Recognition-based judgments and decisions: Introduction to the special issue (Vol. 1)
Journal Title: Judgment and Decision Making - Year 2010, Vol 5, Issue 4
Abstract
Does a sense of recognition play a pre-eminent role when it comes to people’s inferences and choices? Many studies have investigated how people make decisions based on their previous encounters with an object or situation. To illustrate this, researchers have examined how consumers rely on their familiarity with brand names when deciding which consumer goods to buy (Coates, Butler, & Berry, 2004, 2006). Several related concepts have been investigated: recognition (e.g., Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 2002; Schooler & Hertwig, 2005), which we use here to distinguish between alternatives, such as brands people believe they have heard of before and those they have not; familiarity (e.g., Dougherty, Franco-Watkins, & Thomas, 2008; Mandler, 1980), which is frequently used to denote the degree of recognition or knowledge a person has of an alternative; and accessibility (e.g., Bruner, 1957), fluency (e.g., Jacoby & Dallas, 1981), or availability (e.g., Tversky & Kahneman, 1973), which often refers to the ease or speed with which mental content comes to mind.
Authors and Affiliations
Julian N. Marewski, Rüdiger F. Pohl and Oliver Vitouch
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