Verbal self-reports about matching to sample: effects of the number of elements in a compound sample stimulus.
Extra stimulus pieces make adults over-estimate their own accuracy in matching tasks.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Adults played a matching-to-sample game on a computer. Each trial showed a sample made of one, two, or three colored shapes. After they picked the matching card, they said whether they were right or wrong.
The team counted how often the adults' words matched their actual choices. They also timed each response.
What they found
More shapes in the sample meant more wrong self-reports. Adults often thought they were right when they were actually wrong. These false alarms showed up most after slow but correct answers.
Misses—saying they were wrong when they were right—happened less often.
How this fits with other research
Davison (1969) showed that when compound stimuli are used, some pieces grab control faster than others. S et al. now add that more pieces also muddy self-monitoring.
Perez et al. (2015) got adults to match accurately with only verbal naming drills. Their positive results seem to clash with the negative hit here, but the 2015 study kept samples simple and never asked how sure the adults felt.
Nangle et al. (1993) found that fourth graders boosted math scores by self-monitoring productivity, while sixth graders did better by monitoring accuracy. Together with S et al., this suggests both age and task complexity change what part of performance you should track.
Why it matters
When you stack extra cues into a discrimination task—like teaching multiple features of a picture or adding background colors—clients may think they are correct more often than they really are. Check accuracy with brief trials or objective data, not just their word, especially after slow correct responses. If you need self-reports, strip the sample down or teach clients to pause and review before saying 'I got it right.'
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Adults' self-reports about their choices in a delayed matching-to-sample task were studied as a function of the number of elements (one, two, or three) in a compound sample stimulus. Signal-detection analyses were used to examine control of self-reports by the number of sample elements, by the speed and accuracy of choices reported about, and by several events contingent on self-reports. On each matching-to-sample trial, a sample element appeared as one of two comparison stimuli. Choice of the matching element, if made within 500 ms of the onset of the comparison stimuli, produced points worth money or chances in a drawing for money, depending on the subject. After each choice, subjects pressed either a "yes" or "no" button to answer a computer-generated query about whether the choice met the point contingency. The number of sample elements in the matching-to-sample task varied across trials, and events contingent on self-reports varied across experimental conditions. In Experiment 1, the conditions were defined by different combinations of feedback messages and point consequences contingent on self-reports, but self-reports were systematically influenced only by the sample-stimulus manipulation. Self-report errors increased with the number of sample elements. False alarms (inaccurate reports of success) were far more common than misses (inaccurate reports of failure), and false alarms were especially likely after choices that were correct but too slow to meet the point contingency. Sensitivity (A') of self-reports decreases as the number of sample elements increased. In addition, self-reports were more sensitive to choice accuracy than to choice speed. All subjects showed a pronounced bias (B'H) for reporting successful responses, although the bias was reduced as the number of sample elements increased and successful choices became less frequent. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the failure of point contingencies to influence self-reports in the first experiment was not due to a general ineffectiveness of the point consequences. Rates of inaccurate self-reports decreased when they resulted in point losses and increased when they resulted in point gains.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1993 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1993.59-193