| Two competing models of forced-choice, recognition-memory decision making are compared within the context of attention/likelihood theory. The more traditional model, described as a relative-judgment model, assumes that subjects select the forced-choice item that seems most likely to be old. An alternative model, an absolute-judgment model, is proposed in which both items are categorized as either old or new, and subjects select an item based on the categorizations. Five experiments are discussed in detail. Two establish the appropriateness of the experimental stimuli and procedures, two address the comparison in terms of goodness of model fit to empirical data, and the fifth experiment explicitly tests a prediction of the absolute-judgment model. Results tend to support the relative-judgment model over the absolute-judgment model. |
