PSYCHOLOGY MASTER'S THESIS ABSTRACT

Keith Hutchison

MA-Research
August 1996

Judgments of Knowledge: Effects of Accessibility of Information and Community Membership
on Estimates of What Other People Know

    This experiment investigated how judgments of other students’ knowledge are influenced by the ease with which information is retrieved from memory and information regarding the other students’ major.  Participants first read passages about psychological issues and then answered questions relating to the passages or other coursework.  Response latencies were timed and participants estimated the percentages of other psychology and biology students who would know each answer.  Contrary to prediction, answers to questions relating to previously read passages were unrelated to judgments.  However, as predicted, confidence scores were correlated with response latency and judgments of knowledge were higher for quickly retrieved answers.  Response latency, confidence and representativeness were found to contribute to knowledge judgments.  The relationship between these variables is discussed in terms of how this information helps people to create primitive, yet accurate, models of others’ knowledge.

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