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Response Bias Reflects Individual Differences in Sensory Encoding.
- Source :
-
Psychological Science (0956-7976) . Jul2021, Vol. 32 Issue 7, p1157-1168. 12p. - Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- Humans exhibit substantial biases in their decision making even in simple two-choice tasks, but the origin of these biases remains unclear. I hypothesized that one source of bias could be individual differences in sensory encoding. Specifically, if one stimulus category gives rise to an internal-evidence distribution with higher variability, then responses should optimally be biased against that stimulus category. Therefore, response bias may reflect a previously unappreciated subject-to-subject difference in the variance of the internal-evidence distributions. I tested this possibility by analyzing data from three different two-choice tasks (n s = 443, 443, and 498). For all three tasks, response bias moved in the direction of the optimal criterion determined by each subject's idiosyncratic internal-evidence variability. These results demonstrate that seemingly random variations in response bias can be driven by individual differences in sensory encoding and are thus partly explained by normative strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *INDIVIDUAL differences
*SENSORY evaluation
*CRITERION (Theory of knowledge)
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09567976
- Volume :
- 32
- Issue :
- 7
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Psychological Science (0956-7976)
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 151437434
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797621994214