
decision rule and on the nature of his memory for relevant information.
The problem of how probabilistic information is stored in memory has

This research was supported by Grants GB 40313 and BNS 73-00956 A01 from the Na-
tional Science Foundation to the second author.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Gordon Pitz, Department of Psychology, Southern
Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL 62901.
i Experiment 2 was presented as a thesis by the first author in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the MA degree at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
184
Copyright© 1977 by AcademicPress, Inc.
All rights of reprodnctionin any form reserved. ISSN 0030-5073
 E N C O D I N G AND R E C O G N I T I O N IN A DECISION TASK 185

received relatively little study, except for the special case of information
that consists of event frequencies. The problem of how probabilistic in-
formation of a quantitative kind is interpreted (encoded), and what inter-
nal representation of this information is stored, is the focus of the present
paper.
In one kind of decision task, subjects are presented with information
from two or more data-generating processes; they are then shown addi-
tional items of information, and asked to decide from which process the
new information has been generated. In a second kind of task, information
about a single process is given, and subjects may be asked to predict
further values for information generated from that process. Interestingly,
these two experimental paradigms are similar to tasks used in other areas
of psychology. For example, in the study of pattern recognition, subjects
may be presented with randomly varying patterns and asked to identify
the source of these patterns. The pattern recognition task is thus similar in
many respects to the first kind of decision task. Examples are the studies
by Posner and Keele (1968) that used random dot patterns, and a
study by Reed (1972) of the classification of schematic faces. Analogs of
the second kind of decision task are found in some studies of memory.
Subjects may be presented with information based on a single underlying
theme, and later tested for recognition of related information. Examples
are the studies of memory for geometric patterns (Franks & Bransford,
1971) and for sequences of symbols (Reitman & Bower, 1973).
We have made the assumption that the tasks described above are suffi-
ciently like decisions with uncertain information that processes observed
in studies of categorization and recognition memory are likely to be found
in studies of decision making. In particular, suggestions concerning the
encoding process in a decision task can be derived from studies in these
other areas. For example, a theoretical concept common to all of the
studies mentioned above is that of a "prototype," which is assumed to be
some kind of central tendency or underlying structure that is abstracted
from the original information. It is assumed that new information is then
evaluated in terms of its similarity to one or more prototypes. The concept
of a prototype is potentially valuable for explaining the encoding of prob-
abilistic information and its use in a decision task. For example, one
recent hypothesis concerning the process by which subjects make deci-
sions, proposed by Kahneman and Tversky (1972), is that of "representa-
tiveness." Kahneman and Tversky proposed that the probability of an
event is evaluated by judging the degree to which the event is representa-
tive of some underlying population. Posner (1973) has suggested that the
concept of representativeness is closely related to that of a prototype; an
event is representative of a population if it is similar to the prototype that
describes the population. If a prototype is taken to be a central tendency
186 HAMILOS AND PITZ

or average value, the concept can be applied directly to the problem of

how a person encodes information about random quantities.
The prototype hypothesis has not been universally accepted. Alterna-
tive theories have emphasized individual stimulus features as the basis for
categorization responses. For example, Barresi, Robbins, and Shain
(1975) have suggested that, rather than abstracting some central tendency
or underlying structure, people may learn individual critical features that
are used to identify the source of the information. A different feature-
based hypothesis was suggested by Neumann (1974), who proposed an
explanation for the Franks and Bransford (1971) data based on the fre-
quency of stimulus features. In discussing the formation of semantic
categories, Rosch (e.g., Rosch & Mervis, 1975) has proposed that pro-
totypes can be defined in terms of the number of features that they share
with other members of the category, thus integrating the two approaches
to categorization.
With probabilistic information of a quantitative kind, it is not clear what
the relevant stimulus features might be. The term "feature" is quite gen-
eral, and can be defined in several ways (Newmann, 1974). To begin with,
however, one might assume that a single value for a quantity constitutes a
feature, and that the extremes, the largest and smallest values generated
by a process, are particularly important. For a given distribution, the
extremes would be the most salient values, and hence may be used by a
decision maker as critical values for decision purposes. The extremes
form boundary values for a single sample of information, although they
cannot generally be interpreted as boundaries for other samples generated
by the same process.
We are proposing two hypotheses concerning the encoding of prob-
abilistic information. A prototype hypothesis implies that a person
abstracts some idea of the central tendency for a quantity; hence, the
formation of this prototype involves drawing inferences from the available
information. An alternative hypothesis is that people attend particularly
to the minimum and maximum values as salient features. Since these
features are immediate properties of the sample, no inference or abstrac-
tion process is required. These two hypotheses are not necessarily exclu-
sive; it is possible that the encoding process involves both the abstraction
of prototypes and the learning of specific values. In fact, Posner (1973)
has suggested that a prototype may be accompanied by some idea of the
potential variability, perhaps as indicated by category boundaries or ex-
treme stimuli.
The way in which people use probabilistic information in a decision task
was studied by Pitz, Leung, Hamilos, and Terpening (1976). In that study,
information consisted of values generated by some unknown probability
distribution. Subjects made predictions about events generated by a single
 ENCODING AND RECOGNITION IN A D E C I S I O N TASK 187

process. The subjects' predictions were used to infer properties of their

beliefs about the process; measures of central tendency and of uncertainty
were derived. The central tendency of the subjects' beliefs was predicta-
ble with great accuracy from the arithmetic mean of the information. The
uncertainty of their beliefs, although rather less predictable, was related
to the standard deviation. In fact, subjects' beliefs were shown to be
responsive also to higher-order moments, skewness, and kurtosis (or
bimodality). What is not known is how subjects were able to encode such
properties of the information. Abstraction of such characteristics as cen-
tral tendency and average variability may have taken place, or certain
values may have stood out as being of particular importance for purposes
of predictions.
The present study was designed to test the relevance of the prototype
hypothesis and the extreme values hypothesis for describing how prob-
abilistic information is processed. We felt that the most appropriate way
to study the encoding process was to examine a person's memory for
information in the context of a decision task. An earlier study (Pitz, 1976)
found that asking subjects to recognize or recall specific information can
show how that information is used in a decision task. For example, it was
found that subjects encoded only the minimum amount of information
necessary to confirm or disconfirm a currently held hypothesis. From a
methodological point of view, the study showed that the imposition of a
memory task did not interfere with performance in a decision task.
The decision task used in the present experiment was similar to that
employed by Pitz et al. (1976). Subjects saw samples of information, on
the basis of which they predicted further outcomes. They were also asked
if they recognized additional values as having occurred previously. The
prototype hypothesis suggests that there would be a tendency to recog-
nize new values that are close to the average value of the sample informa-
tion as having occurred in the sample. The extreme values hypothesis
suggests that there would be an increased salience of extreme points, i.e.,
the minimum and maximum values in the sample. It was predicted that
subjects would show an increased ability to recognize correctly such ex-
treme values, and discriminate them from new values, if they served as
salient features in the encoding of the information.

EXPERIMENT 1
In studying encoding processes, it is important to distinguish between
encoding that takes place automatically, as a consequence of trying to
store the inforraation, and those strategies of encoding that are affected by
the task for which the information is later to be used, Pitz (1976) showed
that a person's encoding of probabilistic information depends on the task
to be performed. In a simple memory task, all of the stimulus information
188 HAMILOS AND PITZ

was apparently encoded; in the decision task, information irrelevant to

the decision was not encoded. In the present experiment we used two
different task conditions in order to determine if the abstraction of pro-
totypes or the extraction of critical features depend on the purpose for
which the information is to be used. In one condition, subjects were told
that the decision task was of primary interest; in the second condition,
subjects were told that the recognition task was of primary interest. The
decision task was either presented as a possible mnemonic device, or was
omitted altogether.
Method
Subjects and design. Subjects were recruited from advanced under-
graduate courses in psychology. They participated in two separate one-
hour sessions, for which they were paid $5.00. There were four groups of
14 subjects each, the groups differing in the task that determined the
performance score and the order in which the two tasks were given. One
group (recognition only) was given only the recognition test. A second
group (incidental recognition/decision) was given the recognition test fol-
lowed by the decision task. The decision task determined their perfor-
mance score, the recognition test being described as of incidental interest.
Subjects were told that our interest was in finding out what they could
remember in the course of performing a decision task. Two groups were
given the recognition test after the decision task. For one of these groups
(incidental decision/recognition) the performance score was based on rec-
ognition performance; the decision task was described as a possible
mnemonic device that might help subjects to retain the information. For
the fourth group (decision/incidental recognition) the performance score
was determined by decision performance, and the recognition task was
described as being of incidental interest.
Decision task. The task was designed to ensure that subjects would
learn something about the distribution of a random quantity. In addition,
it was possible from the decision task to ascertain something of what the
subject had learned. For each trial, subjects were presented with a se-
quence of nine three-digit numbers. These numbers were generated at ran-
dom, with the restriction that the same number would not be presented
twice, from a probability distribution that varied randomly in mean, var-
iance, skewness, and kurtosis. The mean varied between 200 and 500, and
the standard deviation varied from 10 through 40. Distributions were
either normal, positively or negatively skewed, or bimodal.
Following the presentation of the information and, in some cases, fol-
lowing the recognition test, subjects were given a prediction task. For
each prediction, the subject was presented with one value, X, displayed as
a labeled point along a line. The subject was to predict whether the next
item of information (which was never shown) would be less than or grea-
 ENCODING AND RECOGNITION IN A D E C I S I O N TASK 189

ter than X. For the first decision, X was set to be tz + e, where tz was the
mean of the parent distribution and E was a randomly chosen value be-
tween -40 and 40. Following each decision, an iterative technique was
used to modify X. A decision that the next value would be less than X was
followed by a ~eduction in X; a decision that the next value would be
greater than X was followed by an increase in X. The magnitude of the
change in X was gradually reduced so that X would converge on an indif-
ference point, in effect the median of a person's subjective probability
distribution. That is, after a sequence of predictions, X should have
reached a value where the subject found that he was equally sure that the
next value would be less than or greater than X. The average value of X
over the final four decision trials was taken as a measure of the subjective
median.
Recognition task. For the recognition test, six targets were selected
from the original set of nine items. The selected targets were chosen so as
to provide information concerning both serial position effects and the
effect of rank c~rder on recognition responses. Three targets were used for
evaluating serial position effects, either the first or second item presented,
either the eighth or ninth item presented, and either the fourth, fifth, or
sixth item pre,~ented. The choice of specific items was random on each
trial. To evaluate rank order effects, the presented items were rank or-
dered from smallest to largest, and three items were selected as targets.
Those chosen were either the smallest or largest value (first or ninth in
rank order), ei~Lherthe third or seventh in the rank order, and the fifth item
in the rank order (the sample median). With this procedure, some targets
were occasionally presented twice on one trial.
In addition to the six targets, six distractor items were chosen. Distrac-
tors for each target had the following properties: (a) they were not equal to
any target or ~.ny other distractor, and (b) the distance between the target
and its distractor was equal to or less than that for any other possible
distractor. A distractor item was generally one unit greater or less than its
associated target.
The 12 probes (six targets and six distractors) were presented sepa-
rately in random order. Subjects were told to respond " Y e s " if a recogni-
tion probe was an original sample value and " N o " if it was not. Subjects
also gave corffidence ratings of either 1, 2, or 3 for each response. A
confidence rating of 1 indicated that a subject was not certain of the
validity of his response; a confidence rating of 3 indicated that the subject
was certain of his response; a rating of 2 indicated an intermediate level of
confidence.

Procedure. During the first session, the nature of the experiment was
explained to subjects. Three practice trials were given, followed by as
many trials a,; would fit into the one-hour session. There was a minimum
190 HAMILOS AND PITZ

of 24 hr and a maximum of 5 days between the two sessions. The proce-

dure for the second session was identical except that only a brief reminder
of the instructions was given, and only two practice trials were given. The
total number of trials per subject ranged from 13 to 24, with an average of
20 for the three decision groups. For the recognition only group, the
number of trials ranged from 20 to 46, with an average of 34.
When a subject indicated that he or she was ready to begin a trial, the
initial nine items for that trial were presented on a 24 × 16 cm CRT
display, at the rate of one value for every 3 sec. Following presentation of
the initial sample, subjects were given 10 sec to rehearse this information
and encode it in any way they found appropriate. For two groups, the
recognition test was given immediately after the 10-sec pause. For the
other two groups, the decision task was started after the 10-sec pause.
Following the first task, the second task was given immediately.
Subjects were given feedback appropriate to their task condition im-
mediately following the relevant task. The percentage of correct recogni-
tion responses was shown following the recognition test, unless recogni-
tion was an incidental task. At the end of the decision sequence, subjects
were shown the percentage of possible points that they had scored, if the
decision task was nonincidental. The following trial began whenever the
subject indicated that he or she was ready to proceed.

Results
Recognition data were analyzed in terms of average confidence for each
target and its associated distractor. The confidence ratings were used in
such a way that zero indicates a "Certain N o " response and 5 a "Certain
Yes" response. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance, and ef-
fects significant at the .01 level will be reported. In addition, Bayesian
likelihood ratios will be reported as a posteriori measures of the believa-
bility of the null hypothesis, using the method of Jeffreys (1961). This
method gives the ratio of the likelihood of the data given the null
hypothesis to the likelihood of the data given a diffuse alternative
hypothesis. Jeffreys gives an equation that is a good large-sample approx-
imation to the likelihood ratio.
Figure 1 shows average confidence ratings as a function of serial posi-
tion. The data show a typical serial order effect; targets early or late in the
sequence were recognized with increased confidence, while there were no
differences in average confidence for the distractors (which of course, had
no serial position except insofar as they were numerically similar to items
presented early or late). The data were analyzed for all four groups of
subjects. For the effect of serial position on the target-distractor differ-
ences, F(2, 104) = 5.35. The quadratic component of this effect is a
 ENCODING AND RECOGNITION I N A D E C I S I O N TASK 191

0 ,,0 TARGETS
~ DISTRACTORS
3.6-

N_) 3 . 4 -
Z
3.2-
13
U- 3 . 0 -
Z
~2.8-

9 2,6-

2.4-
I/J
> 2.2-

2,0-

1.8-

--4-- I I
OR 2 4,5 OR 6 8 OR 9
SERIAL ORDER POSITION

FIG. 1. Average confidence for targets and distraetors as a function of serial order posi-
tion, Experiment 1.

measure of the deviation of the central value from the two extreme values?
For this effect the likelihood ratio was .13, roughly 8 to 1 against the
null hypothesis. A more important question is whether there was any
indication of an interaction between the serial order effect and task condi-
tion. The data for the incidental decision/recognition group exhibited
hardly any serial position effect when plotted separately. The overall
interaction, however, was not significant. For differences between groups
among the quadratic components of the serial position effect (the one
component of the interaction that might be important), t(104) --- 2.06,
giving an equivocal likelihood ratio of 1.61. We concluded tentatively that
the basic processes underlying serial position effects were present, re-
gardless of the task condition, and leave open the possibility that some
combination of task conditions may eliminate the serial position effect.

Rank order effects are shown in Fig. 2. These are the data that indicate
the presence of prototype abstraction and learning of extreme values.
Note first the data for the recognition only group. Average confidence
was greater for items that were near the median and was depressed for
extreme items, F(2, 26) = 5.55. The linear portion of the effect provides a
suitable test of the ordering of average confidence values as a function of
the deviation of an item from the median. The likelihood ratio for the

2 B y u s i n g a test of the quadratic effect, we do not mean to imply that the serial order
positions in Fig 1 form an interval scale. Rather, quadratic (and linear) effects have been
used as measures of rank order relationships among averages.
192 HAMILOS AND PITZ

RECOGNITION ONLY DECISION GROUPS

TARGETS
0 0 TARGETS 0-----0 Decision-recognition
~- DISTRACTOR~ 0-.--.-0 recognition-Decision
3.8, 3.8- 0 0 decision-Recognition

3,6- 3.6-

3,4- 3.4-

~J 3 . 2 - ~) 3.2-
Z Z
~ 3.0- uJ
¢t 3 . 0 -

~ 2.8- E 2.8- DISTRACTORS

Z I-- ---I Decision-recognition
0 0
(j 2.6- {9 2 . 6 - I - . - - . - - I recognition-Decision
~, ~, decision-Recognition
~ 2.4- 2.4-
<
rr" 2.2- ~ 2.9-
W
~ 2.0- ~< 2.0-
1.8- 1.8-
1.6- 1.6-
1.4- 1.4-
I I I I I I
5 3OR7 1OR9 5 3 OR 7 1 OR 9
RANK ORDER POSITION RANK ORDER POSITION

FIG. 2. Average confidence for targets and distractors as a function of rank order position,
Experiment 1. Capitalized terms represent the primary task; terms in lower case are the
incidental tasks.

linear effect was .21, roughly 5 to 1 against the null hypothesis. While
recognition confidence was clearly greater for targets than for distractors,
there was no difference in the shape of the functions. For the interaction,
F(2, 26) = 0.14; for the linear portion of the interaction effect, the likeli-
hood ratio was 4.83 (in favor of the null hypothesis). This result portrays a
prototypical prototype effect: an increased confidence that items near the
sample median had been seen earlier, but no difference in discriminability
of items. The same data were subjected to a signal detection analysis
(Green & Swets, 1966), computing d' and response criteria separately for
each subject. This analysis showed a lowered average response criterion
for items near the median, (i.e., a greater proportion of "Yes" responses),
but no difference in d' values. An analysis of the accuracy of the Y e s - N o
recognition responses gave results equivalent to those using confidence
ratings.
Data for the other three groups were similar to each other, except that
performance for the incidental recognition/decision group was somewhat
superior to performance for the others. Comparison of that group with the
other two combined gave a nonsignificant t(39) = 2.37, likelihood ratio =
.57. For the most part, average confidence for the distractors exhibited
the prototype effect seen for the recognition only group. Average confi-
 ENCODING AND RECOGNITION IN A D E C I S I O N TASK 193

dence was depressed for extreme distractors; if distractors came from the
middle of the distribution, subjects were relatively more confident that
they had been seen before. With targets, however, the effect was differ-
ent. There was generally an increased confidence for extreme targets.
Data for the three decision groups were analyzed using repeated-
measures ANOVA. The difference in confidence between targets and
distractors clearly increased as items became more extreme, F(2, 78) =
11.72, likelihood ratio = .002. This result provides strong evidence for the
extreme values hypothesis, indicating a greater ability to discriminate
extreme sample items from similar but new distractors. When the data
were analyzed using signal detection theory, there was an increase in d'
for extreme items. The effect was the same for all three groups involved in
the decision task; for the interaction effect with groups, F(2, 78) = 0.36,
with likelihood ratios for components of the interaction greater than 9.0 in
favor of the null hypothesis.
Performance in the decision task was only of incidental interest. How-
ever, an analysis of decision performance was carried out to look for
differences between the groups. The analysis used the estimated median
of the subjective probability distribution (the final value of X in the deci-
sion task), and related the final value to the set of nine sample items. Two
questions may be asked of the analysis: First, what characteristics of the
sample items best predict the estimated subjective median? Second, how
good is such a prediction? The analysis used a multiple regression
technique, conducted separately for each subject. The details of the pro-
cedure have been given by Pitz et al. (1976). Several sample statistics
were used te, predict the estimated subjective median; the best predictor
(in terms of r 2, the proportion of common variance) was the mean of the
sample items, as was the case in the Pitz et al. study, and the three
decision groups all gave similar results. The sample mean was compared
as a predictor with the sample median and sample midrange, using r 2 as
the dependent variable. There was no interaction effect between the three
predictors and the three groups, F(4, 78) = 2.30; no component of the
interaction suggested any systematic difference between groups.
The accuracy of prediction can be taken as a measure of the reliability
of a subject's decision performance. It was evaluated by computing stan-
dard errors of prediction for each subject. The average standard error for
the incidental decision/recognition group was larger than that for the other
two decision groups. However, it was not sufficiently large to justify a
strong concJ_usion that performance was less orderly for the incidental
decision group. Comparing that group with the other two gave t(39) =
1.57, likelihood ratio = 2.45. We concluded that the incidental decision
group was probably performing the decision task about as well as the
groups for whom the decision task was important. It was also clear that,
194 H A M I L O S A N D P1TZ

for the two decision groups with incidental recognition, interposing a

recognition test prior to the decision task did not lead to any differences in
decision performance. Comparing standard errors, t(39) = 0.24, likeli-
hood ratio = 7.60.
Discussion
We concluded that prototype abstraction is a phenomenon that can
occur in the storage of probabilistic information, regardless of the purpose
for which the information has been stored. That is to say, subjects pre-
sumably abstracted some idea of the center of the distribution and used
this abstracted prototype when responding in the recognition test. We
concluded further that, when information is to be used for decision mak-
ing purposes, there is an additional process of learning the extreme values
of a distribution. This process did not occur for the recognition group, but
it did occur for every group that performed the decision task. Since the
effect did not depend on the decision task's preceding the recognition
task, it was presumably the result of the subject's information encoding
strategies. That the effect did occur for the incidental decision/recognition
group was rather surprising. However, we are inclined to suspect that
subjects in this group tended to forget that the decision task was inciden-
tal, since their performance in both the decision task and recognition task
was comparable with performance in the other decision groups. The data
are generally consistent with the hypothesis that the learning of extreme
values takes place during the initial encoding of the information whenever
that information is seen as relevant to a later decision task.
EXPERIMENT 2
The second experiment was in part a replication of Experiment 1, but
was designed also to extend and clarify the results of the first experiment.
The finding that discrimination between targets and distractors was better
for extreme sample items was taken as support for the hypothesis that
certain critical features, namely, the extreme values, are attended to and
encoded by subjects. However, an alternative explanation is possible.
Assume that the numerical values are encoded by subjects in some analog
fashion, e.g., as points along an imaginary line. Such a hypothesis has
been proposed by others for a variety of tasks using numerical and ordinal
information (Huttenlocher, 1968; Potts, 1974; Restle, 1970). Assume
further that there is some degree of inter-item interference in memory that
depends upon the numerical similarity of the items. On the average, items
near the center of the distribution will be more closely distributed, while
items at the tails of the distribution will be spaced more widely. Inter-item
interference would then lead to better discrimination for extreme items.
Given the absence of such a result for the recognition-only condition, this
hypothesis is unlikely, but it can be tested directly by separating inter-
 ENCODING AND RECOGNITION IN A DECISION TASK 195

item difference from extremity of points in a distribution. This can be

done by using extremely skewed distributions, for which the mode is
either the minimum or the maximum. A second way of testing the inter-
item interference hypothesis is by manipulating the variance of the dis-
tribution. As the variance is reduced, inter-item differences are reduced
also, and the interference hypothesis would predict generally poorer dis-
crimination between targets and distractors. 3
Varying the skewness and variance of a sample distribution can also
provide further information about the abstraction of prototypes. It is pos-
sible that the elevated confidence for distractors near the middle of the
distribution occurs because the center of the distribution is inferred from a
knowledge of the minimum and maximum values. In other words, it is
possible that the results of Experiment 1 can be accounted for completely
in terms of the ILearningof extreme features. This possibility raises another
question about the results of Experiment 1. In that experiment we did not
examine separately the results for extreme distractors that were within
and outside the sample range. If subjects learned only the extreme values,
it is possible that the decreased confidence for extreme distractors re-
sulted entirely from distractors that lay outside the sample range. In Ex-
periment 2 the concern with extreme distractors was checked directly. A
further test of the prototype hypothesis was made possible by manipulat-
ing skewness; if a central value is indeed abstracted, then the prototype
should be sensitive to variations in skewness in a way that the midrange is
not. Using a decision task, Pitz et al. (1976) showed that subjects were
sensitive to variations in skewness. Experiment 2 extended these results
to a recognition task.
A related issue concerns the effect of variance on the abstraction of
prototypes. If a person evaluates probe items during the recognition task
in terms of their distance from some prototype, this distance might be
taken either in terms of absolute scale units, or else relative to the sample
variance (or standard deviation). If the latter, then some measure of var-
iance must have been abstracted or inferred, along with the measure of
central tendency. Abstraction of the variance, then, would be indicated
by an invariance of the functions in Fig. 2 with changes in the sample
variance. On ~he other hand, if subjective distance from the prototype is
interpreted in absolute units, there would be a steeper decline in confi-
dence for values distant from the center of the distribution as the sample
variance is increased, since the distance between successive ranks will
have increased also.
The decision task used in Experiment 1 was not one that required

3 Variance and skewness were varied in Experiment 1, but randomly, and the results were
not separable by variance magnitude or skewness.
196 HAMILOS AND PITZ

subjects to gather information about the variability of the sample values;

that is, estimating the sample median does not require knowledge of the
sample variance. Hence, in Experiment 2, recognition performance dur-
ing the median estimation task was compared with recognition during a
second task that does require subjects to obtain information about varia-
bility. This was the tertile estimation task used by Pitz et al. (1976);
briefly, subjects had to decide in which of three regions some unknown
value lay. An iterative procedure provided estimates of the subjective
tertiles, two values that divide the subject's probability distribution into
three equally probable regions.
Method
Subjects and design. The subjects for Experiment 2 were graduate
students enrolled in psychology courses. They were paid $5.00 for par-
ticipating in two hourly sessions; in addition, the person in each of the two
groups with the maximum score on the decision task was paid a bonus of
$5.00. There were two groups of 12 subjects each, the groups differing in
the order in which the recognition and decision tasks were given. There
were two major within-subject variables, variance of the sample distribu-
tions, and the skewness, positive or negative, of those distributions.
Decision task. The information presented on each trial was similar to
that in Experiment 1. However, the parameters of the underlying distribu-
tions were chosen differently. All information was generated from normal
distributions that were "folded" about their mean in order to generate
skewed distributions. The mean of the original normal distribution, tz, was
randomly selected within the limits 300 through 600. For small variance
trials the standard deviation was randomly assigned within the limits 15
through 20; for large variance trials the limits were 35 through 40. For
positively skewed distributions, all sample values (x) less than/x were
converted by the transformation 2/x - x. Negatively skewed distributions
were formed by converting each value of x greater than/.t by the same
transformation. Whether a given distribution was positively or negatively
skewed, and had large or small variance, was determined randomly.
Two decision tasks were used, in separate experimental sessions. The
task for the first session was the same as that used in Experiment 1,
referred to as the median estimation task. The second task was that used
by Pitz et al. (1976), referred to as the tertile estimation task. For the
latter, subjects were presented with two values, X1 and X~, and were
asked to predict whether the next item of information would be less than
X~, in between X1 and)(2, or greater than X~. Following each decision, X1
and X2 were modified so that they would converge on values that defined
three equally likely regions. The average values of X~ and Xz over the final
five decisions were taken as measures of the subjective tertiles.
 ENCODING AND RECOGNITION IN A DECISION TASK 197

Recognition rusk. Only rank order effects were examined during the
recognition stage. The nine sample items were rank ordered, and the first,
third, fifth, seventh, and ninth items were used as targets. Five distractors
were chosen, one for each target, according to the same principles used in
Experiment 1. The recognition task for the subject was identical to that
used in Experiment 1.
Procedure. During the first session, the nature of the experiment was
explained to subjects, and they were given 20 trials on the median estima-
tion task. For one group of subjects, the recognition test was given prior
to the decision task; for the second group, the decision task was given
first. In order to minimize any carryover effects, there was a delay of one
week between the first and second session. During the second session, the
procedure was identical except that the tertile estimation task was used.
Additional details concerning the procedure have been given by Hamilos
(Note 1).
Results
In examining the average confidence judgments, a significant task order
by probe-type interaction showed that discrimination between targets and
distractors was better when the recognition task preceded the decision
task, as would be expected. Otherwise, there was no evidence of any
effects due to task order or the decision task, and the data were pooled
across levels of these variables. Average confidence as a function of rank
order is shown in Fig. 3 for targets and distractors and for positively and
negatively skewed distributions. Two significant interactions were ob-
served and are illustrated in Fig. 3, a probe type by rank order interaction,
F(4, 88) = 7.48, and a distribution skew by rank order interaction, F(4, 88)
= 6.63. The triple interaction involving all three variables was not sig-
nificant, F(4, 88) = 0.46.
The major results of Experiment 1 were replicated in Experiment 2.
Since both minimum and maximum values were used as targets, the dis-
tractor data exhibit a quadratic effect. For the quadratic component of the
confidence function for distractors, F(1, 88) = 57.85, with a likelihood
ratio of less than .0001. Average confidence was approximately constant
for targets, rather than increasing for extreme targets as in Experiment 1.
However, the discrimination between targets and distractors was greater
for extreme items, as shown by the probe type by rank order interaction.
An analysis of the quadratic component of the interaction gave a likeli-
hood ratio less than .0001. These data provide further evidence for both
the abstraction of prototypes and the noting of extreme values.
The interaction effect involving distribution skew was the result of an
increase in confidence towards the mode of the distribution. Differences
in the linear components of the functions in Fig. 3 for positive and nega-
198 HAMILOS AND PITZ

o o TARGETS - NEGATIVE SKEW

O--.-.-oTARGETS - POSITIVE SKEW
-~ -'DISTRACTORS - NEGATIVE SKEW
e-.--.-e DISTRACTOR5 - POSITIVE SKEW
3,4-
3.2-
Z ~o.... f _. , . , . ~ . . . o , ~
IiJ 3.0-
ra
E 2.8-
Z
0 2.6-
(3
LU 2 . 4 -
LO

2.2-
ILl
,> 2.0-

1,8"

1.6"
\
1.4-

1" I I I I I
1 3 5 7 9
RANK ORDER POSITION

FIG. 3. Average confidence for targets and distractors from positively and negatively
skewed distributions as a function of rank order position, Experiment 2.

tive skew gave a likelihood ratio of .0003. Increased confidence towards

the mode, where items were more frequent, represents the abstraction of
a prototype from the sample distribution; these results provide further
confirmation for the prototype hypothesis.
The extent to which the results depend on the use of distractors at rank
order positions 1 and 9, and which lie outside the sample range, was
examined by repeating the analysis of the data for the median task only ,4
omitting the data for extreme distractors that fell outside the sample
range. The results showed the same quadratic effects for confidence in
distractors, and for difference in confidence between targets and distrac-
tots. Hence, the effects seen in Fig. 3 were not due to using extreme
distractors that lie outside the sample range. Nevertheless, a difference
was observed in responses to distractors that lay outside the sample
range, compared with extreme distractors that were within the range.
Mean confidence for extreme distractors inside the range was 1.93; for
extreme distractors outside the range the mean was 1.59. That is, subjects
were more confident that distractor values outside the range had not been
included in the original sample, F(1, 22) = 13.22, likelihood ratio = .026.
These data provide evidence that the extreme values were recognized by
subjects as being the minima and maxima.

4 We were not able to perform this analysis for the tertile task because of the limited space
available in the computer controlling the experiment, and the larger space required by the
tertile estimation program.
 ENCODING AND RECOGNITION IN A DECISION TASK 199

Although variance magnitude was included as a manipulated variable, it

had no effect on the results, except for its appearance in two four-way
interaction effects that were significant at the .05 level. Neither of these
interactions involved the probe rank order, so are unrelated to the
hypotheses discussed in the introduction. Hence, the inter-item interfer-
ence hypothesis was not confirmed. In addition, since the form of the
functions in Fig. 3 did not vary as the variance was changed, it appears
that relative, not absolute values determined a subject's response.
The analysis of the decision task data is not directly germane to the
issues discussed here; details of this analysis have been given by Hamilos
(Note 1). The results were consistent with the findings of Pitz et al. (1976),
and of Experiment 1, and there were no differences as a function of task
condition.
Discussion
Experiment 2 confirmed the results of the first experiment. It is clear
that people both abstract a prototype that represents the distribution of
sample information and that they note particularly the extreme sample
values. It seems clear also that these extreme values are recognized as the
minima and maxima, since subjects were able with some degree of confi-
dence to reject values outside those limits as having been seen previously.
Since there was no effect of sample variance on confidence, and the
extreme values effect did not vary with extremely skewed distributions,
this effect cannot be due to any kind of interference effect that depends on
numerical similarity of the sample values.
Experiment 2 also suggests that a person's prototype includes informa-
tion about variability and skewness in addition to central tendency. That
is, the recognition responses reflected the skewness of the underlying
distribution, with a maximum confidence for distractors appearing some-
where near the median of the underlying distribution, and being elevated
also for items near the mode. The data in Fig. 3 suggest that subjects were
aware of the direction of the skew in the distribution of sample values, and
used this int~rmation in their recognition responses. Further, the absence
of any effects due to sample variance suggests that the subjects modified
their recogn~ition judgments as a function of the variability of the informa-
tion. In order to do this, they must have encoded or inferred some rep-
resentation of the sample variability.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The study provides evidence concerning how people encode probabilis-
tic information when that information consists of a distribution for some
random quantity. First, the extreme values of a distribution appear to be
salient, and their location is well learned. They may serve as critical
features in subsequent decisions using that information, perhaps being
200 HAMILOS AND PITZ

thought of as bounds on values that might be generated by a process.

Second, the prototype abstraction process has been shown to be impor-
tant. However, this abstracted prototype was accompanied by some
memory for specific items of information, and in this way the results are
more consistent with those of Reitman and Bower (1973) than with
Bransford and Franks (1971), who wished to minimize the importance of
specific information.
This research does not answer the question of how the prototype is
formed. In this respect, one important point should be noted. If the pro-
totype for the recognition test is defined by the point of maximum confi-
dence for distractors, then the prototype is not equivalent to the estimated
median of the subjective probability distribution that was derived from the
decision task. During the decision task, the best predictors of the subjec-
tive median were the mean and median of the sample items; the subjective
median generally lay between the sample mean and median. However, in
Experiment 2 the point of maximum confidence for distractors occurred
between the median and mode of the sample distribution. For skewed
distributions, the mean is located beyond the median, in the direction of
the skew. It appears, therefore, that the factors determining a person's
decisions may be only indirectly related to his or her recognition judg-
ments.
Given this fact, there still remain a number of ways in which the recog-
nition prototype may have been formed. One possibility is that people use
an averaging process of the kind discussed by Anderson (1974), support
for which has been found in a large number of information integration
tasks. Since, as noted, the prototype for the recognition task is apparently
not located at the sample mean, the dependence of recognition judgments
on some averaging process appears less likely. A second possibility is that
subjects generate some kind of abstract, perhaps analog, representation of
the entire distribution. This might correspond to a linear ordering of the
sample items along an imaginary line (Ports, 1974) or, perhaps, to the kind
of pictorial representation of probability distributions found in textbooks.
One hypothesis that has been proposed to explain apparent prototype
abstraction is a feature frequency model, used by Neumann (1974) to
account for the results of Franks and Bransford (1971). It is not clear,
however, how this hypothesis can be applied to the task used in the
present study. If the features consist of numerical values, the most obvi-
ous extension of Neumann's model to this task would look very much
like the inter-item interference hypothesis discussed earlier. One might
propose a kind of generalization gradient distributed around each item,
which determines an overall "strength" function, which then generates
the greater confidence for central items. However, this theory will lead to
the same predictions as the inter-item interference hypothesis, which has
been confirmed.
 ENCODING AND RECOGNITION IN A DECISION TASK 201

Finally, interesting questions are suggested by the finding of a feature

learning process that apparently depends upon characteristics of the task.
It is not clear just which task characteristics are critical in leading subjects
to attend to minimum and maximum values. The effect occurred in every
condition that required subjects later to make decisions based on the
probabilistic iinformation. It appears, therefore, that the effect may be
quite general. The most likely reason why the extreme values are given
special attention is that they are the easiest for people to identify. F r o m a
normative poiint of view, the minimum and maximum are of little use for
inferential purposes; they lead to rather inefficient estimates of population
parameters for most distributions.
We began 'these experiments with the assumption that a p e r s o n ' s per-
formance in a decision task is not unrelated to his behavior in other,
formally similar tasks. We believe we have shown that processes ob-
served in studies of classification and recognition m e m o r y can be found in
a decision task, and that the same theoretical explanations may be ap-
propriate in ~.ccounting for this behavior. Most importantly, the study of
decision making cannot be regarded as a topic to be treated independently
of developments in other areas of psychology. A n y theory of cognitive
activity is likely to have implications for the study of decision processes.

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REFERENCE NOTE
1. Hamilos, C. A. The encoding and recognition of probabilistic information in decision
tasks. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1976.
RECEIVED: December 6, 1976