In Experiment 1, the degree of belief in a focal hypothesis was manipulated
using priming as well as the principle of unpacking of Tversky and Koehler (1994).
The effects of these manipulations on feature detection was measured. It was found that
regardless of the degree of belief in the focal hypothesis, novice diagnosticians who
have it in mind will call more of its features than those who do not have it in mind. It is
believed that this is due to the fact that having a diagnosis in mind seems to focus the
attention of diagnosticians to the relevant features. Also, our manipulation of
suggesting alternatives to the diagnosticians did not have the effect of decreasing the
diagnosticians' belief in the focal hypothesis, contrary to what is predicted by Tversky
and Koehler's unpacking principle (1994). The results from Experiment 1 suggest, and
those from Experiment 2 confirm the hypothesis that in order to decrease the degree of
belief in the focal hypothesis when it is presented with alternatives, the alternatives
must be plausible. If the focal hypothesis is extremely dominant over the alternatives, a
reversal of the unpacking principle will occur. / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/24183 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Leblanc, Vicki |
| Contributors | Brooks, Lee, R., Psychology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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