Judging Object Relevance Under Time Pressure: evidence for a serial search of relevant uses

Hansen-Manguikian, Lauren (2021) Judging Object Relevance Under Time Pressure: evidence for a serial search of relevant uses. Research Project 1 (minor thesis), Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences.

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Abstract

Objects rated with relevance to a survival scenario are more likely to be remembered than those same objects rated with relevance to a moving scenario. The survival processing advantage has been replicated many times, yet the mechanism behind this advantage is still unknown. This project attempts to elucidate the process of making a relevance judgment by testing a theory that we make a serial or parallel search for possible uses of the object and match them to our goals. First participants rated the object under time pressure, and then they were given a second chance to rate the same objects with no time limit. We categorized the objects into 3 different types: highly relevant, ambiguous, and irrelevant. We found that participants were able to make accurate judgments in on average 669 ms, and that they changed their judgment mainly for ambiguous objects. This indicates that the added time was used to consider more possibilities and thus more relevant matches were found. In a broader perspective, this provides evidence for a serial search for possible uses and matches to possible goals, and that the act of searching should be investigated as a possible mechanism for the memory advantage.

Item Type:	Thesis (Research Project 1 (minor thesis))
Supervisor name:	Nieuwenstein, M.R.
Degree programme:	Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences
Thesis type:	Research Project 1 (minor thesis)
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	24 Aug 2021 11:02
Last Modified:	24 Aug 2021 11:02
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/25783

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