PSYC100 Workbook: Week 5 Activity Sem 1, 2023

Name:___________________________________________

Class (day/time):__________________________________
Thursday; 4:00pm

Weekly 5 Activity

Recognition Heuristics Research, Rationale and Hypothesis

The following questions are designed to assist you with understanding the critical information
to take form the third required reading for the lab report. This will help you in preparing to
write your introduction.

You need to complete Task 1 before your tutorial. Task 2 will be completed during class
time.

Task 1 – complete this task prior to class

Read the following and then answer the questions below:

Oppenheimer, D.M. (2003). Not so fast! (and not so frugal!): Rethinking the recognition
heuristic. Cognition, 90(1), B1-B9. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(03)00141-0

Ensure that you bring the Oppenheimer paper to your tutorial.

1) What form of memory does the recognition heuristic take advantage of? (p. B2)

The recognition heuristic approach takes advantage of the fact that people
have an exceptionally well-developed recognition memory
PSYC100 Workbook: Week 5 Activity Sem 1, 2023

2) Provide an example of how recognition of something (e.g., knowledge of a city) can be

linked with a particular dimension (e.g., population size)

The recognition heuristic refers to when something is easier to recognise than

another, it infers that the more recognisable option holds a higher value

There are a wide range of dimensions that do, in fact, positively correlate with
recognition. For example, because city size is associated with recognition of the
city, the recognition heuristic would predict that recognised cities would be
declared to be larger than unrecognised

3) What did Oppenheimer identify as a problem with the recognition research previously
conducted (e.g., the work of Goldstein and Gigerenzer, 1999)?

Goldstein and Gigerenzer (1999) , conducted studies deriving the empirical evidence
for the recognition heuristics. These studies involved giving the participant a pair of
cities which have been randomly drawn from a list of the 30 largest cities in a particular
country and asked them to decide which of the two cities they think is larger.

However, Oppenheimer (2003), recognised a fault within this previous research. Using
the ’30 largest German cities’ as their research sample, it combined the participants
recognition with the knowledge that those cities were large. Meaning it was impossible
to determine if their judgments where purely based off recognition or the knowledge
that the recognised cities would be larger

4) What did Oppenheimer do to try and rectify the above problem?

Goldstein and Gigerenzer (2002) predictions, explained how once an object is

recognised while the other is not, then the inference determined by the
recognition heuristic has been established. Therefore the recognition heuristic
would predict the participants would deduce the recognised city to be larger
than the other even if the recognised city were known to be small.

D.M. Oppenheimer administered a population estimation study to counteract

the illogical and contradictory prediction by implementing local cities which
were all highly recognisable and known for being small. This research study
provided a stronger assessment of whether recognition heuristics are in fact
used
PSYC100 Workbook: Week 5 Activity Sem 1, 2023

5) What was shown in Oppenheimer’s Study 1? Did this support the recognition heuristic?

Oppenheimer’s study results showed that participants only judged the local city to be larger an average of
37% in the trials. additionally, they showed inconsistencies with the patterns of recognition heuristic and
were significantly less likely to conclude the recognised city to be larger compared to the prior study of
Goldstein and Gigerenzer (1999).

Oppenheimer’s research did not support the recognition heuristic. The recognition heuristic predicts the
participants will base their conclusions of the cities size completely on whether or not that city is
recognised. However, Experiment 1 illustrates that when participants have knowledge of the city being
recognised as small they inferred that recognised city to be smaller than the unrecognised city.

This proves people were using information beyond whether they recognised it or not when making their
judgments and cannot be predicted by the recognition heuristic

6) How does the recognition heuristic (and less-is-more effect) link with our study?

ACU students studying PSYC100 at at Melbourne, Canberra, Strathfield, and Brisbane

campuses, voluntarily participated in an experiment which allows us to examine the use
of recognition heuristics to determine the capital of an American state between two
cities.
When we recognise a city, we are more inclined to think it is the capital.

Recognition heuristic predicts then when the most recognised city is the capital, the
participants provide a higher amount of correct answers. However, when the most
recognised city is not the capital, participants will prove a lower amount of correct
answers

As we are being questioned on American cities we are unable to rely on any definite
knowledge and base our answers purely off of the recognition heuristic.

Task 2 – complete this task in class

1) What is a rationale?
PSYC100 Workbook: Week 5 Activity Sem 1, 2023

2) What is the rationale for our study?

3) What is the hypothesis for our study?

 PSYC100 Workbook: Week 5 Activity Sem 1, 2023

Mark (out of 2)
Criteria 0 1 2
Content Limited or no response to questions All questions have been attempted but the All or almost all questions have been

answers are too brief and/or incomplete correctly answered

Some questions have been adequately

Answers are vague
addressed, whilst answers to others are

missing or incomplete
Answers are incorrect

Written expression
Inappropriate language Expression is generally adequate Expression is clear and concise

Spelling mistakes Answers may lack clarity at times Answers have a logical structure

Use of incomplete sentences Answers may be poorly structured

Collusion / plagiarism