Role of the Response System in a Judgmental Contrast Effect

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Two experiments were conducted to determine if a judgmental contrast effect produced by a stimulus much larger than the rest of the series was due to a perceptual change or to an effect on the response system. In both studies, half of the Ss learned to associate nonsense syllables to a set of six line-drawn squares and half judged the relative sizes of the squares using a six-category response scale. Also, in both studies, half of each group had as the sixth square the one that immediately followed the preceding five in the geometric series and half had as the sixth one that was several removed from the common set of five in the geometric series. A total of 128 students at Boston University participated in both experiments. The very large square produced the customary contrast effect when scale judgments were required but had no effect on the paired-associative learning. The evidence suggests that the judgmental contrast effect is a result of response factors rather than perceptual changes.